John MacArthur : Why The Gospel is Rejected

good morning everyone i'm so happy to welcome you to the grace community church peaceful protest thank you [Applause] are you glad to be here everything for us based on the word of god right and that means we are pro-life pro-family pro-law and order in pro church of the lord jesus christ grace church is defined by its commitment to holy scripture for true christians the bible is our greatest treasure it is more precious to us than gold than much fine gold it is sweeter to us than honey from the honeycomb we can say with the psalmist in psalm 119 at least a half a dozen times oh how i love your law it is my meditation all the day i love your commands the apostle paul said that those who belong to god possess the love of the truth john records that those who love the lord keep his commandments and the psalmist said in psalm 40 and verse 8 i delight to do your will oh my god your law is within my heart we desire the word like a babe desires milk to borrow peter's words in john 6 many of the followers of jesus superficial followers had abandoned him and he said to the remaining disciples will you also go away to which their spokesman peter said to whom shall we go you and you alone have the words of eternal life the mark of a true christian is love for scripture love for scripture whether it's promises or commands god's true church has always been a place where people hunger for the truth from the bible that's why we're here it's why we're here every time we're here paul writing in first thessalonians commended that church in chapter 1 verse 4 knowing brethren beloved by god his choice of you then he goes on to say here's the evidence that god truly chose you and redeemed you for our gospel did not come to you in word only but also in power and in the holy spirit and with full conviction you can always tell who the true believers are they are moved more by the word of god than anything else they are moved to loving joyful obedience and worship in chapter 2 in verse 13 paul says to this same congregation for this reason we also constantly thank god that when you received the word of god which you heard from us you accepted it not as the word of men but for what it really is the word of god which also performs its work in you who believe that's how true christians approach the word of god if this pulpit was not the place for the proclamation of the word of god this place would begin to be empty that's why you're here man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of god that is the greatest commendation that can be given by the lord to a church through the apostle paul and as your pastor of these many many years it is my greatest commendation to you it's clear to me that you love the word of god that's why you're here and you love the god of the word as well sadly serious careful thoughtful diligent labor in the scripture to bring up its rich treasures is not popular these days even in churches in 1978 i had the privilege of serving on the international council for biblical inerrancy there were only two pastors out of a hundred there were 100 scholars 98 from educational institutions and two pastors myself and the precious jim boyce j.i packer was on that council as well fighting for the inerrancy of scripture it was 1994 that i had personal connection with jim packer i sat beside him for seven hours down in florida as six of us worked to clarify the gospel there was bill bright and chuck coulson and jim packer and on the other side of the table there was jim kennedy myself and my dear friend r.c sproul for seven hours we went at it over the gospel they're all gone i'm the last man standing this this was a remarkable group of men jim packer died at the age of 93. jim packer understood what was going on in the church even at his age listen to what he wrote in a preface to the christian directory christian directory was written by richard baxter back in the 1600s the puritan in his introduction packer characterized evangelicalism this way egocentric zany simplistic degenerate half magic spell nonsense which is all the world sees when it watches religious tv or looks directly at the professed evangelical community packer went on to say our how to's how to have a wonderful family better sex financial success in a christian way how to cope with grief life passages crises fears frustrating relationships and whatnot else gives us formula to be followed by a series of supposedly simple actions on our part in the manner of and i love this painting by numbers he compared that to the great work of richard baxter and he had written his ph.d dissertation at oxford on baxter and baxter was the one who said i preach as a dying men to dying men as a dying man to dying men g.i packer compared contemporary evangelicalism with richard baxter who in the christian directory alone one book wrote more than a million words on the interpretation and application of the word of god packer said that book is a high level of intelligent bible-based theologically integrated wisdom with unfailing unimpaired clarity that is dazzling to the mind where do people go for dazzling interpretations of scripture where do they go for bible teaching that is highly accurate intelligence theologically rich sound integrated clear and dazzling in its truthfulness my other friend r.c sproul died in december of 2017. he said our culture is embedded in proud mediocrity that should be obvious to everyone he said while there are still hard-working scholastic minds in science and technology and researchers doing hard and tedious labor in the fields culture has in general settled for what is quick and cheap junk music junk art and junk thinking our culture is far too easily satisfied and excellence truth and real beauty are the great triad of virtues that are now replaced by funny cool and cute rc said we get mediocrity because we want it we actually crave it paul predicted this would happen that there would be a time when men would want to have their ears tickled there's a lot of that now there is clearly a trend to eliminate the transcendent to eliminate the biblical to eliminate the theological the profound the demanding truth of scripture and feed the mediocrity-hungered crowds with a mediocre message and mediocre preaching so that the church accepts and legitimizes the superficiality that people want pop culture christianity serves non-believers just fine people don't want to take the bible seriously so why should the church take it seriously pastors see cleverness creativity style rather than demanding and rigorous study of scripture how far we have fallen i'd like to go back to the puritans 16th and 17th century powerful preachers called puritans because their goal was to purify the church in england they were so faithful that in 1662 all of them were ejected from their churches in what is called the great ejection there are all kinds of stories of how they were executed for their faithfulness to the word of god being proclaimed to a religious environment that had no interest in it i want to make one final tribute to jim packer in memory of him i want to quote something that he wrote it does not seem possible to deny that the puritans were strongest just where evangelical christians today are weakest here were men of outstanding intellectual power in whom the mental habits fostered by sober scholarship were linked with a flaming zeal for god and a minute acquaintance with a human heart all their work reveals this unique fusion of gifts and graces where the puritans called for order discipline depth and thoroughness our temper is one of casual haphazardness and restless impatience we pray for stunts novelties and entertainments we have lost our taste for solid study humble self-examination disciplined meditation and unspectacular hard work in our callings and in our prayers again where puritanism had god and his glory as its unifying center our thinking revolves around ourselves as if we were the hub of the universe that's the popular kind of preaching today no wonder he says so many professed conversions fall away then in teaching on the christian life our habit is depicted as a path of thrilling feelings rather than working faith and of supernatural interruptions rather than of rational righteousness and in dealing with the christian experience we dwell constantly on joy peace happiness satisfaction with no balance to the divine discontent of romans 7. this generation is desperate for the word of god but it doesn't want the word of god and the church continually gives the world what it wants and so it becomes superficial for us it seems the word of god is becoming more scarce the world of unbelievers doesn't want to hear the word of god false christians don't really want to hear the word of god they want everything but the scripture and in many cases they're getting it even from so-called churches those who hold to the fact that the bible is the divine revelation from god those who are sober and serious and diligent students and preachers of holy scripture those who are being faithful are not honored so much as they are ridiculed why have we held on why are we still here going through the bible verse by verse by verse by verse when it's not popular in the world or even in the church the answer to that question is found in the text i read earlier if you'll open your bible to first corinthians chapter one nowhere is the issue of the work of god in the scripture more richly presented than this those of you who know me know that i don't normally cover two chapters in one sermon two words maybe but the text that i read you from chapter 1 verse 18 to 2 verse 16 is about divine wisdom the word wise or wisdom is used 20 times and it's contrasted with foolishness which is used six times the whole section explains why grace church is here and why we accept the wisdom of god revealed in scripture the gospel the good news of the cross and by the way in this text you see the phrase the word of the cross then you see the phrase the wisdom of god and then you see the phrase the testimony of god the word of the cross the wisdom of god and the testimony of god are all the same this is the gospel revealed through scripture now there's a simple way to break this section down and i confess that we're going to touch it somewhat lightly but i think you'll get the main point i said a couple of weeks ago that we understand that non-believers don't believe the bible can't believe the bible have no interest in the bible it's not only unclear to them it's obscure they have no ability to understand it so they don't understand us how we can be so passionately committed to the word of god and love it so much and love obeying it for the sake of the love that we have for the one who died for us and rose again they don't understand it and on the surface i understand why let me give you some reasons why non-christians don't believe the bible okay let's go back to verse 18 of chapter one so the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing foolishness the message first point is unreasonable it's foolishness the greek word is this will sound familiar it's stupid pointless the idea the idea that god the one a true and eternal god became a jewish man lived in israel was rejected by his people crucified by the romans rose from the dead and is the world's only savior was unreasonable that's what the early christians were preaching throughout the roman world a crucified jew rejected by his own people and rejected by the the romans and executed as a common criminal is the eternal god and the savior of the world that's just unreasonable it's foolishness how do you convince somebody of that put yourself in the position of a believer in the first century going into the gentile world and saying i want to tell you about a man named jesus who is god incarnate born in absolute obscurity in a manger laid lived in a nondescript town called nazareth was totally rejected by his own nation as a prey as a false messiah handed over the romans and executed and he's the eternal god only savior and he is going to reign over the earth and his kingdom forever this is moronic its message is unreasonable

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Keywords: christ, jesus, jesus christ, God, bible, scripture, worship, hymns, prayers, bible study, bible devotionals, christian, christian growth, heart of worship channel, heart of worship, heart of worship YT channel, john macarthur, john macarthur sermon, grace community church, evangelicals, new testament, old testament, preaching, worshipping, expository preaching, gospel of Jesus, John MacArthur sermon, John Macarthur 2020, John Macarthur grace church, grace community church peaceful protest

Id: Nb-QHFhHozE

Length: 21min 54sec (1314 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020