John MacArthur "What has happened after the 'Strange Fire' Conference"

i just am going to kind of share my heart a little bit about what's sort of happened after uh strange fire filling in maybe a few details there are things that that appear here and there on the internet some are true and some are not there are misrepresentations as well as accurate representations of things that that go on uh you probably are aware uh of those people who have weighed in to support us out of strange fire there are few and far between to be honest the climate in evangelicalism is a climate of tolerance and there's a sort of a fear of alienating constituencies and for example the moody radio network would not carry the strange fire series when we aired it on radio they wanted a substitution program for that so there have been some some pretty clearly stated uh attitudes uh that essentially say we we sort of may agree with you but we don't really want to take that position uh there are other leaders that uh who have been so sort of conspicuous by their silence uh there are others who have called me and uh affirmed personally that they're very grateful for the stand that we took and of course all the people who were participants in the the event itself uh ended up of course lending very very strong support to it so i i received some other very nice phone calls and and correspondence from other leaders who who have taken the stand in the past and certainly are applauding the necessity for it i don't know exactly how much to say about the event itself you you all know the mark driscoll event within an event trying to stage a promotion for his own book in the middle of the strange fire that didn't really work out too well you probably have seen what has happened as a result of that with issues regarding plagiarism and things like that that have been ongoing but apart from the the sort of things that aren't really based upon the issue let me talk to you a little bit about how this has played out in order for you to understand it i need to give you a little bit of history the charismatic movement as such is a heterodox movement and i think you have to understand that at the very beginning i wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say it's heretical in the sense of a cult because there are uh within that movement those who are are are heresy um bound but but that doesn't necessarily define the whole movement there are people in that movement that preach the gospel that believe in the authority of scripture that that want to honor the lord that pursue godly living and sanctification and have a right eschatology uh and so forth so we we we need to say that we don't lump everybody into that movement at the same degree of error but the movement itself is fraught with error if you haven't read the book you can read the book and you can get the history of it but there's there's some history of it that you wouldn't necessarily understand so let me just give you a very brief history of the movement that's the things that aren't in the book itself and some of these things i shared with a preaching class at the beginning of the year i don't know how many of you how many of you were in that when i gave a little bit of that history yeah so you kind of got in on that and i'm not going to belabor the point but but suffice it to say this there is a sort of generic landscape uh in evangelicalism just just sort of the green grass out there you don't notice it but it's it's sort of there sometimes it's probably more brown than green having less life than we would wish but there's a sort of generic landscape of evangelicalism churches here and there and pastors here and there and ministries here and there and they they they aren't notable um they aren't in the limelight uh they aren't distinguished uh they're not part of any great movement you might say they're neither charismatic nor reformed they're not a part of the the two revivals or the two great movements that are going on in evangelicalism today one is the reform movement and the other is essentially the the charismatic movement um those are the two places where there's an immense amount of energy going on but there's a there's a generic landscape out there and when you drive down the street you pass those kinds of churches they may be baptist churches or presbyterian churches or methodist churches or independent churches or whatever uh but but they're really need they're not a part of either of those kinds of things just the generic landscape of churches um i guess you could say they're they're they're a bit marginal um some of their some of their they have representatives in the media some of the older men who teach the bible some of the older preachers you might see on tv but but apart from that sort of generic landscape which in itself is not a movement and tends to be more devotional in its preaching uh devotional in its theology uh tends to be almost sort of uh devotional slash psychological where uh pastors are talking about people's needs and the issues of life and how to feel good about your life and how to trust god with your life there's not a lot of theology and there's virtually no real serious exegesis of scripture but it's just that generic landscape out there and there are christian people in that but it doesn't go anywhere but there there would be many many churches like that and since 90 of the churches in america have less than 100 people there's a lot of folks in that category but but at the same time you have these two very dynamic movements going on uh one of them is the resurgence of reformed theology and that is the greatest that's the greatest revival in the history of the church clearly based on media uh when i was in seminary i didn't even know a reformed person i didn't know one i had heard of them with the hearing of my ear but i did not know one uh i never in in my my father and i were very close he died at the age of 90. and i never had a conversation with my father ever once about divine sovereignty in election i never had a conversation with my father about the extent of the atonement i never ever had a discussion with my father about any aspect of reformed theology none didn't exist it didn't exist the the whole landscape of evangelicalism at that time was that generic kind of evangelicalism uh bible exposition really was very very rare if you could find it anywhere which made w.a criswell kind of a notable preacher because he was doing that in a broad way going through huge chunks of of scripture but you have lived to see reformed theology literally arrive from heaven like an alien invasion and just land everywhere on the planet and this is a massive massive movement that is being fueled all over the world by media by electronics by the internet and as i was saying to some folks we have about 35 000 little groups of vietnamese people in rice paddies all over vietnam listening to everything that's coming out of the pulpit of grace community church in their own language on little boxes with chips in them that's just one illustration of how the bible exposition theologically grounded bible exposition with a reform view is circling the planet we we get that we understand that and that's our heritage okay that's that's where we belong those are our people so we like dead people we we like people who've been dead a long time we revere them we honor them we read them we love the puritans we we even want to go back to the church fathers in fact if you're studying church history here you're going to you're going to be exposed to the church fathers and you're going to be in the flow you're going to know where you came from you're not going to be isolated you're not going to be given some kind of idea that christianity arrived on the planet during your lifetime and it needs to be defined and designed according to the culture that exists right now you're going to be historically grounded and rooted that that's our heritage those are our people that's a very important concept just by way of a comparison uh watch watching education change in america because i am a college president i get in on all these things the death of classic education the elimination of classic education is a very very strategic plan unfolding from liberal educators and has been for about 50 years it's called multiculturalism is not multi-ethnicity they're not talking about letting all all different races be educated they're talking about raising generations of young people who don't have a distinct culture so what do you do you eliminate out of the college curriculum um western civilization english history english lit american history american lit uh american society any kind of social aspects of american life you get rid of the literature you get rid of the arts you get rid of anything that's americana the history of america and you begin to embed in people all kinds of multi-culture so they have no idea of their heritage and you disconnect them from the past and that's how you manipulate entire population and turn a nation into something it has never been it's a very dangerous thing to be isolated um it's dangerous for the preservation of tradition but but we don't want to die on the hill of tradition uh there's more in americana than tradition there are certain very very clear-cut moral values that were part of american culture coming from the west and and those are being systematically destroyed such as telling the truth for example um but we're concerned about theology but when we move to theology all the more important that we keep our connections right that we go all the way back and that is that is essential um we draw our life in a sense uh by drawing out the illumination of the people of god all the way back to the apostles well that's not where the charismatic movement comes from they are a completely independent stream it started around the turn of the 20th century really starts just before that with a crazy person charles fox parham who was arrested for sodomy and then it moves to los angeles i don't know why it embedded itself here but it did azusa street and you have the birth of the charismatic movement its theology is both heterodox and heretical uh it is fraught with all kinds of problems the the elements of the gospel remain in it and so it survives and people actually come to know the lord through the years of the charismatic movement i don't want to drag you through the whole history but the charismatic movement in all the years that i'm growing up is very isolated it's it's a it's a very isolated group of people they trace their roots back everything is defined by experience the the probably the the man who is the most well-known american charismatic pentecostal pastor and you would know him if i gave you his name i asked him one time in a personal conversation how he studied the bible to prepare to preach and uh his answer indicated that he basically depended on the holy spirit to help him when he opened his bible and i said you use any books and i couldn't get any kind of definitive answer and then i asked him specifically thinking i'd start at a very basic level do you know what vines word studies is to which the response was what's that so you have you have a whole stream of people who are coming at the scripture without regard for any other helps outside themselves or outside the limitations of their tradition so you get a very skewed form of christianity not only is it arminian which of course is wrong but it's driven by experience and then therefore has a weak view of scripture that's the charismatic movement well it stays in its own sort of cage for a long long time and you know we we knew people who were charismatic or then pentecostal it was in 1960 that it jumped out of its confines and it jumped into mainline denominations uh that started in van nuys with the the episcopal church here the record dennis bennett and it needs to be noted that at the same time it jumped into the roman catholic church which is to show the absence of theology the episcopalian church was liberal of course rank liberal and the catholic church was heresy but but the charismatic movement found a home in both those places which is a testimony to the absence of any theology okay by 1967 another dramatic change happens when a bunch of jesus freak hippies in the beach areas of southern california go to calvary chapel which has 30 people chuck smith 30 people before long with lonnie frisbie leading the parade there's a thousand kids there and the church has to has decided to absorb this and with it the culture and for the first time the church that i know of in history the church lets this very defined subculture dictate what it will be outgo the ties out go the hymns uh outgo all the normal and formal things and and the the the hippie culture the communal living uh you know kids coming out of drugs and free sex and all of that that very casual thing and that's a charismatic church that's that's that's a four square church or an assembly of god i think it was foursquare truth so that's where the movement becomes what we know as calvary chapel calvary chapel stays what it is even today for for a few years then there's a split with john wimber john wimber takes the radical charismatic movement off and it becomes the toronto blessing and all the craziness basically is is a part of that system and all the while through all these years the reformed doctrines are beginning to get traction uh in among many and particularly young believers just that perspective is is very important now follow this the market-driven church comes out of that charismatic world doesn't come out of reformed theology how does it come out of it because the first calvary chapel was essentially the church saying we'll let the culture tell us what we need to be and that set the thing in motion and ever since then uh churches have rolled over to let the culture tell them what they need to be and as the culture shifts and changes that that that stream shifts and changes and then you get uh rock star pastors mega church pastors as they're called and uh since since the the culture is dictating to them what they should be the culture listen sets the standards that qualifies them you understand that you don't hold them to biblical standards you don't you don't take those guys and and drag them through a second timothy or first timothy three and and titus one you you don't they will not be held to those standards they the the the standards to which they are held are the standards of a pop culture they're defined by the pop culture carl truman had an absolute right uh when he wrote that response um that that article on i think it was on mark driscoll at the time and simply saying that the disturbing thing about all of this is that these people are not held to a biblical standard whatever they do the pop culture affirms because they belong to the pop culture so to understand that is is very very important and that that is a that is a part of the charismatic movement obviously it morphs and changes as it goes so with that just kind of a sketch going back i i'm growing up thinking about these things watching the charismatic movement develop i came here in 1969 the the charismatic movement has developed i i see i see it as aberrant because it's comfortable in roman catholicism it's comfortable in dead uh denominationalism i have a deep burden for this i think it's a false form of christianity and that's just escalated through the years so uh that that's what launched me long ago to write the book charismatic uh the charismatics first and that was serialized on the cover of moody monthly that shows you how times have changed and then charismatic chaos followed and now to do strange fire as the movement has escalated i can't tell you how profoundly serious this this movement is how corrupting it is and what what grieves me and concerns me is the the absence of any real rising effort of men to to join the battle and say look the souls are at stake here there's been a steady stream of people by the way coming to church here and talking to me after services i referred to one man who said he he came sunday he said yeah i i can't believe what's happening to me i um 20 years of false apostles false prophets 20 years of people trying to knock me over and i came here and i think he said he'd been here two weeks and i i can't even express the experience i received a letter last week from the wife of a pastor of a calvary chapel church saying we listen to the entire strange fire my husband and i we have left the movement we see it for what it is the truth is dawning on us we called the master seminary we asked if they could tell us if in our area there were any churches pastored by masters graduates we found one we're going there the lord has delivered us they've just moved from one entire stream to another that's happening it's it ha every week here every single week someone comes up and say it says i came from a charismatic church i came out of the charismatic movement very encouraging and many of them have come out of very very um extreme kind of charismatic churches i always kind of uh i always kind of smile when i see our church full of wheelchairs because if there was anything going on in a charismatic church that could provide real healing the wheelchairs wouldn't be here but the but all the all the handicapped people are here on a given week as many as 450 disabled people or handicapped people are ministered to by grace church why are they here um they're here because the promises of these other movements are false so it's it's uh you know it is what it is guys and this is the world you're going to step into um when chuck smith died uh people were all saying well what's going to happen now because he held a strong influence uh because people revered him and honored him and respected him and loved him and and he had a hold on their life and it's interesting to see now what might happen as to how uh independent some of these calvary chapels might begin to be um you just heard about the death of paul crouch who has largely been the architect of the charismatic movement in the media globally done damage all over the planet by horrific confusion i i would like to think it would be better with the next generation of crouches but that's probably not the case so this movement is going to continue to escalate it's going to behoove you to take a position on it take a stand on this that that's going to be necessary in the future if there's anything we would like to see happen with graduates of the master seminary it would be that they take stands where they need to take stands i i i get the fact that you might offend people but that's irrelevant is it not and do do we not understand that no one is going to be changed until they're exposed as wrong whatever happened to purposely offending people in error do i have to tell you that jesus was the most offensive person that ever walked on the planet because he every serious every serious truth has to be established by the exposure of error and i suppose the the difficulty for me is how people can know this is going on and there's just sort of broad silence about it i would have loved to have seen a stampede of affirmation so we uh we're not done what we're going to do is put together a document of affirmations and denials and we're going to say okay who wants to step up who wants to sign who's going to stand with us and let's see what happens i don't know maybe us people said who called you did anybody call you to affirm you i said yeah jerry vines called me he's an old retired southern baptist pastor and uh he was applauding on the other end of the phone and thanking me and and bob jones uh the third called and affirmed and of course steve lawson and then there's me so we got to force him we won't we won't win anything but but we got four guys so uh you know i would like to think men that that certainly coming out of this seminary you would stand with us on this um this is a deadly deadly movement uh as i'm trying to point out in john 6 now this is the perfect storm to give people false security false assurance that they're christians when they're not and if we have any responsibility it is to make sure that people who aren't christians don't think they are so we need to keep this going we need to keep the rhetoric and keep the issue going not not the only issue but we need to stay focused on it with that in mind some of you may have read articles and blog posts on grace uh grace to you or some of you may read challies and the q and a's we did there did you get a chance to see some of that um cripplegate there are a number of other sources where people are writing on this and questions are coming and going uh uh craig keener uh wrote probably the longest response trying to defend the movement piper has put up certain things in response to it so all of that has led me to the very strong conviction we've already put it in place that we need another book because while people could go all over everywhere and find the sources of the questions and the answers that have come in the aftermath it'd be much more helpful if we listen collect all of the questions all of the issues that are being raised and then directly answer those issues now as a pattern for that when i wrote the gospel according to jesus which was the other book that i felt was a critical issue a gospel issue a salvation issue although there was a much smaller group of people involved in that uh the issue of lordship i wrote the gospel according to jesus and of course the barrage came like crazy uh that i was pro and i was a basically propounding works righteousness work salvation and all that kind of thing and and there were lots of criticisms so we just waited and let all the criticism come charles ryrie wrote a book so great salvation trying to answer the gospel according to jesus and when all of those responses had come and from that grace fellowship we took it all and then we wrote another book and the book was the gospel according to the apostles they tweaked the title faith works which was never my title but the gospel according to the apostles and when that book came out and and i i think this is kind of an interesting thing there never was an answer to that book nothing ever appeared in print in response to the book the gospel according to the apostles it was like case closed and in reality i think it was it it was a very very important time for the for the evangelical church uh to dismantle that er that errant theology and and it had that effect this movement is so vast that a very small number of people are even going to read the strange fire relative to the people who are in the movement but i would like to think that for those who are thoughtful and want to be honest about it and get their arguments biblically this this is equally an important approach write a book take all the flack catalog it all assess it all and then write answers to all of it so we're going to put together a book maybe we'll call it clearing the smoke from strange fire something like that and we're going to take stuff that's been written not just by me but by lots of different folks to these to the point of these issues and we're already in the process of putting that together our our concern is we could have a 500 page book or a 600 page book i'm not sure we need that but we do need to answer the questions we do need to answer the question so if you've been you know wondering how i'm feeling about this and i know people have said uh are you concerned about the criticism you're getting you're getting hit pretty hard pretty some pretty volatile accusations thrown no i that that does not bother me at all my reaction is just to figure out how to answer legitimate questions i don't care about the ad hominem i don't care about the people just throwing epithets at me that's that's irrelevant but but it is critical that we answer the legitimate questions so i'm just giving you a fair warning this is going to keep going uh it has to and i would think that over the next year we'll we'll collect all that material and then another six months after that we'll put out another second book so so that's kind of the picture as it exists right now uh coming off of strange fire and i really am committed to this we're in deep enough now that we've got the attention of people and now we need to drive them into the corner and pin them down with our biblical arguments it's amazing how many if you just read the one star reviews on amazon have you seen any of those you look at the one star reviews and there's many many of them just many if you just read them they're they're just they're not rational they're just emotional fire they're just people who are mad and that that is irrelevant but but that again is the definition of how they view the spiritual world if they're for it it's true if they're against it it's not i mean it's that simple so emotion kind of rains i would hope that outside of those people some of the quote unquote reformed continuationists would take a hard hard look at what they have been tolerating what they have been giving some credence to i haven't seen a lot of that yet but i had one one important guy say to me i never even thought of this but this he said is the strongest argument in the book that the continuationists all admit that the prophecy and tongues and healing and signs that are going on today are not the same as those in the new testament and if that's true then this is not a continuation of that this is an invention of something that that is really a that that in his mind was a strong that sealed the the deal for him the other thing just in in closing uh i don't know if any of you were here a couple of sunday nights ago when i talked on first john 2 but uh let me just kind of close by having you look at that first john 2 because i mean this is nothing new you can find writers and bible teachers in the past who who felt that they were uh they were in need of some uh divine unction you know that old word some divine unction you you this pops up in a lot of even good literature in the past of course our dear beloved david martin lloyd jones was always chasing after some unction chasing after some some feeling that or some impulse and you you um you find that coming out in the words of john piper as as he is talking about um praying that god would give him something that would make what he says powerful and effective and and and longing for this and desiring this um that's been a part of this kind of mystical approach to ministry and i think first john is very helpful with regard to that um the way i would just quickly have you understand this passage in chapter two is to look at verse 18 and realize that he's talking about the fact that it's the last hour the messianic time since christ has come an antichrist is coming and now there are many antichrists who have appeared they don't say they're antichrist they they are false prophets false preachers false teachers um and we know from the background of sort of incipient gnosticism which doesn't develop till a little bit later that these were the people who always offered themselves as possessing the secret knowledge right they had the gnosis they had the elevated knowledge they had the transcendent knowledge they they were above the the hoi polloi they actually used the word according to some commentators they used the word the anointing um uh crima uh the idea of uh charisma rather the idea of coming something coming down from heaven and being placed upon them they they were the anointed ones that was one of the labels that they bore and it's in that context that they intimidate people who don't have the anointing and by the way that's that's part and parcel of the charismatic movement that use of the term anointing and so in verse 20 john writes you have an anointing from the holy one the holy one is a term used to refer to jesus christ several times in the new testament you have an anointing this is that this is to talk this is talking to people who've been intimidated by false teachers who say we don't expect you to know this because you don't have the anointing we have this elevated anointing and so john just says you have an anointing and it's an anointing given to you from the holy one and as a result you all know wow nobody has some secret knowledge that you don't have you all know because you have the anointing i haven't written to you because you do not know the truth but because you do know it and because no lie is of the truth here's the bottom line all you want in your preaching and your ministry is the truth it's all you want you don't need to be looking for a feeling or an experience or some kind of wow factor there's nothing missing i told the people a few sundays ago the fact of the matter is when you study the bible as a lay person or you as a seminary student and i study the bible to prepare to preach you have the same spiritual equipment that i have i don't have any more equipment nothing comes down from heaven to me except the scripture we're working at the same level we might have different mental capabilities but the truth of the matter is you many of you are a whole lot smarter than i am you don't need to be fishing for some dramatic esoteric non-quantifiable experience that's going to catapult you to another level it's about the truth and it's about knowing the truth understanding the truth and proclaiming the truth and you know everything because you have the truth teacher the anointing and you can go down into verse 27 as for you the anointing which you received from him abides in you and you have no need for anyone to teach you you don't you don't need any human teacher you you have the anointing and his anointing teaches you about all things this is the spirit working in you with the word and it is true and is not a lie and just as it has taught you you abide in him the whole point of this is don't chase some anointing you have the anointing and the whole purpose of your study is to know the truth and the whole purpose of your preaching is to preach the truth and when you've preached the truth you can sit down and say that's the maximum possibility that can happen in the use of my gift you don't want to go back and say i didn't feel anointed i like that was lloyd jones said he only preached three sermons in his whole life where he felt the anointing well i don't know what was going on in his brain when he those three times but i've never heard the man when i wasn't overwhelmed with the power of the truth it's not about the magic in the man it's about the truth so i i think there's some of this mysticism that lends itself to being open to the charismatic gifts when it's unnecessary it's unnecessary verse 24 as for you let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning wow what a statement it's enough for you to hold on to what you heard from the beginning you don't need any more revelation you don't need a higher anointing stick with what's been revealed what you heard from the beginning don't be looking for new revelation or some kind of new emotional buzz i've been doing this for a long time and i i don't even know what that is in fact i'm the worst person to evaluate a sermon and i'm certainly not going to stand up there contemplating my psychological navel trying to find a buzz somewhere i'm just working to help you understand the truth as i've come to understand the truth and that's sufficient so i th there is this this sort of revivalist mentality that opens people up to some uh some aspect of holy spirit revelation that i think you just can't defend scripturally and here would be the perfect passage to go to because this is precisely what the false teachers were claiming they had and john answers it by saying you know everything because you have the anointing you all have the anointing you all have access to the truth so don't get caught up in the fact that unless there's some um ecstasy in preaching you somehow haven't had the power of the holy spirit the power listen is in the truth it's not in your emotions it doesn't matter what you feel sometimes when i preach i feel exhilarating i feel joyful sometimes i feel like i'm digging a ditch in concrete but it has nothing to do with the truth because i'm subject to my passing fancies and my whims and feelings in fact i bring the the panoply of my feelings into the pulpit when i arrive whatever they are that day i'd like to be able to divorce myself from life but i can't but it's not it's not a part of what's going on there what is going on there in the preaching ministry is that i am giving to the people an understanding of the truth of scripture where the spirit comes is in the illumination that he provides to me and along with that illumination conviction purification sanctification and he does the same thing in the hearer at that point but i think when when guys chase some kind of fantasy about a feeling um as if there's something more than the sheer power of the truth they leave themselves open to other aspects of mysticism that allow for these other possibilities okay so we're going to try to address many of those things i i think there's an awful lot of confusion about the whole issue of sanctification spirituality what it really is so we'll work on some of those things okay so i don't know if that helps uh kind of know the flow but we'll stay on top of this but we won't make it a hobby horse and beat you to death with it okay father we thank you that we've been able to be together a little bit today and bless these men over the next two weeks there's a lot on their plate there are a lot of things they need to be doing as well as caring in many cases for family and and children and ministry lord i pray that you'll use them even in these days may it may not be that they're looking to the future to be used by you but that you'll use them now on a regular basis with the people in their world and their lives to be an influence for christ bless them encourage them meet their needs every need show your faithfulness to them and fill their lives with joy well thank you in christ's name amen

Channel: The Master's Seminary

Views: 447,326

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Keywords: John F. MacArthur (Author), Strange Fire, Grace to You, TMS, The Master's Seminary

Id: bYulTGso804

Length: 43min 43sec (2623 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 05 2013