Lecture 2: Fundamentals of Expository Preaching - Dr. John MacArthur

number eight the consequences we're talking about the consequences of non expositional preaching and we've gone through a number of things just to sort of review for the sake of those who may see this at a future time or hear it non expositional preaching usurps the authority of God over the mind it in interrupts the lordship of Christ over his church it hinders the work of the Holy Spirit it demonstrates pride and a lack of submission to scripture it severs the preacher personally from the regular sanctifying work of Scripture it removes spiritual depth and transcendence from the people crippling worship number seven it prevents the preacher from fully developing the mind of Christ critical to his work just a footnote on that one before we go to number eight and one of the most important verses that Paul ever penned is in 1st Corinthians 2:16 we have the mind of Christ we have the mind of Christ that is not a mystical statement that somehow we can discern some secret information from the Lord about our lives or about direction or about guidance that is an absolute statement of fact we have the mind of Christ in other words we know how he thinks how do we know that because we have the word here is the mind of Christ that verse is not an invitation to try to find out what the Lord is thinking we have the mind of Christ the natural man understands not the things of God their foolishness to him but we have the mind of Christ the Spirit has given us an understanding of this book he has authored the book that's what that whole section is about no man knows what's in a man but the spirit of the man so no man knows the truth of God except the Spirit of God and he's revealed those things to us spiritual words and spiritual thoughts and spiritual words we have the mind of Christ okay so if I want the mind of Christ then then I'm gonna have to go to the Word of God to discern the mind of Christ and the mind of Christ is what I want to know and if I don't dig down into the Word of God I cannot know the mind of Christ and thus I cannot know his will for the work that I've been called to do some of you may have written a read a book I wrote called slave a little while back and I think that is probably one of the great tragedies in the evangelical translations as the obscuring of the word Doulos in so many of the English translations and still going on even in the new ESV they refuse to translate Doulos by the word slave and when I watched a video that was having they were in which there was a discussion of the translators they said there's too much baggage attached to that word that's what they said in their committee meeting this was a video of the committee meeting too much baggage with the word consequently we don't understand that that we are all as believers called to be slaves of Christ and and we are sort of the archetypal slaves aren't we we modeled that so knowing the mind of Christ is critical to his work number eight a failure to do expositional preaching depreciates by example the spiritual duty and priority of personal Bible study it depreciates by example the spiritual duty of and priority of personal Bible study his personal Bible study important is that essential do we live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God even jesus answered temptation by quoting scripture as his defense is it important for us to know the mind of Christ the will of God then Bible study is critical for us reading the word explaining the word applying the word is the duty of every believer in first Timothy Paul says be diligent to be approved of God workmen that need not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth that is written to Timothy but Timothy is not the end of that in the church he's the beginning of that he's the model of that I often say even to our people that I'd not only want to teach you what the Bible means by what it says but I want to teach you how I came to that conclusion because you need to be able to come to that conclusion as well in other words it's important in expositional preaching that there is built into your exposition an apologetic element they need to know the process you know the people at Grace Church at this point would trust me to tell them what the Bible means without defending it that they trust me enough that if I said that this means that they'd say okay but but the reason they trust me on that is because I have dragged them so relentlessly through the process of how I came to that conclusion for so many years that they know the process what I demonstrate for them on a Sunday is exactly what I want them to do I want them to read the scripture to come to grips with the words the phrases the grammar the definitions I want them to go to their concordance and other resources and find cross references that enrich and explain and enhance and embellish I want them to find that passages in scripture that illustrate this truth I want them to know that if these are the various options this is why this one can't be right and this is why this one is the the option of choice I want them to be in the process because I want them to learn to study the Bible for themselves if all I ever do is tell stories and pontificate come up with things that are some kind of ingenious expressions of my own cleverness they are completely without an example of what it means to do what they need to be doing and that is studying the Word of God the people who sit under exposition will reproduce the approach to scripture that they see modeled in front of them if you send your little children to the third-grade class on a Sunday morning someone will explain the meaning of the Bible to them if you send your kids to the junior high department Kelly Wright will get up and do an exposition of Scripture if they go to the high school department and hear Andrew they will have the bible expositor to them if they go to the crossroads ministry with the college department and Austin stands up he will explain the Word of God to them because this is what we are teaching them to do it's not about oratory and cleverness it's about modeling and demonstrating how to study the Bible truthfully they need it sanctifying influence in their lives on a daily basis agreed you can't expect them to wait from Sunday to Sunday to Sunday to Sunday at the same time when you explain the Bible in its depth and richness you build their confidence in the Word of God you also you you give them you give them I use the word in it and maybe it's not the best words but you give them and actually a transcendent spiritual experience in the word people are sitting in church and and you're teaching the Word of God and it's coming to life and they're seeing it and understanding it and rejoicing in it and they that there's the joy of it Sunday a girl come up to me a young girl after just going through the book of Esther Sunday night tears running her cheeks and she put her or a hand on my on my arm and she said I don't even have words to thank you for the experience that I've just had in my heart through the book of Esther she was just overwhelmed with joy in the fact that she could trust that God was ordering providentially every detail of her life I don't even know what the details were I don't know what they were but she knew that the word had turned her sorrow to joy and she also knows that she can go to the Word of God herself she can go back to the book of Esther she can read that and renew that same joy you're teaching people how they can do that in their own lives with the Bible in front of them that is of course the compelling reason why back in 1996 we produced the MacArthur Study Bible so that people could read their Bible and understand their Bible because of what it does in their own lives people never learn to study the Bible effectively unless they see it modeled for them and let me tell you something as an author there is no end to the demand from publishers for soundbite books I could literally produce a dozen books a year I could produce one every month and publish a little lineup for little bits little pieces of devotional data that don't take more than 90 seconds there's no end to that stuff in fact if I don't write them they'll they'll they're like piranhas they'll attack something I have written and turn it into that and I'll be sitting at home in some box I'll come to my house and it's a new devotional book by me that I didn't even write I even write it what is this where did this come from there's no end to the the the little sound bite think lightly kind of approach that's that's kind of the spirit of the age I guess in some ways you know you you say okay it's kind of a starter approach but it's it's worrisome and it's bothersome to me people need to learn to study the Word of God carefully and thoughtfully and you're gonna be the person who models that for them and they're gonna see the product of that the joy the blessing the conviction the soul-searching the worship all that comes all the good that comes when the Spirit of God quickens the heart in response to the truth so you are the model of how to handle the Word of God you are the model student of the Bible in a sense I might say this you model how they are to handle the Word of God you you you model what they will do in a devotional sense by what you do even in your pulpit and that's why as I was saying earlier there need there needs to be a sense in which you display the process you don't want to get caught up in you know rambling on about Greek and Hebrew and all the technical things you can make references to them when it's important or helpful or when it demonstrates you've done your homework occasionally and when it makes sense but more importantly they will learn how to study the Bible from you let me give you a second thing and it's on this same point until they do that they will be incapable of teaching it until they learn how to study it they will be incapable of teaching it so let me tell you something the greatest dearth in the contemporary churches in our time is the utter absence of Bible teachers you go to the typical church megachurch seeker-friendly Church whatever kind of church emerging church evangelical cool rock and roll Church with a rock and roll pastor and you won't find Bible teachers when I grew up there were always there were always men in the church with dog-eared Bibles remember Steve they were the Bible teachers in the church they many of them had a hobby horse might have been prophecy might have been some something in the Old Testament they were the Bible teachers in the church they loved the Word of God they learned to teach the Word of God from the way their pastors taught them and you had a force of people teaching the scripture and adults went to the Sunday School classes and and these men who loved the Word of God and had learned to study the Word of God and teach the Word of God where the lay people who were the Bible teachers in the church you can't find that now you can't you can't find those people because what's going on upfront it's theatrical and even the preaching is some kind of theater in so many cases you can't produce Bible teachers in that what produces Bible teachers is people know how to study the Word of God whose hearts get on fire and they want to proclaim it and they want to use it and if you look at Grace Church what you see is this is just a mass of people who want to teach the Bible that's why you're here the seminary is nothing but a but but but a part of Grace Community Church you're here you're right in Grace Community Church right now you're you're you're locked down in the middle of Grace Community Church you're surrounded by people who know how to study the Bible who want to teach the Bible and they teach it in prisons and classes and home Bible studies and and and they go to old age homes even they do whatever they can they teach Sunday School classes youth groups there's a proliferation of people who teach the Bob and that all comes back to what you do in the pulpit if you if you make the Word of God alive in the pulpit and if you have a dynamic teaching ministry you're teaching them how to teach and when they learn how to teach guess what they're going to want a class and that allows you to expand the impact of the teaching of the word of God okay let's go to number nine the failure to do expositional preaching prevents the preacher from being the voice of God on every issue of his time you know as Jeremiah eight nine they have rejected the word of the Lord so what kind of wisdom do they have remember that if you know your Bible you can be the voice of God on every issue you know I lived this for many years when I used to be on Larry King any of you ever see any of those things on Larry King I lived this and I sat there with ministers sometimes evangelical ministers who didn't know enough about the Bible to even answer the current issues that we were talking about I want to speak on the issues I'm waiting for somebody else to give me an audience I'm ready I'm ready to talk about gay marriage that's an oxymoron as Steve says like postal service and army intelligence gay marriage that's an oxymoron that's not marriage I'm ready I'm ready to speak on any issue on any issue that the culture faces I can give a biblical perspective how important is that to be ready to give to every man an answer for the hope that is within you you need to be a biblical expert and you can't get that by looking up illustrations in an illustration book you want to be able to address every issue it all started for me when 9/11 hit and Larry King called me he said what's the main lesson of that and I said you're gonna die you don't a win that's right where did I get that Luke 13 tower fell on a bunch of people and they died and and they said to Jesus why did this happen and Jesus says you better repent or you're also going to perish I just took his message you're gonna die and you're not in charge of win you better be ready and then he asked me the second question what about the little baby in there what happened that baby instant heaven instant heaven I had worked through that issue of the death of a child and wrote a little book called safe in the arms of God to articulate that conviction in my heart you know that makes you a valuable spokesman for the truth and it takes time and effort to come to grips with those kinds of issues you need to be ready if anybody does you do you know I cringe of course when I hear them interview certainty who claimed to be ministers and and give the wrong answer to all the questions it's just sad what's really sad is the representatives of Christianity are not real true pastors say anything of Bible teachers these popular sort of transcendent figures in the evangelical world made transcendent by media exposure are the last people that ought to be articulating things on behalf of Christianity you can start with people like Charles Colson who got us in horrendous trouble confusing everybody about whether Catholicism and Protestant Christianity were we're not the same thing in the ECT issue and that's just one illustration so you want to be sure that you're the voice of God in every issue of your time and there are many that come down the line you need to have thought them through very very well there's a guy came up to me Sunday in our church and he said I'm having regular conversations with Vincent Bugliosi who wrote the book on the Manson murders he was the DA in LA when that happened and he's having some serious problems believing in God he's actually written a book on atheism Billy oh she has and this man in our church has been talking to him a lot and he said his big problem is evil his big problem is if there's God why does Manson exist and why do these things happen and based on that he's asking questions about God Minoo it's the old conundrum if God is all-powerful why didn't he stop it if he's not all-powerful and can't stop it then we have to redefine what it means to be God either he's impotent it can't stop it or he's indifferent and chooses not to stop it that that particular dilemma is a very widespread one in our culture how do you answer that where do you go to answer that this transcends your week to week exposition but it but your week to week exposition of scripture will yield a coherent study of that so I said well what did you tell him he said I I listened to the message you gave on why evil why God allows evil in the world and I put that all together in the printed form and I gave it to him well that's a resource you know we have to be we have to be able to target in on these compelling questions and this again is adult church big boy church not little kid church not superficiality not just waltz and people along with their emotions you need to be able to be the voice of God in every issue in your time and then wait till God gives you opportunity to express that truth all right number 10 number 10 a failure to do expositional preaching breeds a congregation as weak and indifferent to the glory of God listen to this as the preacher is if you don't do expositional preaching if you don't give your people the eternal powerful Word of God you breed a congregation that is weak and indifferent to the glory of God the honor of God the honor of Christ another way to say that was you diminish their adoration you diminish their love you diminish their affection you redirect people away from the glory of God away from the glory of Christ away from even the glory of the Spirit away from the majesty of Scripture and that it would be the last thing you would want to do right I mean wouldn't you wouldn't you wouldn't you want at the end of everything so ledee aglow riah just finished editing an introduction of a new book on the Holy Spirit I did a series on the abuse of the Holy Spirit and it's gonna be a book and it's gonna be finished at least out of my hands by January and it is going to be the latest attack on the false Church of the charismatic movement and the premise behind the whole thing is an intolerance of the massive abuse of the Holy Spirit that has gone on some of you may have been here when I gave that serious but the premise of the series is this in the in the Matthew chapter 12 Jesus accused the Pharisees of attributing to Satan the work of the Spirit remember that okay what the modern charismatic movement has done is a tribute to the Spirit the work of Satan it just flipped that and I made the point in the series that it is amazing to me that if anybody attacks the father the evangelical world rises up in in protest you know when somebody writes a book that calls God into question like the openness theology then everybody jumps on the bandwagon the Gospel Coalition rises people start writing books to defend the the omniscience of God against the the attack of these people who diminish the glory of God anybody touches Christ anybody attacks the deity of Christ we go after them anybody attacks the gospel we create organizations together for the gospel the Gospel Coalition on and on and on all the reformed guys that are out there defending the Son of God and his cross work and I asked the question where's the defense of the Holy Spirit where is that he is being monstrously abused in the charismatic movement the work of Satan is being attributed to him Benny Hinn is a false teacher Trinity Broadcasting is a haven of false teachers and if you think it's bad here you ought to go to Africa or Latin America the misrepresentations of the Holy Spirit are wholesale across the planet and they're getting away with murderous blasphemies against the Holy Spirit so I just fired all that out in about 13 weeks I felt a lot better and I'm just saying where where where is the outrage come on so I ended the introduction by saying ok all you reformed guys why don't you act like Reformers and why don't you demonstrate the same outrage against heresy and the dishonor of God that the Reformers would have and I ended it sola deo gloria so I will see if they react I mean how can you sit and let the misrepresentation the abuse the blasphemy the grieving the quenching the mocking of the Holy Spirit with this horrible stuff false miracles false doctrine false Gospels how can you not be literally overwhelmed with rage with holy indignation zeal for your house has eaten me up but the reproaches that fall on you have fallen on me so you know what it did it act you know my people know this but that's that just activates that just activates me in a great way you know I wrote the charismatic s' then I wrote charismatic chaos and I've tried to deal with that through the years and and when I reach a point where I'm boiling another book comes and so that's this book by the way we haven't thought of a title yet I've got one they won't use plucking the dove but but if any if any of you come up with a good title along the line of blaspheming the Holy Spirit the introduction itself is is very very strong but I'm only using that as an illustration man look I am driven to the defense of the glory of God right and the glory of Christ and the glory of the Spirit and that rises out of what I understand to be the truth of Holy Scripture bad theology dishonours God false doctrine heresy the false church rampant false church false claims false miracles all of this falling over screaming barking like dogs laughing collapsing in a heap all of this is not of the Holy Spirit you know that but where's the outrage we're afraid to offend somebody we even backed into a corner and the name of tolerance I want a congregation that is not indifferent to the glory of God I want a congregation that is not weak in its understanding of doctrine otherwise it can't protect itself and what amazes me is that these people flourish and become filthy rich because people send them money if they just didn't send them any money they'd all go away but Satan makes them successful number 11 another important consideration with regard to expository preaching on the negative side failure to do it robs people of their only true source of help their only true source of help and maybe you could just you know camp on second Timothy three all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for and he goes through those things and then says that the man of God may be complete whole mature perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works that's a technical title man of God used only twice in the New Testament both times of Timothy used about 70 times in the Old Testament and always to speak of a prophet or one who spoke for God so admittedly the Word of God perfects the man of God that's that's us the Word of God perfects the man of God it thoroughly furnishes us for all good works what that means is that again it's it's building on the point that the word is the source of sanctification the Spirit uses when you give your people the exposition of scripture when you give them the Word of God you give them their true source of help their true source of help they cannot be dependent on you they cannot be dependent on your cleverness your insights they have to be able to go to the Word of God for themselves that is essential to them living the Christian life and getting the help they need you want to make them so familiar with the Word of God that they know where to go to find the help they need when they need it another way to say that would be this if you don't give them the Word of God then you lie to them about what they really need I was listening last night to ed young sitting on his bed with his wife in his church and some kind of thing called sex pyramid talking about sex and marriage and giving a long litany and I don't know how long this went on but I know they were sitting on their bed on the roof of the church for 24 hours then they brought the bed inside is nonsense they were talking about marriage and how to have a successful marriage and it was utterly inane utterly indifferent to Holy Scripture it was this ridiculous ludicrous sophomoric banter between the two of them that provided no one any help at all it was superficial it was manipulative it was dealing with superficial behaviors that's never going to make a marriage successful never the depth and the truth of the word of God and it's sanctifying work on the soul is what people really need because until you are who you need to be before God you'll never be who you need to be before your spouse the exposition of the word of God the exposition of the word of God gives people their only source of true help and a failure to do that lies to them about what they really need it lies to them about what they really need let me see this might be a good place to just stop for a minute and ask if you have any questions because I'm gonna have to kind of reorganize this if I do some more tomorrow are we okay everybody up to speed any not extraneous questions but anything it's not clear okay all right let's go to another one this would be number 12 okay because I'm combining a few just for the sake of time a failure to do expositional preaching puts the responsibility on the preacher to change people puts the responsibility on the preacher to change people and I believe that there many if not most preachers feel they sort of have the burden to do that I would I would be in a mental institution if I believe that people's eternal destiny depended on me I really would that's way too much for me to handle I'm I am I am a Calvinist because that's a defensive posture I don't want to be responsible for people's eternal destinies I'm not I'm not capable of bearing that burden on my back unfortunately I don't have to I can't even imagine being a pastor who does how could you even live with that I've been asked through the years does it bother you when people don't respond to the message and I've often said look I'm not in responsible for the response I'm only responsible for the message I can only bear so much weight being a pastor is a burden it's an immense burden it's sometimes a joyous burden and sometimes a very painful burden you know I the shortcomings the longer you're in one place the more they accumulate surviving as long as I have in one church is really a testimony to the grace of God because I have failed on so many occasions in so many ways in so many people's lives that it's a wonder that I'm still here they help maybe to be sensitive to a death or an agonizing issue in a family or a wayward child or who knows what saying an insensitive word being distracted when somebody's telling me a painful story and I'm looking somewhere else because somebody else is coming after me and I demonstrate indifference and you know there's a litany of all those kinds of things so the there's there's weakness to be manifest and the longer you're there the more of it is manifest nobody no nobody thinks I'm waiting for the first vacancy in the Trinity not around here maybe out of town not around here I'm just an instrument I think they understand that I'm just the the one the Lord has called to this responsibility my responsibility is fully discharged in doing what I can to be an example and being faithful to proclaim the truth of the word of God at that point my responsibility ends and I think when you're preaching that's you have to understand that I don't need to have the organ play and saying 14 verses of just as I am I don't need to find clever mechanisms to get people to react rick warren said in The Purpose Driven Church that if he could if he could touch a person's felt need he can lead anyone to Christ really I can't lead anyone to Christ that's the work of the Holy Spirit and it's the work that he does through the word you can throw in all of the mechanisms that you want into your preaching but they don't do the work you can't bear that responsibility but if you take the scripture out and it's just your stick and your cleverness and your theater and your personality and you have taken on yourself a useless burden a useless responsibility that you can't possibly discharge say it another way you need to be offensive when you preach and you have to face that the reason people set the Bible aside and the hard teachings of Scripture for the sort of mellow sentimentalism that you hear from the contemporary preacher so often is because they don't want to offend anybody and I go back to the classic illustration of Luke 4 where Jesus goes back to Nazareth and he has ministered already in in the South in Judea for a year so and then he's come up and ministered in Capernaum and now he goes back to his hometown in Nazareth and the word has come back that that this hometown boy has as set the country on fire in the south and even in Capernaum where he preached and did miracles he comes back to Nazareth he goes back to the the synagogue he grew up in right everybody there would have known him people were not mobile in those days they stayed in their towns now there's Nazareth there was a very small provincial little town in and out of the way part of Galilee on the north middle class to say the least he went back his friends relatives Kotel relatives neighbors would have all been in that synagogue they knew him they grew up with him they would never have known anything bad about him because there was nothing bad to know and it must have been some talk in the town that he was different than every other child because he was there until he was thirty in a small town he went back to his synagogue and this wonderful child this perfect child this sinless child went back to the people that knew him best and he stood up in the synagogue to preach and you remember what he said he basically gave a sermon out of Isaiah 61 that he said the Messiah is here I'm here to open blind eyes to set the captives free deliver the oppressed all of that the poor are the prisoners the blind and oppressed now going to hear the good news salvation had come and he preaches this sermon and the sermon is not a positive sermon he in Deitz the the people in the synagogue and he says you're you're so bad you're like your forefathers in the past God had to ignore them and go save a border terrorists God had to ignore them and go provide for a widow who was in a BHEL worshiping town because he couldn't do anything among you because you're so apostate you're just exactly the same as your forefathers and so the good news of the gospel to the poor prisoners blind and oppressed you will not receive because you just like your forefathers and you remember how that it ended they try to do what throwing off a cliff kill him so if there'd have been a newspaper in Nazareth would have said the next day hometown boy escapes mob violence you know this is this is the true responsibility of the preacher to proclaim the truth you're not going to bear the responsibility before God of their response but you are going to bear the responsibility of the accuracy of the message sometimes the question comes up are you worried about what non-believers think about what you say no never are you concerned to be so blunt and so bold and so confrontive when you know unbelievers are there how about when you know there are many Catholics in your church and because this is there's a lot of Hispanics and Asians here who come from Catholic backgrounds does it bother you that what you say about Roman Catholicism may offend them absolutely not you have Jewish people have come this this is a Jewish area the synagogue is right out the door here does it bother you when people come that you talk about the Jews rejecting their Messiah executing their Messiah and being currently under divine judgment does it bother you that there might be Jews there hearing that absolutely not because my goal has nothing to do with saying something they want to hear right doesn't thing to do with that all I'm trying to do is take the Word of God and make it clear what it says and if they are the ones devastatingly confronted by that so be it you know you start with norman vincent peale the progeny then goes to from norman vincent peale to robert schuller and and then the the primary the most well known student of robert schuller is rick warren and in between you can throw Bill Hybels and they're all trying to do the same thing they're trying to avoid offending people and in avoiding the offense they become responsible for failing to preach the truth and in the end avoiding the fent the offense doesn't achieve their ends because it is an illusion that you are the reason that someone is saved because of how you cast the message so you proclaim that the Word of God and that puts the responsibility where it belongs on God to do his work in the heart thirteen with that work failure to do expositional preaching reduces the preachers words to the level of everybody else's words if it isn't this is the Word of God God has said then the audience could pick and choose then how do you separate yourself from everybody else here is another voice you understand what I'm driving at you may come up with a clever way that you think you can articulate your message but if it's not this is the Word of God then you are reduced to the level of everyone else who has an opinion an idea a viewpoint a theory a religious insight a perspective that is so rampant in this culture that across the board in quote-unquote evangelicalism people are unwilling to distinguish between theological and religious viewpoints embrace the Catholics race the Mormons let's not argue over doctrine everybody has his own approach you got your truth I got my truth as soon as you're not saying this is the Word of God you're just another voice you're just another person on parade for people to pick from so what are they gonna use as the criteria to make their choice oh they like you or the music school or the lighting is really cool or you don't offend them or they feel good I'll tell you one thing I don't want my words reduced to the words of everybody else because you happen to be living in a time when opinions are more ubiquitous than they've ever been unimaginably so in the history of the world right you go to the internet and the opinions in it's it's got to be a cacophony that sickens the mind of God you cannot just be another voice you cannot be you just can't be you you've got to be the voice of God and it won't be popular with the other voices it won't be Benny Hinn got on television one night was talking about me and he said if I had my way I'd take my Holy Ghost machine gun and blow his brains out great I got the right enemies really that that's a pretty aggressive approach to somebody with a differing view I don't want to be just another voice I don't want to be one voice among many voices and people can pick and choose by what appeals to them you don't ever want to reduce yourself to that it's just you don't want to you don't want to be in a popularity contest okay I think I'll give you one more and then maybe maybe we'll have time for two a failure to do expositional preaching portrays an attitude of self-love rather than loving the Lord with all your heart soul mind and strength if we trace an attitude of self-love rather than loving the Lord with all your heart soul mind and strength can I say it another way whatever you love most will dominate your life and whatever you love most will dominate your ministry I don't want to walk in the pulpit and say you know the other day I was thinking I want to walk in the Pope and say open your Bible it's that simple the failure to let the Word of God speak portrays an attitude of self-love rather than loving the Lord with all your heart whatever you love the most dominates your life whoever you love the most dominates your life and thus your preaching is biblical and Christ centered one more this this is a an obvious one but I think it's an important one for you to jot down failure to do expositional preaching creates a destructive disconnect between sound doctrine and life another way to say that life imitates theology life imitates theology you live what you believe you live what you believe most controlling element of your life is your belief system now let me break that out a little bit when we talk about theology there are several elements to that first there is knowledge I'm first of all it all begins with knowledge and when I'm talking about theology I'm talking about divine truth divine truth in any category any aspect revealed in Scripture any category of theology it starts with knowledge a very important knowledge cognition to know the truth so your task is to proclaim the true so you people know it that's where it starts we call it I guess you'd call it cognition you you know the truth but that's not the end that's just the beginning the next step would be to believe the truth you can tell people this is the truth Jesus is God the Trinity is three-in-one one person yet three that they can know that they can hear that that's that's where it starts but then it has to go from cognition to conviction okay I believe that I believe that and and that that is an effort of the repeated instruction that comes from the scripture line upon line precept upon precept layer on layer text on text passage on passage as the months and years go by what they know it becomes what they believe and what they believe becomes a conviction and that's that's really where people live their lives within the framework of their convictions not perfectly because Paul says I don't do what I want to do and I do what I don't want to do but nonetheless the tendency and the direction of his life if not the perfection of his life is in the area of his convictions so what you're trying to do is give people knowledge that produces convictions convictions about life how you live life and there's where I say life always imitates theology you can you hear a person in the world being interviewed about a homosexual relationship and they're thrilled they're happy they're open they're flagrant because they don't have any conviction that that's wrong if you can have people talk about their morality immorality celebrate their immorality because they don't have any conviction we have a culture whose sense of morality is in complete chaos because the truth about life and morality is continually assaulted and overturned and reversed oh like Isaiah 5 they they substitute sweet for bitter light for dark everything is flipped the most outrageous person is the person who doesn't tolerate homosexuality the most normal person is the person who is happy to have a child who is a homosexual so everything gets flipped and reversed and people live out their set of convictions why do you think a Muslim terrorist straps a bomb to himself and goes into a shopping center somewhere and blows up everybody in in the place because that is a conviction that I'm going to end up you know on a bunch of green pillows with 72 virgins having celestial sex forever that's what drives that it's a conviction it's a belief the other hand if I believe that God is honored and glorified and I will be blessed and rewarded in heaven to behave in a way that is godly then that conviction drives what I do but it doesn't even end there what you're working for is cognition and understanding of a truth belief which is the conviction of that truth but ultimately you're going for affection you're going for affection to love that truth and that's the long process if pastoral ministry kind of starts with information then becomes conviction and eventually becomes affection david says oh how i what i love your law and when you read like we were Sunday through psalm 119 he see the word love delight affection desire satisfaction I've lived that I've lived from knowledge to affection through conviction and that's what John writes about in 1st John 2 when he talks about spiritual children who know the father sort of like dad dad that's all they know that's just basic they they can still be tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine they know the Father and then he talks about spiritual young men who have overcome the wicked one have past tense already overcome the wicked one how could that be true because they are strong in the word and have overcome the wicked one who disguises himself as an angel of light Satan's operations 99% of the time are in false doctrine and error and deception and lies and a spiritual young man is someone who has not only basic knowledge but strong conviction but a spiritual father is one who knows him who is from the beginning and the word know has all the intimacy of of Cain knew his wife and she bore a son it's the intimate knowledge my sheep hear my voice and I know them that's that that's the affection part and and what you're doing in your ministry as you continually unfold the truth of the word of God is you're making this connection between life and theology your this theology that you're teaching them out of the Word of God is inseparable from life because it becomes their deposit of knowledge it becomes the source of their conviction and the object of their affection and you you you want a congregation that can say what David said I love your law I love your law or some nineteen it's more precious to me than gold yes than much fine gold sweeter also than honey in the honeycomb right and I find from a personal standpoint that I can't really separate between loving the truth of God written and loving the truth of God incarnate I don't when I talk about loving Christ the only Christ I know to love is the Christ revealed in Scripture and I love him not for some incidents in his life but I love him for his person and his work which then ties that love completely to the revelation of both of those things and on the pages of Holy Scripture when I was going through Isaiah 53 it was kind of a unique experience for our church I'd preached on it sometime sometimes to the years but never with much depth but ten times through it it was it was such a euphoric experience of affection because I was reimbursing all these great truths just one thing that you might file somewhere in your mind for future use the clearest the clearest presentation of the meaning of the death of Christ is not in the New Testament the clearest presentation of the meaning of the death of Christ is in Isaiah it's the first gospel that's amazing and I found that because I was so fully informed with the New Testament I thought now this is this going to be a repeat version I was absolutely astonished at the elements that were presented in the in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and it be it becomes for me boiling over of my love for Christ that's bound up in who he is and what he has done so if you're going to teach your people the Word of God you will give them knowledge you will help them develop convictions as they embrace and believe that knowledge and eventually you will lead them to the mature position which is affection from spiritual children to spiritually young men to spiritual adults that's why we go back to where we started we do adult church we have a deep affection for divine truth even its subtleties even the deep things that escape the superficial that's part of our conviction and that's part of our affection

Channel: The Master's Seminary

Views: 62,679

Rating: 4.8774886 out of 5

Keywords: John F. MacArthur (Author), expository preaching, The Master's Seminary

Id: DBFjv1I7rKM

Length: 59min 52sec (3592 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 21 2012