I thought back over this week in the ministry
that I had this week, and everywhere I went and every conference that I was in, and essentially
there were meetings every day. I left here last Sunday and I eventually got where I was
going after all kinds of airplane trouble and missing a day and, you know, all of those
things that happen when you travel. But it seemed to me that in every conference there
was a demand to have some time to just talk to me and ask questions and see if we can
get biblical answers. And I thought about how dynamic those times were in every place
and that it’s been a long time since I’ve done that with you, so that’s what we’re
going to do tonight. And the good thing is, we didn’t tell you so you didn’t spend
all afternoon coming up with questions that I can’t answer. So, you know, haven’t had a conversation
with you on a personal level in a very long time. Lots of questions are always on people’s
minds. And some of you write me, some of you corner me before/after services here and there
and everywhere and ask me questions…and that’s good. That should be that way. We
should do that. We should…Paul everywhere he went it says dialogued with them out of
the Scriptures. And that’s a back and forth kind of thing. And I’ve always loved doing
that. And so we’re just going to let you have a conversation with me and you can choose
this time. I always choose the conversation and it’s a one-sided one. So this is your
opportunity to poke around and ask some questions of me that are on your heart. Now, you know, we don’t want them to be
obscure, we’d like to get in as many questions as we can. These ought to be things, not things
that you have to kind of work to think of, but things that are on your mind and on your
heart, maybe prompted by the preaching and the teaching or by your own Christian life,
or what you’re seeing out there from the Scripture, maybe an issue in terms of biblical
interpretation, theology, doctrine, practical application, whatever it is, this is your
time to have a conversation with me and let me know what’s on your heart. And we can do this for about an hour, of if
you have no questions we’ll sing a hymn and go home. But that’s probably not likely.
I think I’ve preached about, I don’t know, nine times already this week, so we’ve had
a great time ministering the Word of God, and the highlight of each conference seems
to be when the focus is on what is in the hearts of people and how God speaks to those
issue. I had an absolutely great time doing a Q&A
with several hundred pastors down in Houston yesterday, and it was wonderful to hear them
ask the things that are pertinent on their hearts about ministry and about the Word of
God, and about the issues, and about the state of the church, and the things that they’re
facing in the world, and the truth, and false doctrine, and how do they respond to this
and that, to try to help them to see clearly down to wherever their questions are. And
that’s always a joy. So that’s what we’re going to do tonight. Kevin Edwards is on that
microphone, Austin is here, and you notice we picked the big and burly people and just
to guard the mike. And, Tom, how did we get you in on this deal, Tom? You’re not big
enough for this group. Tom Patton’s over there. So just come up to the mike when you’re
ready and give me your name. You know, don’t get, you know, twelve deep, or anything. If
you have three people at a mike, just wait till one person’s question has been asked
and we’ll go from there. Okay? It’s important for you to give me your name
first, and then frame your question. And we’ll start right over there. QUESTIONER: Thank you, John. Just recently,
I don’t know, not recently, it… JOHN: What’s your name? DALE: JOHN: Dale. First Corinthians 15:29, I’m
sure you’ve answered it a lot of times but I’ve never heard it, so what is the baptism
of the dead? JOHN: Well, there is a comment made in that
chapter which is all about the resurrection and all about life after death. And the Apostle
Paul writes and essentially says, if there’s no afterlife, if there’s no life after this
life, then why are people being baptized for the dead? If the dead aren’t raised, if
that’s the end, then why do people get baptized for the dead? Now he’s using an existing religious ceremony
to point up the fact that even pagans understand that there is life after death. One writer
put it this way, God has put eternity in the heart. And even the unregenerate feel the
tug of eternity. That’s why among the Greeks they put a silver coin in the mouth of anyone
who died to pay the fare across the Mystic River into the next life. That’s why the
American Indians buried the warrior with his pony, so he could ride in the next life. That’s
why the Egyptians buried the Pharaohs with a boat so they could sail across the Mystic
River into the next world. Even in the pagan world, eternity is in the
heart. If you study the world religions, you will find universally the reality of an afterlife.
Even the Hindu world which believes in incarnation, doesn’t believe death is the end, but there’s
another life, and another life, and another life and another life. It doesn’t mean that
they’re right about that, but that’s in the heart. The death is not the end. The idea
that you die and go out of existence is the default position, not the normal one for people.
And so Paul is referring to the baptism for the dead which he doesn’t explain…the
reason he doesn’t explain it is because everybody must have known what he meant. It
was a part of some very well-known religious ceremony and belief system. So he doesn’t
explain it. There was a dissertation done on this that had 40 suggestions as to what
it could mean…4-0. And somebody got a Master’s Degree for coming up with the forty possibilities
in that dissertation. And what that tells you is that you can write a dissertation without
a conclusion and get a degree for it, because there was no way to make a conclusion because
it’s just not explained. So I don’t know what it means in specifics, because Paul doesn’t
tell us that. But what it says is, it’s just another sort
of argument on the very general sense that there’s life after death. Okay? All right?
Good!. TOM: My name is Tom. JOHN: Hi, Tom. TOM: I occasionally have ???long enough thinking
oh this is something I’ve been wanting to ask John about and that is I get so angry
about these people who are against the death penalty and saying if the government is doing
murder and I think about your message on hacking Agog to death, and so I was wondering what…is
there any difference between the Old Testament what God felt about the death penalty and
today in Christ where, you know, He’s more compassionate and all. Just what is your thinking
on that line? JOHN: Sure. Let’s go back to what we said
this morning, Tom. The Lord reigns. The Lord reigns, the Lord reigns. We pointed that out.
And it is the Lord who determines kingdoms. It is the Lord who determines rulers. It is
the Lord who takes authority over things. And in the earliest and purest form of the
theocratic kingdom, the death penalty was in place for the taking of a life, and even
for teen-age rebellion. I mean, there are a number of things that call for the death
penalty. And God lays that out. And that is the absolute law. But even in the life of Israel, it didn’t
take very long until God began to demonstrate mercy and you have the absolute character
of the law starting in the ninth chapter of Genesis which essentially said, “He who
sheds man’s blood by man, shall his blood be shed.” That’s capital punishment. Jesus affirms it in the New Testament to Peter
when He says, “If you live by the sword, if you kill anybody with that sword in the
Garden, you’re going to lose your life. And He affirmed the death penalty. That is
the absolute exaction of the law. But throughout the history of the Old Testament, God demonstrated
mercy. And then God even presents Himself, for example, to Moses in the mount as the
God who is merciful and demonstrates loving kindness to generations. So that would be
the absolute position of the law. And in that sense, valid. But even God Himself allowed for mercy within…even
within Israel throughout history because He reigns and He determines who rules, and how
they rule. Another way to look at it is that execution
for sin would be the picture of what every sinner deserves and would be justice. But
God is also a God of mercy. David was guilty of murder. He really essentially had a hit
man take out the life of Uriah so that he could commit adultery with his wife. Adultery
was punishable by death, and murder was punishable by death, and yet David cried out to God in
remorse, Psalm 32, Psalm 51, and was spared and used by God and is known as one who loved
God, wrote all the magnificent Psalms. So while on the one hand we affirm that as absolute
law, we understand that if God allows in a society for that to be set aside, for a time
such as in our society where if someone is given the death penalty, it’s years, and
years, and years before they’re executed if they ever are. That in itself is a mercy.
So we affirm that but we also declare that if God chooses in a time and a place and for
a period to demonstrate mercy, that mercy would be defined by Romans 2 as the kindness
and forbearance of God intended to lead you to repentance. I’ve seen that. Warden Beryl Kane(?) at
Angola Prison, the amazing prison in Louisiana State Prison, which was the worst prison in
America, five thousand, five hundred inmates, ninety percent of them there for life. Many
of them on Death Row. I went in to the executioner chamber, I put my hands on the very furniture
where they’re executed, and I was told by the warden that he had such a concern for
the men who were sent to be executed that he felt his own personal duty to make sure
every single one of them heard the gospel. And so, you want to temper the finality of
that with whatever extension of mercy God will give. You know, God said He’s going
to judge Nebuchadnezzar, but He gave him twelve months. God said through Noah said, “I’m
going to destroy the world,” but He gave him 120 years in a time when people lived
for centuries. So I have to leave the application of that to God in any given time and place.
I think we affirm that it is the Law of God. We affirm that it is a just Law. We affirm
that it can be applied and I personally believe that if that were applied swiftly, it would
be a deterrent, it would be a really powerful deterrent to criminal behavior. But I’m
not going to argue with the mercy of God that He gives time for repentance and that’s
what I see in being in the death row down there and seeing these men and knowing that
they’re still alive, which means they still have an opportunity to hear the gospel. So
I affirm the validity of capital punishment. I think there are some people unequivocally
who…should justice prevail would lose their lives. But I also understand the mercy of
God and He orders society the way He does. The tragedy of tragedies is that the longer
those men live and reject the gospel, the worst their punishment will be. But that’s
in God’s hands. So we affirm capital punishment, but we also
want to extend mercy as God chooses to extend that mercy, okay? Good question, Tom. HANK: Good evening, my name is Hank. JOHN: Hi, Hank. HANK: The question that I have is prompted
by two things. One is, I’m regularly attending for four years. I’m not a member and I know
your immediate question would be, “Why are you not a member?” And I believe I’m also
standing right next to the person I needed to talk to and I’m determined to engage
with him regarding that. But… JOHN: You’re overdue. Yeah. HANK: But this morning you even said, you
would just fill out the card in the pew right in front of you, you’re a member or a regular
attendee. I would just like to know what is the status of a regular attendee just in broad
terms. And, I mean, there are many issues that I will talk about in a different forum
in a different setting. But just in broad terms, Grace Church’s view of the relationship
and the status by someone who is a regular attendee. JOHN: Sure…sure. Yeah, it doesn’t change
your life. It doesn’t change your spiritual condition. Thought about that. But membership
does two things. It says, “I want to come under the care and authority of the elders
of this church. I submit myself to the leadership of this church. And secondly, it says, I want
to embrace this congregation as one of them in the fullest sense and serve them. It takes you from being a bystander, kind
of an onlooker, to saying, “I submit myself to the leadership of this church and I come
in the fullest sense to express my ministry and my service to the family here. I think
the bottom line in this is there was sort of no such thing as a detached part of the
church in the New Testament. They knew who was in the church. They knew who they were
responsible for and accountable for, and they knew they were to care for them. They knew
who their sheep were, like Jesus said, “I know My sheep, My sheep know Me.” We just
want to know who belongs to us and have them come under that care and that oversight. In the New Testament, they knew how many people
were converted. They had records. When somebody moved from city to city, you see this in the
New Testament, the church they moved to know who they were and they took letters from a
previous church. So it’s about accountability and it’s
about service in the church so that we know who we are to care for and so that you take
on the accountability to the leadership of the church. Okay? That’s essentially it.
Right. Good. GREG: Hi, John, my name is Greg. JOHN: Hi, Greg. GREG: Recently while going through a practical
difficulty, I was being counseled by an older brother in the Lord. And I mentioned to him,
“I’m praying for patience through this thing.” Now he was quite insistent that
I needed to ask God’s forgiveness for praying that. And I thought to myself, “I could
pray for an increase in love, or joy, or peace, or patience, or kindness or any of the fruits
of the Spirit. Why would I need to ask for forgiveness for praying for patience? I’ve
always kind of regarded that as an evangelical joke, you know, people say don’t pray for
patience, you know, this sort of thing. JOHN: Yeah, it seems to me that he should…yeah,
he should pray for patience for being irritated at the fact that you were praying for patience.
I mean, that’s how I would handle that. I mean, what? We have…we certainly have
the responsibility and the right and the privilege to ask the Lord to grant to us all those graces,
to prayerfully ask Him for those. Give me patience, give me endurance, that’s a very
right thing to do, a very spiritually minded thing to do. What is the assumption that I’m
already perfectly patient and I don’t need anymore? Or I already perfectly love and I
don’t need anymore? I don’t think we’re saying that that’s
not available to us. I think what we’re saying it is available to us, Lord, help me
to draw on that, help me to exercise that, help me to cap that. I would say just with
regard to patience, the people who have the most patience are the people who have the
highest view of the sovereignty of God. A pastor said to me yesterday in the Q&A down
in Houston, he said, “What do I do when people that I’ve worked with and tried to
care for and invest my life in are cantankerous and resistant and critical and make life difficult
and produce disappointment?” I said, “Don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t
worry about that.” Why would you worry about that? The Lord said He’d build His church
and the gates of hell couldn’t prevail against it. You just be faithful, joyful, pick your
ministry, fulfill it to the max. Don’t worry about that. Now if you think you have to orchestra your
life, if you think you’ve got to get control of every component, you’re going to be impatient
and you’re going to be more impatient the less things you control. But if you yield
to the sovereign God who orders everything according to His will and just walk in obedience
to Him, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what comes cause He’s in control,
by His power and His providence ordering your life. The more clear your view of the sovereign
purpose of God and His control in your life, the more patience you will have. Patience
is the virtue that comes to those who don’t try to control everything in their lives.
It’s very hard, from a personal standpoint, it’s very hard to get me perturbed about
anything. I get perturbed about liars and deceivers and false teachers. And I have a
certain indignation about that that I think is the right kind of indignation, but it’s
very hard to get me perturbed about the way things are going, or the issues surrounding
me, or the disappointments of the difficulties because I have such an absolute confidence
in the divine purpose and power and providence of God. And the more I know the truth of that, the
more patient I am to see God unfold His plan, even in the midst of the most difficult things,
the most trying things, there’s joy and there’s gratitude, and there’s confidence,
and there’s assurance, and there’s an underlying happiness that God is in control.
I wouldn’t want to try to live life as an Arminian, let’s say, someone who didn’t
believe in the sovereignty of God, believed everything was just kind of happening at random,
and God was having to figure it out just like we are and hoping He can make something out
of the mess. I don’t think I could live that way. That’s why the most comforting
and assuring and patience-inducing doctrine of all doctrines is the doctrine of God’s
sovereignty, that He orders everything according to His will. It’s Romans 8:28, isn’t it?
I mean, what are you impatient about? What’s to be impatient about? Just do what you do
and do it faithfully and do it to the glory of God and let Him sort out the end result
for His glory and your good, okay? JOSH: My name is Josh Cieto(??), my question
relates to we, as men, are lazy by nature, always want to take the spiritual path which
takes of least resistance. My question is, we, as men, have our spiritual duties, cannot
be lazy about this, I need to be the spiritual leader. What would you advise and ask God
how we can actually achieve this? JOHN: Well, you know there are a lot of steps
along the way but I think it comes down to a simple principle. Paul in Romans 11 laid
the…or 1 Corinthians 11 laid the principle down, it’s this, “Be ye followers of me
as I am of Christ.” Through the years I’ve tried to exalt Christ. I told you we’re
going through John. Look, we’ve been through Matthew, Mark, Luke and in the early years
once through John, why is it important? Because you need to see Christ. You need to see Him
in all His beauty, in all His magnificence and all His glory. You need to see Him as
the God/Man living in the world because He’s your example. So it comes down to this. It doesn’t come
down to some formula, and I grew up, you know, in a day when there were a whole lot of little
formulas about how to be spiritual and how to be a leader. You know, you can read all
that useless stuff about wild at heart, and you know, go into the mountains and, you know,
kill an animal and you live in the wilderness and that will make you a man. That won’t make you a man at all. It certainly
won’t make you a godly man to isolate yourself like that. What makes you a man is to be Christlike.
He’s the perfection of what it is to be a man. He’s also the perfection of what
it is to be faithful to God. He’s perfection of what it is to be a leader, a spiritual
leader with an impeccable life. And so the pursuit is to be like Christ. And Paul says
it. “Be followers of me as I am of Christ.” So study Christ, come to know Christ. That’s
why even as far as Paul had gone along in his life, he said, “That I may know Him…that
I may know Him…that I may know Him.” I don’t think you can ever rise higher than
your understanding of Christ and your affection for Him. We said that a few weeks ago in a
message comparing Peter and Judas, remember that? And what separated them was Peter’s
love for Christ, his love for Christ. Cultivate that, cultivate that by knowing Christ, you
know Him in His Word, it’s not mystical, it’s coming to know everything about Him
that you can in His Word. I just got a page proofs for a compilation
book that I’m very thankful for, I’ve always wanted to do this, it’s called One
Perfect Life, The complete story of the Lord Jesus. And what it is is a blended harmony
of the gospels. You can open it up and you can read the harmony of the four gospels all
together, the story of Christ in its blended sequence, the full story. Not like—typical
harmonies are in columns, you can see what Matthew said, and Mark, and Luke, and John
in columns, but this is all blended in one story you read like a narrative. And I read
it all the time because I can never get enough of the majesty of Christ in every issue in
life that He faced and so I think the more Christlike I am, the better man I am, and
the better leader I am, and the better discipler I am, that to me is the key. Okay? Good question.
Yes? JACKIE: My name is Jackie. JOHN: Hi, Jackie. JACKIE: I just had a death in my family, close
cousin, and I don’t think he knew the Lord so I’ve been really wrestling with it night
and day, I wake up at three o’clock in the morning, hear one of your sermons, listen
for a while, go back to sleep, struggle with it day and night. I’ve been thinking about
it and kind of finally came to the conclusion if you have to ask if someone knew the Lord,
they probably didn’t because I may just know Him and Christ makes me swoon and I want
to tell everybody. I have a big mouth…big mouth and I think that everybody that loves
the Lord has a big mouth. And you either want to rejoice or we want to warn our loved ones.
I try to go to what J.C. Ryles said about…I thought about the thief on the cross and said,
“Well maybe, you know, in his last moments... But I kind of really am convinced that you
can’t go through your life rejecting God and then in the last minute make a fire insurance
policy.’ JOHN: Well, it could happen. JACKIE: It could happen. JOHN: But you wouldn’t know that. JACKIE: Exactly. So my question is, how do
I reconcile that in my head? JOHN: I don’t think you can, because you
love Christ…and I can tell by the way you’re talking that you want to tell everybody about
Christ and you can’t get pass the fact that this person that you know and love died without
Christ, and you shouldn’t be able to get past it. It ought to wake you up in the middle
of the night. It ought to disturb your soul. You know, I wish all Christians felt that
way. We come way to easily to terms with that…Oh, somebody died a non-Christian. If that doesn’t
move you, then you don’t understand what that means. You don’t understand the devastating
reality of that. If hell isn’t a horror to you, if you don’t lose sleep over that,
then you’re way too comfortable with the perishing of the unconverted, we should never
come to terms with that. You know, some people stay awake at night because they worry about
trivial things. They worry about earthly failures, earthly problems. I’m afraid too few Christians
lose sleep over the death of the unconverted. I think that’s because we’ve become way
too familiar with that. And we live in a very sterile world, we don’t see people die.
I would say most people in this church tonight have never seen someone in the throes of death.
Very unusual to be where someone is dying without Christ and see that, experience that.
Everything is hidden from us. So I think yours is the right response to that, Jackie. When
you don’t feel like that, and you’ve become indifferent to it, you’ve fallen victim
to, sad to say, what many people have as their attitudes. Just another day, another death.
It ought to disturb you and I’m happy that it does and it will only add to your zeal
to proclaim the glories of Christ. Yes, could your cousin have been saved in
the last hours? Yes, that could happen. That certainly could happen. But you can’t know
that. And if you couldn’t see that this person was a believer by the life he lived,
or she lived, then there is no evidence and if there’s no evidence, there’s no life,
so I’m glad you feel the way you do. And the Lord will give you mercy and grace and
comfort to get, you know, beyond this but I hope you never lose that sense of the horror
of the death of an unbeliever. Okay? Thank you, Jackie. ISAAC: My name is Isaac. JOHN: Hi, Isaac. ISAAC: My question is about a month ago I’ve
had some Mormons come to my door and have been actually inviting them back and talking
to them about the gospel and giving them the Word. the only problem is, is how do you evangelize
them when they do not believe that the Bible is true and they have extra-revelation that
they do believe is true? JOHN: You have to warn them. You have to warn
them that they are headed for eternal judgment. You have to warn them that they are trapped
in a lying heresy. You have to warn them that they are worshiping Satan, they’re worshiping
a demonic substitute for the true God and the true Christ. You have to warn them. I
think they not only don’t believe in the Bible the way we do, they not only have addition
revelation, The Pearl of Great Price, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrines and Covenants,
all that other stuff, but they have basically been programmed with an interpretation of
Scripture and they will always go to John 1 and they’ll go to the normal thing that
they’ve gone…they don’t know anything outside of that. They’re literally programmed
like robots to stick with those things that they think Christians can’t handle. So I
think you warn them. That’s always been my approach. I’m not going to debate the
Scripture with you because your minds are blinded, you’re in the dark, I don’t want
to hear your view because I don’t want to give you an opportunity to misrepresent Christ. If anybody comes to your house and preaches
another Jesus, don’t let him in or you become a partaker in his evil deeds. Don’t show
hospitality to someone who has a heretical view of Christ. Does that mean you shouldn’t
sit down and witness to them? It does not mean that, but what you do is you warn them
that they are headed for the fires of eternal judgment and that the only hope is a true
view of Christ and the gospel. So I think you have to literally penetrate their sense
of comfort in their system by saying things that the Holy Spirit may use to put fear in
their hearts, okay? Okay. CHARLES: Hi, my name is Charles… JOHN: Hi, Charles. CHARLES: This is something I’ve struggled
with my whole Christian walk and find it most difficult, especially when you’re witnessing.
Basically, how do you reconcile the duality of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility…like,
for example, if someone asks you, “Well if God literally brings about everything,
how can He blame me for sinning?” JOHN: Well, I don’t know the answer to that
and I’ve never met anybody that knows the answer to that. So, you know, sooner or later
we always come to this question, and that’s normal. I think every…every Christian has
come to that question. There is no question that the Bible teaches that God is absolutely
sovereign. There is no question that God chooses who will be saved and you chose it before
the foundation of the world, wrote their names down. There’s no question that the sinner
is blind and dead and unable and unwilling to believe and repent and can only do what
God asked him to do if God gives him life and changes his heart. That’s what the Bible
teaches. It also teaches that the sinner is responsible
and that if he perishes, he perishes because of his own hard-hearted rebellious unbelief.
Jesus even says, “You’re going to die in your sins because you don’t believe in
Me.” And Jesus weeps over the city of Jerusalem, right? “How often I would have gathered
you but you would not.” So on the one hand the Bible teaches the sovereignty
of God in salvation at every point. And on the other hand, the responsibility of the
sinner at every point. So you have to believe both of those. The fact that they are apparently
paradoxical doesn’t change the fact that you must believe them. You can’t in some
simplistic way tamper with either of those. So we are left with an inability in our minds
to put those two together logically, but what is a problem to us is not a problem to God.
His mind is so much more vast than ours. So let me help you to understand that with a
simple set of questions. Who wrote Romans? CHARLES: Paul. JOHN: Okay, you stand by that? Paul wrote
Romans by himself? CHARLES: No. JOHN: Oh. CHARLES: He was motivated with the Holy Spirit. JOHN: Motivated by the Holy Spirit? Inspired
by the Holy Spirit. Is every word in the book of Romans out of the vocabulary of Paul? CHARLES: Yes. JOHN: Is every word in the book of Romans
inspired by the Holy Spirit? CHARLES: Yes. JOHN: How can that be? CHARLES: I don’t know. JOHN: No, you don’t know and that’s the
right answer. CHARLES: Give me another question. JOHN: Yeah, yeah. Well let me ask you this
question? Who lives your Christian life? CHARLES: I do. JOHN: Oh really. You do? CHARLES: As far as I know, I do.…(Laughter). JOHN: So whatever noble God-honoring things
happen in your Christian life, you have produced? CHARLES: Only by God’s permission and sovereign
act. JOHN: Yeah. See, you can’t even answer that
question. You don’t even know who lives your Christian life. You don’t even understand
who wrote Romans, and you can’t resolve that. Paul says, “For to me to live is Christ.”
Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ
lives in me.” He didn’t know the answer. It’s me, but it’s Him. Anything wrong,
it’s me. Anything right, it’s Him. How do you sustain your salvation? Do you
do anything to sustain your salvation? Of course you do, you persevere. If you persevere
to the end, you’ll be saved. But on the other hand, you’re kept by His power to
the end. So you have the same difficulty in every major doctrine. Human responsibility
and the sovereign power of God. Why are you a Christian? Cause the Holy Spirit regenerated
you, or because you were convicted of your sin, you repented and you believed. Yes! You
see, this is not isolated to salvation. This is true in every doctrine. You have the human
element and the divine element and we can’t know how it comes together but we believe
both. Sinner takes full responsibility for his sin and God gets full glory for salvation.
The believer is responsible to obey and to submit and to love God and honor God, and
when that happens, it’s all the work of the Holy Spirit. So I say, I can never come to the place where
I fully harmonize that, but I won’t do what others have done and destroy both by trying
to find some middle ground. Okay? So we hold to responsibility as believers to discipline
ourselves, to beat our body into subjection, to be obedient, to honor God, to love God,
to serve Him, to obey Him, to war against the flesh, to walk in the Spirit, at the same
time, we give all the glory to God for everything good that happens in our lives. And that’s
how we have to view everything. Once you come to comfort with those, they become wonderful
truths that only really come together in glory and in the mind of God, maybe someday we’ll
understand. Okay? JEFF: I’m Jeff. JOHN: Hi, Jeff. JEFF: Twelve-six has become a topic that we’ve
been talking about with our sons, we have four boys, throughout the time we’ve had
them and different politicians are in power and we have some interesting discussions about,
you know, their lives and what’s going on and some of our kids have met some famous
politicians and being able to interview them. So we get some of that discussion, I think
for the most part, a lot of young people are seeing now today, you know, basically immoral,
pagan politicians and moral ones, very few now, and they’re just kind of going, well
we give up? We’re not going to get involved in it. And so I know with this church when
I came here as a non-believer and became saved, the church in the world pagan politicians
and moral ones, we’re not even going to get involved in it. And so I know with this church when I came
here as a non-believer and became saved, the church taught about abortion, homosexuality,
a lot of different things which I didn’t really know about and it was good because
it helped me to share the gospel with that segment and I think that’s the reason you
do that. But anyways, about a year ago I heard you on the radio, it was a back east interview
and the radio interviewer was talking to you about they’re redefining marriage and you
made some comments politically and kind of surprised some of my kids and they’re going,
“I never heard Pastor MacArthur come out on that.” and you said, “Whenever someone
crosses the line in the institution of God, I will take a stand on that publicly.” And
so in the last few weeks as you’ve done that, we got some really interesting discussions
and today a discussion with my son, he said, “Do you think Pastor MacArthur would preach
that sermon to the President?” And I said, “Well, I think he probably would, but in
the question is…we were talking about how do you approach, you know, John the Baptist
has pointed his finger at Herod for immoral relationship…of course Herod is a pagan.
And then the Apostle Paul is confronting the Sanhedrin, calling them white-washed tombs,
how…what is…you know we were talking about that whole issue and trying to reconcile that
and I’m really glad that you’re teaching this at college too of the responsibility
to young people to take responsibility. JOHN: Look, the government has a function.
The government’s function is very simple biblically, it’s to keep order in society,
it’s essentially to police society. Romans 13, “Bear not the sword in vain.” You
don’t carry a sword for nothing. The government is a threat to evil doers. That is government’s
role. The government’s role is to protect people who do good and to punish people who
do evil. That’s how you keep order in society. That’s government’s role according to
the Word of God. That’s its function in society. Its…it really isn’t beyond that
in the Bible. Now governments may choose to do other things, but biblically government
is the police to keep order in society. There are only three institutions that God ordained.
One is the family, a mother and a father raising children and teaching them what is right,
to pass morality and righteousness to generation to generation civilly, not religiously. And
the church which then is different, God ordained the church and that’s how spiritual truth
is passed from generation to generation. And government is ordained to keep order in society.
If the government’s role is to keep order in society, then government has to know what’s
right and wrong. So it has to operate by a moral law. There is in the Ten Commandments a moral law
that is somewhat universal, and it’s also written in the heart of man, Romans 2. That
is government’s primary role. All the other stuff is usurped by governments to one degree
or another through history. And once government begins to usurp and people become power hungry
and think they can control human behavior by other things, the government will run wild
because powerful people will take more power. Power corrupts, and ultimate power corrupts
ultimately. So government just keeps expanding and expanding and becomes intrusive. In America,
we’ve watched an experiment in freedom being diminished. Freedom is defined as making choices.
The fewer choices you can make, the less freedom you have and we’re watching in this country
freedoms taken away. If you can’t order a sixteen-ounce Coke in New York City, then
you can’t make a choice about that. So eventually corrupt power takes a bigger and bigger amount
of freedom away. That is not in the Scripture the purpose of government, it’s not the
purpose of government. And what you have ultimately is the corruption of power and the corruption
of power is so great that it can’t protect people who do good and punish people who do
evil because it’s corrupt itself. And when you have leaders who are so corrupt that they
have inverted the order and affirmed gay marriage and the slaughter of infants and free sex,
and everything else, you have no hope of true government function because you have leaders
who don’t know what’s right or wrong. They’ve inverted it, so they can’t do
what government is supposed to do. Government does this because it doesn’t fear God, Romans
1, that is the issue. That’s all I’m saying. So what I would
say is, “Look, whether or not a person who runs for President, or Vice-President, or
Congress, or Senate, or Governor, whether or not that person is a Christian is not the
issue, that’s not the role of government. You’re not choosing a pastor. Since when,
all of a sudden, do we think that someone’s religion is the issue in picking a President
any more than it would be an issue in picking a pilot to fly you somewhere? I don’t really
care what the religion is, I just want to know he can land the plane. That’s not an
issue. That’s a different function in society. But if you put in power people who have a
completely corrupt view of power and a completely perverted view of morality, they can’t function
to do what government has to do. They not only don’t know how to lead us, they don’t
know how to protect people beyond us so foreign policy is totally confused. In the past, moral
leaders have felt that we would protect innocent people who are attacked in unjust wars because
we have the power and the ability to do that and that’s a function of government. Now
our government doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know whose side to take cause it
doesn’t have a clear view. So that’s why I’m speaking to these kinds of issues. It’s
not about whether a person is a Christian, it’s about whether somebody understands
right and wrong. If somebody understands right and wrong to any degree, it says abortion
is murder and homosexual marriage is wrong and has a sense of the priority of family
and marriage, then that allows those people to govern with at least a right view of morality.
And if someone says, “We must punish those evil aggressors to the ability that we have
who attack innocent people, you’re having government function at least in the role that
God has designed it to function. So that’s all I’m saying. This is not about the church. This is not
about being Christian. This is simply about doing good to all men in a civil way. And
in the meantime, praying for the salvation of our leaders. As I have said, and I get
asked this all the time…we’re not voting for a pastor, or a spiritual leader. That’s
the church. We’re voting for someone who understands what’s right and wrong and who
can exercise definitive leadership in those areas. And through the years you might…might
have fallen on one or the other side in terms of economics, you know, you might have been
more of big government and social help and all of that, or you might have been on the
less government, more free enterprise, more individual freedom as a form of economics
and sociology. But now it’s all become morality. The platform now is morality. So that why for the first time in all these
years I’ve started talking about it, because they’ve crossed the line, as you said, Jeff.
They’ve crossed the line now to become haters of God, Anti-God. And they have taken up what
God hates as the platform and the agenda. That’s really amazing to be alive in that
time and it speaks to judgment. Can we slow that down? Maybe we can extend
some mercy in the midst of judgment. So I don’t know, we will see. But whatever happens
will be God who lets it happen. Okay? JEFF: Thank you very much. MIKE: Hi, Pastor, Mike Cowell(?). JOHN: Hi, Mike. MIKE: I’ve listened to you over a thousand
hours on MP3, I listen to you on a 16-hour work day and I spoke like you for about two
hours. JOHN: Yeah? MIKE: Since listening to you, one thing that
became somewhat of a stumbling block. There are a lot of threats to Israel, one of the
latest being a nuclear threat. And I try to figure out in my brain how I would reconcile
this if Israel was completely nuked in reconciling that with Revelation. JOHN: Well it’s hypothetical. I can just
promise you this, that they’re going to be around in the end of human history for
the Kingdom. It doesn’t mean that a few million of them might not perish yet, you
know, Hitler killed millions, Stalin killed millions, but he didn’t wipe them out. They’re
still around. That could happen. I don’t think Israel can claim any protection by saying
we’re the people of God any more than the generation of Jesus when the leaders said
to Him, “Look, we’re fine, we’re Abraham’s seed.” And Jesus said, “That’s not going
to do any good to you. If God wanted to raise up Abraham’s seed, He could do it out of
these stones.” God will always preserve a remnant for the future. But that’s no
safeguard for the present generation. It could happen. You have to understand, God will preserve
them as a people, that doesn’t mean He’ll preserve every generation, even this generation.
You know, if you were a premillennialist who believed in the preservation and the future
of Israel during the terrible, horrible time of Hitler and Stalin, you might have wondered
whether the promises of God in the bible for a future for Israel were really true because
so many of them were massacred. But they weren’t all and they survived. And they’re still
there. And I remind you that you never met a Hittite, an Amorite, a Hivite, a Jebusite
or any other ite but there are fourteen or fifteen million Israelites in the world and
God has preserved them. But I can’t say that that means that they
are in a time of blessing. They’re not in a time of blessing cause they’re in a time
of rejection of their Messiah as they’ve been for generations. And that’s what we
learned in Isaiah, didn’t we?, that the future time is coming when they’ll look
on Him whom they’ve pierced and mourned for Him, and a fountain of cleansing will
be opened to them and they’ll be saved and washed and cleansed, and that’s when they
will confess Isaiah 53, and they will say, “Yes, now we see it. He was pierced for
our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity, chastened for our well-being and by His scourging
we were healed.” And they’ll look back on the cross. So that will come, but that’s
no necessary guarantee that there wouldn’t be a holocaust again because they’re under
judgment until they turn to Christ. Okay? Good question. MADISON: My name is Madison. JOHN: Hi, Madison. MADISON: My question kind of coincides with
what he’s talking about. It’s a two-part question. First, does the temple have to be
built before the Rapture? And second, does the seventieth seven start immediately after
the Rapture, and if so, those who were saved during that time, if the seventieth seven
starts immediately after the Rapture, wouldn’t those who are saved at that time have a countdown
of when Christ comes? And then how do we reconcile that with no man knoweth the day or the hour? JOHN: Good question. Now the first question
again? The temple? No, it’s not necessary that the temple be built before the Rapture,
there’s nothing in Scripture that indicates that. They could slap up that temple as fast
as they slapped up the tabernacle in Exodus. There are all kinds of stories about the fact
that they’ve got the plans and some have even said they’ve got the materials sitting
in place, waiting for the time in the future…I don’t know about that. But there’s nothing
that says…certainly going to be a rebuilt temple but that doesn’t necessarily have
to begin for the Rapture. To your second question, we don’t know how
long that period would be between the Rapture and the…is that what you’re asking? The
beginning of the seventieth week of Daniel? MADISON: Yeah. JOHN: Yeah, there may be a period of time
in there, we don’t know that, even someone who was really definitive, John Walberg who
wrote so many good things on that eschatology was open about what that period of time might
be between the Rapture and the beginning of those judgments. We know the Rapture is the
event that happens and then the seventieth week of Daniel, the seven-year period of Tribulation,
the final 42 months, or three and a half years of which is the escalated judgment of God
on the world which ends with Christ returning and setting up His Kingdom. So there may be
a period of time, we don’t know that. But in answer to the question that is really
on your mind, how can Jesus say we don’t know the day nor the hour, well remember,
He said the day or the hour. You can look at that period of time and you can certainly
begin to see the unfolding of these judgments. You’re going to know if a fourth of the
population of the world is killed and the waters turn to blood, and the sky starts to
fall, and all those very specific judgments of the book of Revelation take place. So you’re
going to know the period. You’re going to know the judgment is coming, and that’s
the point of all that. That’s the point. The point is those are pre-judgment warnings,
pre-final judgment warnings. Even though you know the period and you know that it’s coming,
the generation in that time won’t know the day or the hour. Okay? Good question. BEN: Hello, my name is Ben Ditzel. JOHN: Hi, Ben. BEN: Hi. I had a question regarding the Pledge
of Allegiance, I have a weekly radio program in Idyllwild, of all the episodes that I’ve
aired, the one that’s received the most feedback is the one about the Pledge of Allegiance
and I had Christians all over the spectrum on this. And I was wondering what your views
are because it seems to me that in Daniel 3 it says that we shouldn’t be worshiping
the golden image, represented by Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom. Well in our case, that would
be the flag, I’m thinking, and that which would be representing our ruler and our country,
so where do you stand on that? JOHN: Yeah, you’re asking the question,
“Should a Christian pledge allegiance to America. BEN: Yes. The Republic, and then also I guess
the wording is somewhat vague, ??? to Republic and flag as well seems to be… JOHN: Yeah, yeah. You know what? I only pledge
allegiance to God as my sovereign. I remember when I was in high school and I got a job
in a market and I had to join a union, Local 770, the retail grocers and clerks union,
and they took me down to Hollywood to be sworn in to the union and they asked me to put my
hand on my heart and swear. And I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t swear allegiance to the
union. So some guy came along and said, “You need to put your hand on your heart and you
need to repeat these words.” And I said, “I can’t do that. My allegiance is to
Christ.” I was 17 at the time and they threw me out. And threw me out on the street, it
was on Hollywood Boulevard and they threw me out of the building because I wouldn’t
pledge allegiance to them. But, I think as a Christian I have a responsibility
to submit to my government and to submit to those that are in authority. And I think the
Scripture is very clear on that. So in a limited sense, in a minimalist sense, I affirm that
I will be a good citizen, that I will submit to my leaders, I will do good to all men as
much is as possible. I think Titus 3 is a great text to use on that, that I will live
my life in a way that is harmless to the government, that is submissive to the authorities over
me. So in the sense that I can say yes, I pledge to be a loyal, faithful, submissive
citizen, I think I’m within the responsibility that God has given me. I don’t think I have
a right to rebel. I don’t think I have a right to be revolutionary. I will give you an illustration of that. I
think one of the most foolish things I’ve ever seen the American government do is aid
and abet revolutions in the Middle East. I said this when the Arabs spring first began.
This is absolute insanity because you are aiding a revolution, the overthrow of power,
that’s going against everything God has said in the Bible. I don’t care who the
power is. God placed them there. And what happened in the Middle East, of course, is
you had all these dictators who ran these unilateral empires, who checked and balanced
each other, and there was order in the society. And people didn’t die, unless they rebelled.
They didn’t die unless they had a revolution. You say, “What about all these people being
killed in Assyria?” If they just go home and have dinner, they’ll live. If they take
guns and try to kill the people in power, they’re going to die. This is a revolution.
To aid and abet a revolution with a silly notion that you’re going to create a democracy
is just stupidity. What happens is as soon as you aid and abet the revolution, you have
a vacuum, and into that vacuum will come the coalition of people who have the most clear
and focused ideology. You’ve got all kinds of fragmented people who just hate the governor,
or the ruler, who want a different life, who want money, who want some higher level of
life like the western world. And they’re no factor at all once the revolution is over.
Who takes over is whoever has the most cohesive ideology. And the people with the most cohesive
ideology and the greatest power and the greatest threat is the Muslim brotherhood. So inevitably, they’ll take over. And when
they take over everywhere, you have no checks and balances, you have a massive monolithic
control in the hands of people who want to do damage to the world. And that’s what
we’re seeing happen. Aiding and abetting a revolution doesn’t make any sense at all,
I don’t care what the revolution is because God produces order by those kinds of leaders.
There was never a suggestion from any of the Christian leaders in the New Testament era
that they overthrow Rome, or that they have a revolution in Israel to kick the Romans
out. The powers that be are ordained of God. And I think we submit whether it’s Caesar,
or you know, whether it’s Mubarak, or whoever it is, whether it’s the government we have
now. So I’m saying, in that sense I can commit
myself to my country to be a faithful, submissive citizen. That’s a far cry from pledging
to God. It’s a very temporal and limited commitment, okay? Okay, we’re out of time, so you guys are
going to have fire some very brief questions. I think we might have time for…we got some
ladies there and we’ve had all these men. Can we preempt you with these ladies? Can
you make the question really fast? Okay. TRUDY: My question is fast. I would just like
to know when the time was when life changed from man’s living hundreds of years to a
hundred years? JOHN: The Flood. Before the Flood, people
lived well, 900 years plus. And that’s because there was no penetration of the sun. There
was basically a water canopy around the earth that filtered out the ultra-violet rays and
you had a hot house protected and people lived a long time. That was all broken up in the
Flood and all that water came down to flood the earth. And after that, the sun directly
hit the earth and life was shortened. Okay? TRUDY: Thank you. JOHN: You’re welcome, Trudy. Yeah, okay,
where are we? Real quick. KATHY: Hi, John. JOHN: Hi. KATHY: (Spokesman) Kathy wants to know… JOHN: You want to know about divorce? KATHY: Yeah. JOHN: Don’t do it, Kathy. KATHY: No, I’m not married. JOHN: I know. KATHY: I’m talking about my parents. (inaudible) JOHN: Or a divorce. It’s better to have
two parents that are constantly fighting, to find a way to resolve that. Yeah, I mean,
it’s never good to have two parents fighting. A divorce isn’t the answer. You know, that’s
like saying I have a problem with my right arm so I’ll cut it off. That’s not the
answer, fix it. The terminal solution is not the solution. The right solution is to keep
the marriage together because God says, “I hate divorce.” KATHY: Yeah, I know, but the thing is…my
parents How can I be a good Christian if…inaudible. JOHN: You know, you are a good testimony by
your faithfulness and I think you just need to pray for them and, you know, when God gives
you the opportunity to talk to them…I just don’t think you give them divorce as an
option. Even non-believers I would say… KATHY: (Inaudible) JOHN: You know that but they don’t know
that. Then you’ve got to do all you can, you know, you’re not going to be able to
control what they do but I think you speak to the…the hearts on that issue. KATHY: (Inaudible) JOHN: I missed that, what was it? KATHY: (Spokesman: she said thank you…) JOHN: Thank you, you’re welcome, hon. You’re
welcome. Thank you for being such a good student. Thank you so much. All right, we’re going to do it really fast.
Okay, quick question, yes or no answer. KEVIN: My question is this, does sin evolve,
or does it change? Because in the Old Testament there were things that were permissible that
are no longer permissible now and sin by definition is opposition to God. So either sin is changing,
or God is changing, but God doesn’t change. So… JOHN: No. Anything that is moral doesn’t
change, unchangeable. Anything that’s ceremonial, external, non-moral is subject to change like
dietary laws, laws of sacrifice, laws of clothing, laws of cooking. The violation of those laws
I don’t think necessarily was a sin. I mean, I think if, you know, if you happen to mix
the milk and the meat when you were cooking, that’s not a sin, that’s an oops, probably
shouldn’t have done that. Because God was simply trying to separate you from the way
everything else done, to isolate the Jews. So that’s not considered a sin unless the
heart is a heart of willful defiance against God and it shows itself in just that attitude
of disregard for things that God has asked you to do, or placed as ordinances. No, sin
does not evolve. Sin is always the same because sin is any violation of the nature of God.
The law of God is a reflection of His holy nature. Any violation of that is sin. Failing,
you know, to dot the I and cross the T in some ceremony or some ordinances or how you
pick out birds’ eggs out of a bird’s nest. That is not sin unless it is a defiant act
against God. Okay. KEVIN: What about like incest. It was necessary
with Adam and Eve… JOHN: Yeah, well it wasn’t a sin. Yeah.
It’s only a sin because as time went on it became an issue, it became an issue as
time went on. Obviously people married their relatives in the beginning for a brief period
of time. But it wasn’t very long that they were doing that and there hadn’t been the
genetic decline which then made incest potentially a devastating kind of thing genetically. So
it took a while for the genetics to deteriorate and create the problems that incest creates.
Okay? Good question. Quickly. ELSHAWN(???): My name is Elshawn, from Brazil.
A brief question about Romans chapter 1, and verse by verse, I do like to focus in verse
20. I would like to know if as the verse says, everybody can (inaudible). JOHN: Everybody can recognize God as a Creator.
But the way you know God as a Savior is through…well, yeah, that’s 1 Timothy, God is the Savior
of all men, especially those who believe. There is a demonstration of God’s saving
nature in the fact that He doesn’t give sinners what they deserve when they deserve
it. It’s His patience and forbearance with sinners that demonstrates that He’s a Savior
by nature. Sinners should see that in the fact that they know they’re sinful. They
know they’re immoral. And they live and they go on living. They know they violate
the Law of God because the Law is written in their heart. You go to Romans 2, the Law
of God is written in their heart. They know God is a Savior by nature because they know
they have violated its law. They know He’s creator by reason. They know He’s righteous
by the law written in their hearts. And so they know there is a God who is a Creator
and He’s written His law in their hearts, they know they violate that Law and yet they
live. So they know, in a sense, that God is a merciful Savior. But the truth about how
He saves has to come through Scripture. Okay? All right. I think we better cut it off there. Our time
is gone, we’ve gone too long. So sorry about making everybody wait. We’ll do this again
and thank you for..well, you guys, I was going as fast as I can, sorry for keeping you, When
the people start fleeing, I know it’s time to quit. Let’s have a Word of prayer and
we’ll let you go. Father, thank You for good conversation tonight,
good fellowship around Your truth and all these sort of various issues that are in our
hearts, all come back to the fact that we want to submit ourselves to Your Word and
it gives us answers…it gives us answers. We can know the truth and we thank You for
that. Bless these precious people and apply the truth to their hearts and use them, Lord,
for the advance of Your name. And we pray for the sake of Christ, and everyone said, “Amen.”
Good night and thank you.
