An extended interview with John MacArthur and the battles he’s fought

are you talk real go and make disciples what could possibly go wrong give me a hug hello and welcome to wretched my name is Tod Frio I am your host the wretch the song refers to prepare to go down memory lane with this man dr. John MacArthur say hello to dr. MacArthur everybody hello sir hello may I call you dr. MacArthur no alrighty please call me John oh I couldn't do that in front of you oh no that would be too different me okay can I just can I just tell you something for people who might be interested in a fiftieth anniversary celebration of grace to you your ministry in the pulpit here at Grace Community Church I have to I have to tell you the focus of this conference has not been on John MacArthur it has been on the Lord Jesus and the sufficiency of Scripture and that tells us probably more about you unspoken than anything spoken so grateful for that let's jump in we're gonna take a trip down memory lane throughout the course of the years to make sure we remember for the most part you've just been preaching from the pulpit every single sin like an Alzheimer's test they didn't want me to tell you but no it's not that they're you you have been preaching the entire New Testament for 50 years and that needs to be remembered but along the way there have been some skirmishes that you have been involved in and I'd like to go revisit those now that we have perhaps a little time between the initial battle just to remind ourselves of what that battle was because things tend to cycle and where do you see those issues today are you ready to go down memory lane sure all right I believe the first skirmish that you were engaged in was the role of women in the church and oh yeah this is true in fact it was it was shocking to find my name and a basic rundown on Grace Church on the front page of the Los Angeles Times and the headline was basically labeling me as a chauvinist and as a result of that CBS ABC NBC and even some local television stations came out to the church on Sunday and they started interviewing women why do you go to this church why do you listen to this guy and they I ended up on NBC doing an interview and I'll never forget it because the first question asked of me was a really cynical question by the anchor and he said so I suppose you're offended by the Rams cheerleaders uniforms it's that and then he then he went on to say to me eventually how in the world do you get these women to submit go home raise children and submit to their husbands and all these things and I said well look they they they love the Lord they love the Lord Jesus Christ they honor his word they believe in his word they have categorically submitted to his word so whatever his word says they're happy to obey that and they know that's the path of blessing that that was virtually impossible for them to understand that but that was the sort of dialogue there was complete incredulity that in the climate that existed in the feminist movement at that time and is a lot more primitive than it is now but that there was no way to believe that preaching the submission of women in a biblical sense oil was gonna fly but here this church was packed and I remember one newscast the guy said and these women seem like intelligent women they are they're not only that they're godly women and they want to honor the Lord and it's a submission obviously has to be defined and with with full grace as intended as does Authority a biblical understanding how many years ago was then well I can't remember we were in the new auditorium so I think it was in the late 70s and we had so many people come to the church as a result of that that we had to take the choir out of the choir loft after they sang and then the people who came latest ended up in the choir loft so week after week after week I had essentially the people who were only here because they were by the controversy sitting behind me making faces while I was preaching they all ended up in the choir loft and that went on week after week after week so yeah that there was controversy because of the collision with the culture there was no controversy here because of the obvious commitment to the Word of God leaving culture aside for a moment today in evangelical Christianity that almost seems to however be a subject that is virtually taboo I don't hear a lot of sermons about the complementary roles of men and women and what they look like biblically do you think that it is a subject that evangelical pastors have been shying away from because of the cultural pressure oh absolutely and it's because pragmatism has taken over evangelicalism to such an extent that nobody wants to offend anybody and that is very offensive very offensive it's it's even now feminism has reached the point feminism feminism is not equality the goal of feminism driven by the enemy of our souls in the enemy of God is to destroy male Authority they don't want equality that's why 99.9% of plumbers are men women are not trying to get equal right to be a plumber they want to be in the Senate they want to be the president this is a Power Move so this is power that drives in the direction of destroying the basic unit of society that makes it viable and that's the family where you have a provider and a protector and and someone who sets the example of love caring for his family and a wife under that love submitting to her husband that's God's order so obviously if that's the basic unit of society that makes society make civilization civilized that's going to be under assault and it's starting to become obvious I think to everybody that this is this whole movement is not to make equality this whole woman a movement is basically to push man down under the power of women that's that's where it's going in and I think we can see it these are the faces of your Christian brothers and sisters who are smiling despite the fact that they live in regions around the globe that are the most persecuted countries you can bring a smile to a fellow believers face for just $5 by sending them a Bible through Bible leave would you like to bring a smile to a believers face wretched and dot org slash Bible we know it sounds terrible but it's not going to stop until you go to wretched org we have thousands of hours of wretched TV and radio the wretched store has biblical resources ranging from apologetics to parenting it's not going to stop like ever let me encourage you to do two things for us if you'd be so kind sir speak a word to a man who perhaps is confused about what this role looks like for him and please speak to the woman who does take care of the kids the mundane duties and the culture is telling you what are you doing that is the worst possible thing you so speak a word potentially a rebuke to the man or encouragement to the man and definitely a word of encouragement to women you know people ask me about this all the time I've actually I think I said I was married 54 years actually with married 56 years so it's so much fun they just go by and I don't look this is so simple men this is so simple be Christ to your wife love her as Christ loves the church and what kind of love is that it's a sacrificial love it's a protective love it's a rescuing love it's a kind love it's a gentle love always when people say to me you know what's the key to a good marriage my answer is the same I say it's it's really simple whatever would bring her joy and be to her spiritual benefit that's what I do that's not complicated that's not complicated I as I said yesterday I don't want to control her but but I want to protect her I want to love her I want to provide her security and safety and hope for the future and joy and affection and love and happiness and some adventure and there's plenty of that in our world I just want to be as much like Christ to her as Christ is to us his bride this isn't psychological stuff there's not some kind of tricks to this just jerk the chain when you're not acting like Christ reel yourself back and be Christ to her and women are designed by God to respond to that and right you if you try to overpower them or dominate them this just fuels the potential temptations of rebellion so it's like anything in the spiritual world I think we may have mentioned this yesterday only two ways to lead you either lead by influence or manipulation manipulation you lead people by fear and reward you better do this or else or you better do this if you want this all manipulation is driven fear and reward influence is driven by love and admiration so the kind of leadership that a man should give in the home is that admiration which causes the wife to go in the gates of the city and talk about her husband as he would go in the gates of the city and talk about her so be Christ to your wife I mean it's all one other note on that so Peter we come to John 21 John 20 ends these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ and believing have life in his name yeah that sounds like the end of the gospel to me that's it that's the her Punk'd the high point it's over and that that's post resurrection and these are written that you might believe in heavens life in his name Wow that's the end sign out and all of a sudden you immediately go to chapter 21 and you land with a thud and it's really anticlimactic and it's very disappointing because now you're back to Peter and we hadn't had enough of him already we got to have a whole chapter trying to straighten him out again but that chapter is the most telling chapter in the entire Gospels as to how Jesus disciples a man and how Jesus discipled that man is very simple he said to him do you love me do you love me do you love me that's all though that's how the Lord disciples a wayward disciple it's all about loving the Lord and if as a man if you love the Lord and the goal is to love the Lord with all your heart soul mind and strength if you love the Lord that love will color all your relationships and obviously the most intimate of those relationships will experience the greatest amount of that that's all he asks not complicated you know if you were gonna disciple somebody and you could come up with three questions they'd probably be different but they weren't different he repeated the same question three times so men love the Lord with all your heart and be Christ to your wife so then to a wife I would say you do what the Lord wants you to do and whether or not your husband is everything you want him to be the Lord will fill your life with blessing if you do things that the Lord would not have you as a woman do now you're stepping out from under the authority of your husband that's a bad thing but worse if you're behaving in a way that dishonours the Lord do you put yourself in double jeopardy so be what the Lord would have you to be to your husband win him over as we read the first Peter 3 right admit your submission call him Lord none of us is perfect and it's all about negotiating those imperfections in that process there are many words to help us understand the nature of the Bible words like sufficiency the Bible tells us everything we need to know about God salvation doctrine and life we do not need any additional revelation to know who God is and what he required you will be hard-pressed to find a woman who was in crisis who saw an ultrasound and kept her baby and regretted it right now through the end of December all of your gifts to preborn dot-org / wretched will be matched $28 per ultrasound you will not regret it and neither will mommy please support preborn dot-org / wretched the lordship issue but how did that even get started when Jesus Christ is so often referred to as our Lord and Savior you know when I was a seminary student I mean I'm sort of wired for a challenge you know in university I played football and you know I'm I'm I admit to being a sort of type-a personality if something isn't right I need to fix it I need to and if that's true in the kingdom or in the work of the Lord I can't stand and watch something that's not right going on without trying to address it and for the days that I was in seminary I was always concerned about the issue of inerrancy because that was the big thing and I thought I was going to go out of seminary and fight for the authority and inerrancy of Scripture and that was going to be the big battle and that is one of the battles that fought but I never dreamed that I would spend most of my life trying to get Christians to understand the gospel well so there's the Gospel according to Jesus the Gospel according to the Apostles the Gospel according to Paul the Gospel according to God shamed of the gospel the truth war these are all books trying to clarify the gospel for confessing confessing Christians early on in my ministry I I became deeply burdened by the superficiality of evangelism very superficial evangelism and I could see it in crusade evangelism as it was called and I was involved in some of that I was at Explo 72 in Dallas when the Cotton Bowl was full of people you know that was a basically a Campus Crusade thing and it was sort of a simple Gospel message raise your hand do this and whatever and I was deeply disturbed by that I grew up as a pastor's son in high school I had a buddy his name was Ralph we used to go down to downtown LA but one of the major center city center there in a park and give people the gospel we were in high school he went to University of Redlands became an atheist and I I worked for his dad we had the best summer job ever his dad was a Buick dealer and we got to repossess the cars that people didn't pay that a payment for I mean this is a T this is teenage Nirvana but we were really good buddies and he became an atheist I went to seminary might the guy that ran in the backfield with me on our football team I mean in university was headed for seminary I went to seminary he went to a different seminary he came out of philosopher who denied the faith and ended up in prison for pornographic behavior I went to seminary the son of the Dean of the seminary when he graduated set up a Buddhist altar in his house so I'm watching this and saying what there's everybody who says they're saved that's not true so the fruit of that Todd was the first Sunday I was in this church February 9th 1969 I preached on Matthew 7 many will say to me Lord Lord and I will say to me to them depart from me I never knew you you workers of iniquity that was the fruit I was 29 years old on that Sunday and for all those probably 10 years from 19 to 29 I was trying to figure out what is a real Christian it was so much an issue in my mind that in seminary when I had to write my graduate dissertation I wrote it on a character analysis of Judas Iscariot because I was trying to figure out what is the pathology of someone who can be with Jesus 24/7 for three years and then betray him for money and go out and hang himself and and what in the world is wrong with the rest of the guys that they can't spot him and when Jesus says one of you is going to betray me and they all say is that eyes at eyes that eye of course that takes you back to the parables where the Lord says don't try to separate the wheat from the tares you're not able to do that weightily angels do that that's that kind of a discernment is divine so I this was just rolling in me for years and I I saw people on the boards of churches and my dad pastor that I it was lives didn't match what a Christian should be I saw staff people you know usually director run off and have an affair with the church pianist and so this was deeply disturbing to me I I was I was on a search for what real Christianity looks like and the more I thought about it the more I began to understand that the key to this entire thing is the truth of regeneration what actually happens to a person in salvation is they are recreated and if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation old things passed away and new things come so I began to realize that if you're genuinely saved it shows up in your life because you've been recreated and then it was a question of sort of thinking about that until Zain hodges wrote a book well first the first book was Jody dillos book the hungry inherit in which he split the Christians into two categories those who are in the kingdom and those who inherit the kingdom the know lordship disobedient sinful Christians will be there but they don't inherit so this is interpreting the white spaces between the verses this is just reading in and I I wrote I wrote a rebuttal of that book and I got into some trouble mm-hmm nice I saw so I thought well I don't want any I don't want to write a rebuttal let me write a book so I wrote a book called what was the name of it I can't remember the names of my books but it was about the kingdom and it was about Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount and it was it was lordship salvation all the way if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart you'll be saved believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you so you don't get to redefine Christ I mean I'm going through all of that in my mind then I came to the point where I needed to really go after this with hammer and tongs so I did the book the Gospel according to Jesus and I gave it to a very well-known publisher and they said we can't publish this we cannot publish this we set it out to some of our readers one of whom was Charles Ryrie and we can't publish this so they had given me a $5,000 advance and they said keep it but we can't publish this so basically I was heartsick about that but then I went to Zondervan and they said we'll publish it and one of the dearest people in that whole process was Charles Reilly because that book took him on he was he was a very very sweet man and when I went to do a week of preaching at Dallas seminary in their exposition week he gave me his car to drive for the whole week he had me in his home he he befriended me in every way and even when the book came out he wanted to meet with me and we met and he wanted me to know how much respect he had and the fact that well I don't want to say things that he said to me personally but he felt he felt like he loved me and wanted to affirm that he was very gracious about it so that book was the shot heard around the world in terms of the evangelical lordship issues please spend just a few moments in Eastern Europe amenities few entertainment very little work very very hard and yet thanks to tomorrow clubs there is joy would you please support your own tomorrow Club $30 a month 30 disciples tomorrow clubs org slash legend drive-by false teaching we'd prefer to make other resources but frankly it's needed today the propagation of false teaching it is perhaps a greater threat than ever in the history of the church because of that rascally internet if you would like to be equipped to defend the faith against false teaching encourage you to get a copy that hopefully behaves better than mine just did 79 short lectures on your way to and from work you can get your copy of drive-by false teaching listen to it with the kids cuz they're probably get slammed with even more get your copy at wretched org slash false teaching wretched org slash false teaching which should make us I think doubly sad is that I have met a lot of people who have gone to churches where the gospel invitation was muddled unclear a very low par and so they promised that they'll be good and they assume that God is gonna be good to them in return and then life gets a little hard they lose a child or a job and then they become embittered and their ladder and is worse than the first and picking up those pieces is impossible see that's the whole point of the parable of the soils when tribulation comes they wither and die or cares of this world the love of riches time in truth go hand in hand you you don't have the right to declare the genuine salvation of anyone that that will be manifest and many cases you think it's manifest and it's not like in the case of Judas so we always want to stop short of giving people a formula and if they prayed that prayer affirming their salvation you don't want to do that you you want to say to them if that prayer is genuine and you come to Christ he will not turn you away John 6 if your prayer was genuine and you truly have repented and and reached out and cried out to God for Christ to take over your life and all of those things it's going to show up in your life you're gonna know that because you're you're gonna have an affection for the things of God you're gonna love the Word of God you're gonna love the people of God you don't have to chase these people into a church they'll get there as fast as they can because that's their family so true conversion has built into it its own evidences and you don't want to artificially tell somebody because they pray to prayer that they're now a Christian because you don't know that we on our trip down memory lane have barely left the driveway so I've got sorry that's not my point I love it but there's so many of them here these battles that you've been involved in over over the years I'll just start reading the list and then when you hear one that you want to talk about you pick it all right 9 so for instance we've got ourselves the sufficiency of Scripture especially specifically integration ISM in psychology I'm not gonna let you talk about that one we'll do it in the big in the big room pragmatism seeker sensitivity okay I want to talk about it that one in there to ecumenism evangelicals and Catholics together was another one mysticism the emergent movement the NA our social justice pick your poison that is the tip of the iceberg of the battles that you have been willing to engage in clearly we are not going to be able to get to all of these others so let us simply do this thank dr. John MacArthur for his willingness to enter the fray so that we the true gospel so thank you for waging war and until tomorrow go serve your king congratulations to Leon Oh Fernando you're the winner of today's free download snatched them from the flames you could win free step two if you sign up for the free wretched newsletter at wretched or wretched Amazing Grace

Channel: Wretched

Views: 96,288

Keywords: Todd Friel, Wretched TV, Wretched Radio, Evangelism, Gospel

Id: tnSjiMbuJlc

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 05 2020