Kirk Cameron Interviews John MacArthur

that is the heart the hearts prayer of a Christian is to take my life and make me over that's what I want is to be made over from the inside out I want my whole nature to be made over and made new my next guest on the program is uh I think one of the best Bible teachers on the planet I mean that with all the sincerity that I have I have learned so much from this man who has helped me not only know what the Bible says but what it means by what it says in a day when there's so much confusion about the basic things of Christianity like what does the gospel mean how do you become a true Christian his name is John MacArthur please welcome him I know that that some people are watching this program right now and they're rubbing their eyes and they're saying John MacArthur Chuck is that John MacArthur that I see and yes it is and one of the things that I love so much about you is your boldness and courage to be a rock of truth no matter where you go and you don't change like a chameleon depending on your surroundings I've seen you in your own church I've seen you on CNN with Larry King Live sitting opposite a New Age mystic a liberal priest and a Muslim and a Jew and boy you just keep speaking the truth all the time and you know you didn't and again you didn't you didn't show up here in a flashy outfit with a big pompadour you are here John McArthur and you are here to talk about the truth and I so appreciate that about you actually I took my tie off because I knew I was gonna be talking to you okay you wouldn't be wearing one well you wrote a book called hard to believe which my wife actually turned me on to and it is amazing um I'd like to just read the very back of this book listen to this it says there is no user-friendly seeker-sensitive gospel there is only the truth ministers and teachers who water down the gospel of Christ in order to make it more popular and appealing maybe leading their fun-loving audiences down the road to eternal punishment the modern tendency is to alter the true message of Christianity in order to meet the whims and desires of a culture hoping for non confrontational messages easy answers and superficial commitments too many people want a Madison Avenue Jesus to make them well make them happy and prosperous but Jesus Christ isn't a personal genie he is the Savior John Locke why did you feel there was a need to write this book well Kirk this is the final chapter or at least the latest chapter in a long battle that I've been engaged in um many years ago when I went to seminary I I wanted to learn how to interpret the scripture that's been my passion I am a lover of the truth and I believe the truth is contained in this book and I just wanted to be able to teach and preach the truth and when I was in seminary I really thought when I get out of here I'm gonna have some battles to fight they're gonna be battles over the inerrancy of scripture the authority of Scripture they're gonna be battles over paradigms of sanctification they're gonna be issues of church polity there's gonna be the battle over the deity of Jesus and and in all they sort of laid out for us the issues that we were going to have to fight never did I believe that I would spend most of my life trying to rescue the gospel from evangelicals Wow but what is so evident to me is that in people's well-intended zeal to make the message easy they wind up changing it and then people are believing something less than a saving message Wow um you say in Chapter one here which is called tastes great less filling that some within the framework of evangelicalism will tell you that Jesus just wants you well and if you're not well it's because you haven't turned in your spiritual lottery ticket if you're not rich it's because you haven't claimed it Jesus wants you free from debt and if you send the televangelists enough money that act of faith will free you from the demon of debt your salvation through Christ is Garant is a guarantee of health wealth prosperity and happiness these and evangelicals tell you that Jesus gives you peace joy he makes you a better salesman helps you to hit more home runs and improves your slice Jesus really wants to make you feel better about yourself elevate your self-image and put an end to your negative thinking well is that not the gospel that is not the gospel oh that is not what Jesus said in fact the simplest way to understand the gospel is to listen to exactly what he said the way he said it and this is recorded in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew but also recorded in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Luke listen to what he said if anyone wishes to come after me let him deny himself this is not about self fulfillment this is about self-denial I mean I I hate to invade people's comfortable space on the issue there are no promises from Jesus at all with regard to this temporal life the gospel makes no promises here about circumstances in this temporal life in fact Jesus said this you come to me it may cost you your family but if you're not willing to hate your family it can't be my disciple if you come to me you might have to give all your possessions away and give them to the poor but if you're not willing to do that you're not worthy to be my disciple you said and he said two one one the would-be disciple one day he said um follow me and they said well um I want to go home first and you know say goodbye to my family raise a little money and all of that he said if if you do that you're not worthy to be my disciple uh and then he said this follow me and keep this in mind the foxes have holes the birds of the air have nests the son of man has nowhere to lay his head we're not going to the ritz-carlton I'm not saying I'm not saying I'm not saying God demands you be poor uncomfortable miserable I'm not saying that he demands the dissolution of your family it may happen you may lose your spouse an unbeliever departs let him depart Paul says you're not under bondage it may wreck your marriage there is no happily ever after in this world but what is offered is eternal rescue from hell that's the gospel I've got a I've got to interject a question at this point though John sure Jesus also said I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly well what is the abundant life then the abundant life is eternal life which is not a time because it's eternal it's a kind of life it's an it's a quality of life eternal life simply means that I possess the life of God in my soul which is eternal and it has components that I enjoy now freedom from guilt not pain freedom from judgment not suffering in fact Jesus also said you have to deny yourself and take up your cross cross and that wasn't a mystical idea that wasn't you know he wasn't saying you're gonna have to be able to suck it up and endure your mother-in-law well you know whatever wrong in your life right taking up your cross meant one thing to the people in the day that heard that death and Jesus is saying so you want to follow me do you first you start with this deny yourself I'm not offering you the fulfillment of your dreams I'm not offering you the fulfillment of your desires I'm not offering you the fulfillment of all your hopes I'm not offering you good feelings about yourself what I'm saying is I'll save you from eternal hell I will give you spiritual blessings all of them right now and forever if you will abandon yourself all your hopes all your dreams all your ambitions you know in fact the word in the Greek to deny means to refuse to associate with you have to come to a point when you come to Christ that you are ready to refuse to associate any longer with the person that you are it's the Luke 18 publican who won't even lift his face to heaven but he pounds his chest and all he can say is God be merciful to me and that's why when you present the gospel to someone it has to start with the sense of condemnation God is holy God has a holy law you have violated and continue to violate that holy law the sum of that law is to love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and you certainly don't and can't do that you have violated that holy law therefore God is just in condemning you to eternal hell that must be understood the weight of that condemnation the weight of that blasphemy and violation then takes you to the second thing that must be understood and that is humiliation you have to come to the point where you said I'm worth nothing I'm a wretched sinner Oh wretched man that I am who will deliver me from the body of this debt I I'm sick of the person I am I give it up and that's what it means to confess Jesus as not Savior but Lord and so he said be willing to take up the cross in this sense if you knew that coming to me would cost you your life would you come my not but are you that desperate would you give up your life here to have eternal life would you give up your life Paul said look I am crucified with Christ I died jesus said if you love your life John 12:25 you lose it if you hate your life you'll have it forever how do you come to the point where you really hate your life the Old Testament calls this a broken and contrite heart Jesus said this is a beatitude attitude blessed are the poor in spirit that means the bankrupt the destitute who are then meek and who hunger and thirst after righteousness that's the heart attitude it's about being delivered from sin and death and judgment that's what the Holy Spirit convicts of John 16 he convicts the world of sin of righteousness and judgment I think the gospel can't soft sell that it saved from what saved from a lack of purpose saved from minimum fun instead of maximum fun what am I being saved from a bad marriage a poor career no there are no promises about that I'm reading letters that John Calvin wrote to five young men who graduated from his seminary in Geneva by the way his seminary was called the school of death because if you graduated there you were martyred hmm five young men graduated before they could ever start their ministry they were taken prisoner put in a dungeon and eventually their heads were chopped off that's what Jesus is saying would you come anyway is your salvation important enough would you give up your life if that's what it takes there was a rich young ruler first of all he wouldn't even admit he'd broken a commandment secondly wouldn't get up his give up his money let alone his life so I think we're in making it easy we've created synthetic seed that can't produce fruit hmm well John as I listen to what you're saying I'm sure there are people listening saying but that sounds so negative that is so much more negative than the positive feel-good stuff I see in church and on television often so what would bring a person to want to discard this feel-good seeker-sensitive message and embrace the one you're saying why on earth would you go for your message or what you're saying the Bible's message is over over that's not a what it's not a what would bring a person its who because there's only one way it's there's only one way that the sinner would ever buy that message and that's if the Spirit of God took the blinders off and help them to see what opened up their heart to the truth I love what it says in the book of Acts about Lydia and the Lord opened her heart let me tell you what I think is the most riveting story of Jesus in the New Testament he goes to Nazareth Luke 4 goes to his own synagogue preaches one message in his own hometown to all the people he grew up with his extended family his uncles and aunts and everybody that knew him very well preached one sermon at the end of the sermon they try to throw him off a cliff try to kill him what do you say in one sermon to your family and friends that makes him that mad you know what he told him you're poor prisoners blind and oppressed and until you know it there's no gospel for you and rather than humble themselves they hated him and that hatred mounted from his own synagogue don't filled the whole Land of Israel and it put him on a cross nobody ever said everybody's gonna line up to buy into this it is hard to believe in fact it's impossible unless the Spirit of God opens the heart and we respond to the truth about our condition that's where it starts then you get to the issue of repentance and believing the gospel so what you're saying is that before I can become a Christian and embrace the the solution that Christ offers I first have to understand my problem and that is that I am guilty of sinning against my God and therefore it is right for God to condemn me and I desperately need to be forgiven that's right and add to that the fact that I am so crushed I am so disturbed I am so broken I'm so battered I'm so humiliated by that condition I am so helpless to change it myself that all I can do is cry out to God and in that cry I am saying not only do I want to be delivered from the person that I am kill me but I want to turn to righteousness hmm I want like David oh how I love your law that's the difference you were talking to Candace about the difference in her life and I heard her say it without saying she didn't love the law of God before she became a true Christian now what did she say I want to obey and when I see something isn't right I don't want to do that that's the love of the law that comes in true repentance so this is about turning from sin to Christ and then of course believing in the facts of the gospel is the way all of that actually becomes a divine miracle and transaction if a person will do that what does God offer them if a person will say I am I am nothing in and of myself I want to throw myself into the arms of God to be changed what does God offer forgiveness total forgiveness for all your sin forever unconditionally provided by Christ it's the greatest gospel verse in the Bible 2nd Corinthians 5:21 he made him who knew no sin sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him let me unpack those 15 Greek words he God made Jesus sin what do you mean he made Jesus sin only in one sense he treated him as if he had committed every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe though in fact he committed none of them hanging on the cross he was holy harmless undefiled hanging on the cross he was a spotless lamb he was never for a split second a sinner he is holy God on the cross but God is treating him I'll put it more practically as if he lived my life God punished Jesus for my sin turns right around and treats me as if I lived his life that's the great doctrine of substitution and on that doctrine turned the whole Reformation of the church that is the heart of the gospel and what you get is complete forgiveness covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ when he looks at the cross he sees you when he looks at you he sees Christ if there is one thing in my life I want to make sure I understand that's it it is the gospel so that I can respond properly to my god and so that you can tell other people the truth and now John Bunyan and pilgrims progress said the entrance to hell for some is from the portals of heaven they're gonna think they're going to heaven and it's not gonna happen many shall say to me Lord Lord and I'll say depart from me I never knew you we can't contribute to that ignorance by missing the true gospel that's right our next guest is someone that you know very well would you introduce him for us yes he is Cory Welch the father of our latest grandchild he is my son-in-law married to my youngest daughter Melinda and they just had their first little beautiful baby girl two months ago Cory Welch see how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was lost but now and found was blind but now I see was great I taught my heart to fear and grace my fears how just in time me his grace that brought me safe thus far race we leave me Oh right Sean my son we know Oh ah take away the door come on fill me with your comedy touch me with you flow into this lowly place listen has your children pray to take me he'll arrive my but lover of Mysore the Stars the earth the sky come and make me Oh my voice freezes you either of my love Aram I swear lead me to the divest one when never-ending long drinking rum Oh they're in Slough nice whatever live inside love me keeper of eternity revive me with your turn éva wrong Oh maker my me whoa my voice freezes you either of my lover of my soul he loved Oh Oh ha my voice praises you Oh healer of my love my smooth he loved mine Oh

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Keywords: Sin, Christ, Lord, Jesus, Bible, God, Truth, Grace to You, John MacArthur, Gospel, Salvation, Word, Study, Preaching, Pastor, Believe, Prophecy, Ministry, Ministries, Revival, Holy Spirit, Father, Cross, Prophet, Messiah, Christian, Church, Scripture, Faith, Obedience, Kirk Cameron, Inerrancy, Authority, Evangelicalism, Eternal, Life, Freedom, Guilt, Judgment, Righteousness

Id: TPvs_psxx7Q

Length: 29min 46sec (1786 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 17 2012