Thinking Biblically About Social Justice (Panel Q&A)

all right thanks for being here i-i've been asked to moderate this and nobody gave me any guidelines or limitations so that's a harbinger of trouble as you know I'm going to start with two innocuous questions and then I want to get into some controversial stuff so let me ask the two innocuous questions of each of you and just ask you not to filibuster because we need time for the controversial stuff so all right yesterday John you said that humility is the key to enduring faithfulness and then dr. Ferguson said likewise that the two sins that undermine faithfulness and and cause more ministerial downfall than anything else are laziness and pride so you both agree that humility is is vital and watching you John for thirty six thirty seven years I would say discipline is also one of the secrets of your of your longevity and so here we have a panel of some of the most disciplined productive prolific non slothful panel and so let me ask each of you two questions and you can you can answer them it will start with mark and just go that way okay first what's the secret to being disciplined in your time management and second in light of the influence that you have and the fact that so many people listen to you how do you resist the temptation to pride I don't think I have any listen about a secret on discipline I mean I'm I'm rigorous on the first thing every morning and my entire life is reading the Bible and praying I just does not shift everything else pretty much shifts when did you start that habit pretty much after I was converted as a teenager and man it just you know and as far as pride you know that's the kind of question people who are far away from you ask and look at you sitting on a stage answering questions I don't think there's a member of our pastoral staff at church and say hey Mark why are you not like swollen with pride because I mean they see all the stuff I'm dealing with all the time they see how imperfectly I deal with it they know that challenge is at church that I don't know the answer to they know the the difficult to email I got this morning and the difficult email I'm not sure what do we do with this person so it's I think in you know okay so what would cause me to be more prideful personally I would tend to value too much positive comments from these brothers so if it's Phil or League or Al or Sinclair or John I say something sweet to me I could chew on it like a dog on a bun we can fix that thank you brother but you know that that would be that would be more a live temptation I think for my soul Phil I've always wanted to be more disciplined I do think that in pastoral ministry I had to learn early on just to survive what had to be done and what I didn't have the capacity to do and so I tell people the first thing that I asked myself when I start the day is you know what am I going to ignore and and so deciding what you don't have time for and that you must ignore not that there aren't worthy things to do in that list is really important for a pastor and I I always have tried to make sure that it's my it's my local pastoral work that's the most important thing not not you know platform stuff and things of that nature but the local pastoral work is most important with regard to humility we were talking back in the room before we came in the Lord knows my heart and and he knows my need to be humbled and he has very effective ways that he has not very serious about it you know he has very effective ways of getting at me and I take that as an indication of his love for me that I I really one of the things I've loved over the years is that my congregation actually most of them have no idea what I do outside of the congregation I came back from a t4g on one occasion and was delighted to know that a congregation member that was having a conversation with had no idea what t4g was that was I was not a big deal because I had spoken it before chief and so and I loved that my all my congregation knows I get up on Sundays and I preach God's Word and so that's a wonderfully settling kind of thing just one question about what you said earlier that you you get up and decide what to ignore are you like me and you lean to ignoring the odious tasks and doing the ones that are more pleasant or that that's really good no I I have because I do not relish and enjoy conflict I know that sometimes my pastoral duties in going towards conflict especially in local church work and in relational work where I am NOT gonna be the hero is really important for me to do so there there times when I sit down with a family and I know that no matter what I say either one or the other or both of them are not going to like me when that conversation is over with but I know I've got to have it because I'm their pastor and I'm the only one who can have that conversation with them and so I try to make sure that it's not that kind of thing that I'm slip you know sort of shoving off into the don't have time for it category right I've heard John say frequently that he does the most difficult tasks first and then everything else seems lazy i am i think the most disciplined person i know and and the most effective and i have no problem with pride i i look down upon the rest of humanity and pity hey I listen to you every morning on the briefing I know how true that is [Applause] No thank you for the question I I will tell you that I my life is multiphasic multi-dimensional all of our lives are and the one thing I just want to tell people young guys ask me this all the time I just want to say I I can honestly say that almost no day of my life has gone as I planned when you are a pastor or your CEO or president and an organization of any size nothing goes the way I mean I'm here on schedule at this event but my entire the hours preceding this nothing went basically as I had planned so I've had to figure out how to make things happen when there is no scheduled time for it so I mean thankfully I was driven from the hotel here I was working on the briefing the whole time you know just in the that I was waiting in the you know - working on it until the very last minute to get in the car and work on it there I think an awful lot of ministries going to be that way you have to have given what we do especially in the preaching of God's Word you've got to have serious protected time but that might not come as you are strategic it might come as you're desperate and you just have to make it happen and then you just have to decide what am I not going to do that otherwise looks important and and not do it humility I'm gonna talk on Luther in the session that comes following and you know Lutheran pride very interesting thing Luther found it a lot easier to deal with pride once he was married amen to that he found it easier thereafter when he had children he found it easier after that when his children became teenagers and I will simply tell you in life at night Mark said the people around you you know you you can't you cannot afford pride when you are surrounded by people who are intimately involved in your life in your ministry and I think that's a big issue I think we're at where I see I mean prides obviously I agree with Augusta and it's it's it's the FIR sin to be as God and it's always there but we have the correctives of the means of grace we also have the correct is of God's people as they are around us and the close they are closer they are to us the less likely we can if we surround ourselves with sink events then that's a huge problem but then that much of a risk if you hire the right people and surround yourself with the right people one follow-up on the discipline issue I have heard from numerous people that you do a lot of work in the small hours of the morning that you're frequently up at 3:00 a.m. working yes I'm not suggesting that I'm not but that that's what I mean by desperation I mean finally fewer people interrupt me between 11 o'clock at night and 3:00 in the morning that turns out to be important and so I but I don't know I'm not that's the reason I'm a little reluctant to talk about some of these things because it only sounds like prescription which I'm not prescribing it's just in many ways the only way I can get things done that must be done so if we ask you to give typical what a typical day was like you'd say there is no typical day it's just really long and complicated every day but but let me be clear what I do in those late-night hours is the study I need for my soul and for my preaching because I need that uninterrupted and quiet and so you just I just have to make that happen when because that's generally incompatible with the other kinds of job description issues we hold dr. Ferguson thank you for your message by the way yesterday that was really good well us to the first question I am very slothful and I don't believe it no very slothful and it's that that makes discipline such a necessity to me I would I would sink into being a couch potato without it it makes me feel good to hear you say that I just have a hard time believing well it's not my aim in life to make anybody feel good humble maybe but but not feel good so I you know I've struggled with that all of my life but the recognizing I've needed to struggle with it has been a huge help to me because I think it has actually helped me to be productive so so that's one thing has already has been said marriage and family you know that's who you are and where you are you know and nothing is possible to live in a normal family with with a faithful wife and children and be strutting around cuz you're you know you're you're you're just this woman's husband and these children's dad and I think that also you know and being and meshed in the life of a congregation that they you know what what helps you is that they as dr. MacArthur was saying the other day they love you because of the office that you have and another thing that I think you know I think has been a help to me is when I learned that I was the person who most of all was sitting under my own preaching and that that was the explanation why God kept telling me through my preaching you are really making a complete jawbone of this and it's only by my grace the anything is being fed to these people and that that's been a huge that was really an amazing moment of insight to me when I learned that that this ministry would would keep me down and that that was the explanation of much of the emotional experience I would go through before during and after like the message yesterday was a nightmare for me to prepare for all kinds of reasons it just was and I don't often find this but it was just so difficult for me but eventually you learn hey this isn't this is not just about them this is about you in order that it may be for them and so I personally I've found actually being called to the gospel ministry recognizing that if you are a minister of the gospel you live within concentric spheres of responsibility and that as you understand as well the values of those responsibilities things do begin to fit into place and then one of the things I think probably you learn to do is to is to redeem the intermittent blocks of time to become more and more creative in them and I think you know as all we're saying I think you know all of us have got to learn to do that in terms of how we ourselves are wired and you couldn't you couldn't prescribe yourself or anybody else are you able to do that when you're writing like redeem those little blocks of time because my experience writing requires you to set everything else aside for long periods yeah I have a very short attention span especially about my own writing so I work in everything in bursts what concern and preparation and bursts when I was in the church and maybe preaching you know four or five messages a week I would begin the week with four or five pads and if I wasn't getting anywhere in half an hour I would go on to something else but I wouldn't prescribe that to anybody else it's just the it's just what I realized worked for the way in which I was wild John I appreciate everything you all have said I don't think about self discipline ever I don't say to myself you need to do this you've got to get up out of your chair and go do this and I don't say Oh tomorrow I've got to do this that I don't even think about self-disciplined everything for me is just to have it and habits have just taken over my life so that they're almost unconscious nothing is difficult in in this inning the task may be difficult but getting at it is not it's just the most natural thing for me to do what I've done for so many years and what I know I need to do so I think it might be encouraging because some of us all of us including myself would feel like we don't have we haven't mastered the art of self-discipline but you you would you would find it almost impossible to live your entire life if you had to fight for self-discipline every day but what happens is as you begin in your ministry you set habits if they're good habits you'll spend your whole life benefitting if their bad habits you'll spend your whole life trying to get out of them so it's critical when you're young in ministry to establish good habits and one of the habits of that I determined that I would establish when I first came to Grace Church was to spend you know 25 to 30 hours a week in sermon preparation and that I did that for six months and I've done it it's on autopilot it's what I do it's not a fight to do that it would be a fight not to do it and I wouldn't I don't I don't like empty space in my life feeling unproductive but we all have the tent well may we all need to break down a little bit and relax but I I'm in the habit of being as productive as I can and even if I'm not doing a task I'm reading to front-load myself for what's coming down the road so I'm never away from the the groove as far as the humility issue goes it is it is a horrendous iniquity to be proud Lord hates a proud heart so you you have to win the battle with pride in your heart you that that is that is a that is a sin of the heart that won't stay contained you know it'll conceive in the heart but eventually lead to death so you have to win that battle on the in the inside PN as the men have said family makes a huge contribution to that especially if you're a preacher because my wife thinks I should live everything I say all the time there's the woman has no mercy right you get it and my kids and the people close to me expectations of the people you love are wonderful they they force you into reality and and as far as being a pastor goes you I've lived with 50 years of my shortcomings staring me in the face for half a century the failures are there as well so being a pastor of a church over a long period of time is living in reality I mean it's reality I'm not leaving town to go talk to faceless nameless people they're all around me so I think the congregation confronts you with your strengths and your weaknesses as well and but I think it's just a it's a sin that has to be dealt with and it's dealt with by the word and the power of the Spirit and humbling your heart before the Lord all right so let me ask some more difficult questions you all have been friends for longer than two decades and there haven't in those years been very many things that you've disagreed on publicly but now there is with the social justice issue and so I wanted to ask some questions about that and let me start with you out because you've said something that I've thought of often I think it's a it's a really good insight and that is that sort of the leftward drift the liberalizing drift that affects not only politics but theology happens incrementally but any reformation towards the right happens exponentially are you not concerned at all about the liberalizing drift of the social justice movement and all the rhetoric that goes along with that I'm sure you are yeah the only offense I take it that is that I talk about this five times a week for 25 minutes well so let me let me give you my perspective on that because you do you don't take offence but you I do listen to you every morning you have opinions on everything in the news but when it comes to the evangelical movement and a social justice issue particularly I'm not talking about you know what happens in the world of politics but I'm talking about what happens among our constituents and the rhetoric that's going on in places like t4g and and the gospel coalition but you have been remarkably silent it's one of those issues where I've only heard you speak on it in to ask anything it sections when people ask you questions like I'm doing right now and yeah I think the pushback is I think that's what my whole life is speaking about and I mean I began I mean all my public ministry began dealing with these questions so I do take a bit of offense not personally but I mean I just I am NOT going to be forced into a Twitter conversation 140 characters about these issues I have been trying to lay out for 30 plus years an understanding of how evangelicals should engage the culture and I mean I cut my teeth apologetically confronting cultural Marxism and I mean the entire network of issues of the left you look at who I invite to my campus you look at who I cite you look at who I platform I feel pretty good about the message that I'm sending there when it comes to concerns about the evangelical left absolutely I I mean I'm I have been quite vocal and anyone who knows the conversations amongst evangelical leadership knows exactly where I am on these issues how best to articulate that concern in this particular moment that's not easy that's not easy and I have tried to help to interpret these issues as clearly and biblically and charitably as I can I'm afraid we're going to lose an enormous number of evangelicals to various kinds of social gospel because that's a lot easier to find satisfaction in than evangelism and and so again I look at look at what I do on my campus look at who I platform look at the issues I write about knowing exactly how to how to help younger evangelicals figure these things out which is actually my job as the seminary president that that's not real easy and I will confess that but I'm trying to be as clear as I can be on this I I mean for years I mean this has been the great concern t4g was largely created out of the concern that there was confusion over what the gospel is right and confusion and and by the way we I will acknowledge to you that that there are clarifications that t4d needs to make with my partner's sitting here and will make I won't get too personal about that but and I also don't want to just pick on you so I'll skip over my next question which was gonna be why I don't mind it yeah okay I just want to respond as honestly as I - but you didn't sign the statement on social justice in the gospel the Dallas statement no you did so let me just ask the three of you how far apart are we on this are we from you are we from each other well let's say let's not make me the focus let's talk about John MacArthur he will suggest an issue you think there would be a difference well that's what I'm asking what I'm asking right so let's take the Dallas the Dallas statement what in the broad statement so I mean pick an issue it's pretty specific but no specific would be about one particular issue you're like one of the points in that stage well or affirmative action I mean that's an example that I often use I mean there's a specific issue you know what I'm just trying to say what would be what would be what's the difference that you're seeing between John yeah let me let me jump in and just say this that I don't think there's any difference theologically with where we all stand when we've we've navigated that together on every possible platform in every situation how how we respond to the culture around us and the pressures that come on us from the culture how we navigate those relationships that face us I get a lot of an email with this Shepards comments coming up I got a lot of heat from people on the internet who I I don't somebody has to show it to me because I don't go there but that that you were gonna be here because you yet you may have expressed yourself differently on the issue of social justice or whatever other issue it might have been that seems to be the buzz button anyway and I said look these are my friends these are men I love these are these are men who serve Christ that give them their life to Him they God has given each of you guys a former will place in the kingdom and you've all had an impact on my life I'll fight error but I don't fight my friends why would I do that I don't want to become an island I mean my enemies have already eliminated me if I get rid of my friends I may have nobody but Phil that would be a sad state of affairs no no actually my question is because you declined to sign the statement what in it would you consider to be wrong well just for me personally I declined to sign almost every statement if you've ever seen me sign a statement there's a story behind that I'm just not a big statement signer guy so I don't I didn't memorize the statement I didn't I did read the statement I read an earlier draft of the statement that I had a number of disagreements with when the final statement came out it was much better I would certainly be in broad sympathy with the statement if their particular sentences in there I don't agree with I don't remember what they are okay I remember al told me one time after a statement you did sign I don't if you remember they shouldn't have I didn't never sign another statement trying to hold fast to that pledge Phil you asked I want to be very honest I go ahead you've known me for a long time so you know of my concerns I am having before God to try to address those concerns the way I think best consistent with 35 years of public ministry so I was not particularly appreciative of being handed a statement so the first question was about pride I don't want this to be pride but I had no opportunity to offer any particular consultation or suggestion it's not pride of authorship but I am just reluctant to sign on to anything that's not creedal and confessional that that doesn't express exactly how I would want to say something not signing should not be interpreted as a rejection of common concern I don't think that's fair I don't think I think you understand that of course would you agree though that over the past three four years there has been a dramatic acceleration of rhetoric about this issue social justice and that historically it has had a very strong liberalizing tendency right I think you got a yes and a yes famille so why wouldn't together for the gospel and the gospel coalition two organizations that were founded in the wake of the emerging church who were using social justice rhetoric themselves to clarify the gospel why wouldn't why wouldn't the stress be to say look we're not trying to add to the gospel here or clarify the fact because there are people some of the most outspoken people on the social justice side who are saying look this is the gospel and one famous author said he didn't really understand the gospel until he was woke that was well I don't know what I want to say the name but millions brothers for the representative of big Eva here I mean you're you're on the board of directors of the gospel coalition fill my concern and we talked about this a little bit in the room behind my concern in this whole discussion is I've watched over the lat if I can give a quick tour of the last 50 years in the in the late 1960s I don't think a lot of us realized it but a reformed awakening was beginning in multiple denominational settings Baptist Presbyterian congregational Bible Church and around the world this man was a part of that he's one of the important streams in that worldwide reformed awakening I think that through I think we began to realize this in the 1980s and 90s we realized that the battle for the Bible had been led by people with big God theology and we suddenly started finding one another and it was like wow there's somebody else that thinks like me and loves these great biblical truths and wants to herald them to the ends of the earth and I think for the for the first 40 or so years of that awakening it was that experience over and over again as we as we saw that extent awakening spreading into remarkable places like having reformed Mennonites I mean Minow Simon's is spinning in his grave right now there are Calvinistic Mennonites and Quakers and you know all sand and all sorts of things like that then I think beginning somewhere around 2010 in a cultural shift in our own City and there are a lot of factors in there I think what we started seeing is a Fisher and it's a denomination it's a generational Fisher especially in terms of how are we going to interface with the culture and how are we going to deal with a culture that is increasingly antagonistic to Bible believing Christianity and we started to see generational differences in how to deal with that now we're all of one part one side of that generational divide one of my concerns in this whole range I mean they're all manner of things that everybody on this platform would rule immediately out of hand as legitimate from a biblical standpoint under the under the broad rubric of social justice you know for instance LGBTQIA rights and affirmation is is conceived broadly as an absolute bedrock commitment of social justice women's roles in the church as well all of us are in lockstep agreement on that and in fact my concern on racial issues is that I do not drive our grandchildren into the arms of the LGBTQIA issue where we're already our younger people don't want to touch that that issue because they know that it immediately marginalizes them so one thing I want to make sure I do is I want to look hard at my own tradition and my own traditions failures with regard to the community of the Saints the image of God in man loving our neighbors and and look hard at where we failed own up to that so that I don't you know you know the argument that's out there the church's failure in LGBTQIA area not to affirm it is just like its failure in the area of slavery and segregation I want to break that argument apart and I want to say slavery in segregation was a failure of biblical fidelity caving into LGBTQIA affirmation is also a failure of biblical fidelity and where I'm standing I'm standing there because I'm standing on the Bible and not because I'm trying to curry the favor of the culture but because I want to tell the church don't seek the favor of the culture and that means you have to say no to the culture where it's wrong and then you can say yes to the culture where it's right not because the culture said it because the word said it and you're not you're not trying to get cultural affirmation either culture if anybody in here who wants cultural affirmation you're going to lose you you can't throw enough over the side of the boat to get the culture to love you get to throw God over the side of the boat to get the culture to love you so please if anybody in here wants the culture to love you you're go ahead and become an atheist now that's not gonna work so what what I want us to do is look rigorously at these issues from a biblical standpoint and I want us to make sure that we make a case for the big God theology that we've been all a part of this movement on for the last 40 years to this next generation which is already wavering on a whole range of culture wouldn't you agree though that that desire to get the culture to love and appreciate us is a pathological cancer on the evangelical movement on big Eva I mean that's I would say perhaps the defining mark of big Eva macine at there Phil I also as as a pastor when I see someone drifting in a dangerous direction I want to use the arguments against them that are the most convincingly piercing as to the actual motivations of their hearts and I actually see several distinct motivations in operation if we simply say the only reason this is a discussion is because of currying the favor of the culture I think we won't be persuasive because I think there there are some people that are genuinely though mistakenly motivated that need to be gotten that in a slightly different way so I certainly even in my own backyard I do look out and I see sometimes oh brother you so want the affirmation of the world what do you all think is the future of this discussion I mean what is the endgame the those Southern Baptists for example have I think at every major convention for the past decade have asked forgiveness for slavery and their stance on it originally how long is this going to continue to be an issue that's at the center of our discussion just to be clear I don't think that's accurate about this other members convention really no not at all when was the first time they 95 okay so for more than 20 years there's more to do and there's a hundred and fifty years before that that what I'm saying does it have to be does that have to be renewed it hasn't ever been renewed okay I mean you're mistaking someone speaking from the microphone of the Southern Baptist Convention for an action to the Southern Baptist Convention any messenger can get up and get to a microphone and say anything okay how long will that continue well until Jesus comes or the Southern Baptist Convention turns off all the microphones that's that's it but I mean there are there are issues so if you if you take the whole social justice issue and realize that poisoned well that comes from which is basically the reduction of everything to structural issues it's a more traditionally Marxist argument that with variant forms that aren't so explicitly Marxist but are based upon the fact that morality is not the central issue but structural issues are the are the central issue if you take that out and biblically let's let's critique social justice then we've got justice and and that's where and there are going to be ongoing discussions that are unavoidable about what biblical justice requires of us and and so I say where's this going I don't think there's any way to avoid a lot of these questions and I don't think any the people who think they're avoiding them are going to avoid them for long one way or another I mean we our answer to social confusion cannot be we're not going to talk about this and especially on an issue like racism I mean I'm confronted with the reality that takes social justice out of it I've got simple justice issues biblical justice issues that are very close to home I've got to deal with sometimes we don't deal with them until they're brought to our attention so that kind of public kind of public airing on various issues is going to continue I think if we are not biblical and honest about the reality of simple straightforward biblical justice issues then then we're going to be seen as incredibly hypocritical when we do stand for a biblical understanding of sexuality and gender and marriage and frankly the exclusivity of the gospel and the ontological Trinity and the inerrancy of Scripture and only is any way to avoid these and that's where again I'm gonna Bank say this is what I've tried to talk about and do in public thinking out loud in public for 35 years and I'll stand on that body I've been thankful there very few things I've had to go back and revise in 35 years is a consistent argument and and by the way you talk about the briefing it's not just about politics I deal deeply in the life of denominations including my own with theological issues with with the entire spectrum of the culture so I intend to keep on doing that but I hope to do so absolutely consistently and absolutely biblically with fidelity and I invite you and all others to interrogate every aspect of my life and show me where I may come short I've been a Christian since the 70s and it seems that there have been major threats to evangelical core convictions that come in waves we had the inerrancy battle there was pragmatism and the seeker sensitive churches the emerging church movement and and several others that I've kind of skipped over what would you see is the looming threats to our shared convictions well I'm trying to say I agree with you about much of what you see is the looming threat but I'm 60 almost my wife is not happy when I'm saying Morty 60 but I'm in my sixtieth year men round up women round down age I mean just in terms of how that works but I have lived long enough to remember that when I came of age as an evangelical this was the same discussion and it was being driven by the evangelical left people like Jim Wallace and Jones earners the sojourners community they're still there yes but the differences they have followed the consistent logic of their own position and they have been pulled I mean they're no longer theologically Orthodox nor any semblance thereof and they've been left behind by the culture well yes yes exactly right yet left enough you know well yeah I think you may need to update yourself on where they are I think they are tragically in many ways they're they're uh need full to the left now they saved a little coalition except as a political coalition to the left but the reality is the same thing is a danger that I see looming and I'm quite concerned about it trying to address that as best I know how the difference is this and I debated Jim Wallace in person the difference is this Jim and others Jim will speak isn't evangelical and but but they don't want to get very specific in theology one distinctive is which is a part of our challenge right now is that there are people who will agree with every point of our theological system who are not seeing the other issues the same way that's requiring a different kind of apologetic argument does that make sense it does it does but I go back to what you said about incremental changes that did promote that sort of liberalizing tendency and and realized that just last year had both the gospel coalition end together for the gospel I was hearing some rhetoric that actually I first heard from Jim Wallace and sojourners 20-30 years ago and so I think what I'm asking you is in fact what I am asking you is do you not see that the evangelical movement even the even our constituency the most conservative end of the evangelical movement is becoming a little more susceptible to that but Phil you've known me for a long time you know the answer to the question is yes but I'm not going to be forced into a situation before thousands of people in which I have to say I'm going to do it your way sorry okay I'm just not and if that's the fellowship amongst us yes would be a good time to find out well let me jump in and just say there's no question about our biblical commitment no question about the fact that we're anchored deep in theology no question about the fact that we want to care for the people who suffer right I mean that that's part of being Christian the confusion comes when people keep identifying other groups of people as those who suffer and where we have all these new people to deal with who don't really suffer but there's a category created for them which makes them a suffering group and we're trying to figure out how do we deal with that I don't have a problem with helping poor people or helping people who suffer dealing with I mean have a lot of experience in in the south I don't have any any problem with the church reaching out in love and lifting up these people but if if they keep creating new groups who are identified as those who are disenfranchised suffering people they put the Evangelical Church in a really odd place because now you've got you've got all the meat to people you've got all the LGBTQ people and who knows what's the transgender people and they keep identifying groups of suffering people and at some point we have to make a biblical stand if say wait a minute and and and you all know that we all know that but I think to the culture and to some more liberal people they think we're stopping short of where our Christian he should take us right we ought to embrace all these groups I can hardly keep up with all of in the new ones that are appearing on the surface so I think for us to find our way to real suffering people dealing with real issues and love them in Christ and care for them and lift them up and maybe provide things for them they haven't had in the past in the name of Jesus Christ is fine but I can't become a victim of every new group that this culture invents for reasons that have very little to do with helping people and have to do with political power [Applause] next question you leave me speechless you want a quick anecdote yeah go ahead I was coming out to California on Thursday and your most well known member of Congress was two rows in front of me and because I was sitting next to a friend of hers she came back and talked with me and Logan a number of times and the first thing she said to me was oh terrible about that Methodist vote last night well I of course was delighted about the Methodist vote last night so what was I to say well I didn't really say anything I just let her keep talking but I did try to do more long-term undermining stuff by giving a copy of Greg Gilbert's book who is Jesus that Logan was reading and he actually had all his under written and everything in there I just took it anyway and Gabe gave it to an another member of Congress who was sitting there who is from your fair state and of your fair party I just general refer to that as the fair party of California you understand it and you know I think she is gonna I pray she reads it and that we can have a more substantial conversation than just a kind of Twitter level exchange I'm without I don't think a lots gonna be sorted out through those kinds of quick exchange and I appreciate your trying to have thoughtful honest conversation here in public and I appreciate that Phil all right let me ask this what gives you let me I'll go down the line each of you can say this as you look at the Evan Jellicle landscape today what gives you the most hope I mean I recall when I became a Christian in 1971 it was very difficult for me to find any Church I lived in Tulsa Oklahoma which was largely charismatic and moderate Southern Baptist it was really hard to find a church in my city where the pastor opened the Bible and preached one of the one of the bright spots on the horizon for me is it's not so hard anymore there are a lot more I think pastors out there young men out there who actually are committed to biblical exposition it's much easier it's by no means easy but much easier than it used to be to find a church where you get biblical exposition a lot of that is owing to the labor of you men and I appreciate that what would you say as you look at the future gives you the most hope about evangelical Christianity well the most hope are the very kinds of things we're talking about at this conference that we've already heard about in the talks that have been given and I'm sure we will if I could just push on your last topic just to give you the controversy you want I think I brothers I think talking about race does not create racism and the more white Christians that learn that the better will be for us honestly look at our own history I think there are I don't know if everybody my age gets that I think the generation behind us all knows dance now are there bad ways you can talk about race of course there are are they're divisive ways you know about race of course there are but it's just a fiction to say that racism doesn't exist exist except for us talking about race and I think expositional preachers who dudes like what ligand did at last year's t4g which I thought was a model of a good way to deal with this biblically not saying that about every message I'm saying about liggins message I think that was an advance and is going to help us in in pronouncing and promoting and preaching the gospel in the generation to come let me ask you something that it's just not to push back but I did it so you could push back all right well these owl was being encyclopedia and favor and I'm gonna be more like you and disagree with the statement I wouldn't disagree with the statement that to talk about race doesn't necessarily inflame racism but but I don't think the the racial situation in our culture has gotten better over the past two decades as opposed to worse I think there's probably more strife right now than there has been in in two years I remember well I I think that is true but I think if I am sitting there because I've got I've got you know a good number of african-american members in my congregation that I listen to and when I listen to their stories they perceive and advance in the culture at large as understanding of what they have faced and are facing and I think that's good that's also that's also honest as opposed to the dishonest idea that everybody's a racist and we're all being oppressed and again you're back to the same thing we want to deal with reality and we want to speak to reality and love that person that understands that without buying into all the power grabs that are coming you know that are unrealistic and that's that's that line and that's why Al is saying you know you can speak about it all the time but you're always walking that fine line between dealing with the people who need to be loved and cared for and the people are trying to gain power by creating something that doesn't exist so John a very practical pastoral example when when I was talking to one family in our church and they were explaining to me what it was like for their their african-american for their two sons to get their drivers licenses in Illinois and the mom was explains to me that when they got their drivers license they had a very serious conversation they sat them down in their living room and explained son this license could get you killed and they didn't mean because if driving you know fast and the kids didn't drink it's because you could be shot if you don't do exactly what you're told they weren't on TV they weren't on CNN this was Christian family in their living room with a matter of utter seriousness that its parents loving their kids I've got family after family after family after family they're with no malice not trying to do anything politically recounts their experiences like that so that's the world that I live in as a pastor and I think the Christian gospel has tremendous resources to learn from and to help and to push into to help us as a whole understand things like that listen to each other and as our church covenant says bear each other's burdens and sorrows yeah that there's a there's a comparison that continues to be disturbing to me and that is the agreement in talking about that and not ever saying anything about abortion yeah I agree brother so in in our own church I said to some guys did I say this last night I came uh my sermons I tend not to be that controversial now abortion is not kind of controversial in our congregation you you cannot be a member of our church and support abortion you know but Phil now we're talking the other day about are there any Democrats left who are opposed to abortion well there are there are there probably lots of them but are there any elected officials man that's getting harder and harder so we had an elected Democrat official who's a member of our church and he began to because he just become a Christian began to push against the current LGBTQ positions and abortion and basically he couldn't even run for reelection because the primary so what I tried to do was kind of try and have a bipartisan Church witness on Capitol Hill in the 1990s when the you know the Democrats are passing the Defense of Marriage Act is a world harder today in 2019 because as as bad as the Republican Party may be about a lot of things the Democratic Party is being even worse especially on that issue like abortion so in my pastoral prayers I will tend to pray very aggressively about issues like that there even within the african-american community there's more eagerness to talk about the the oppression then there is to recognize the abortion in in the conversation I did a funeral for precious family lost a little boy to a genetic illness and I said the the good news is that the little ones go to heaven and I said given the number of abortions that are taking place and is an all African American service we can we can thank the Lord that he gathers the little ones home people actually stood up and walked out they they left the room and I said I'm I was a baby in the woods I figured everybody would thank the Lord for that and afterwards I was accosted very strongly and basically the message was you don't talk about that you don't talk about that but you're welcome to talk about that at our church John well yeah I know that and of course I know that of course but we've we can get squeezed and that's why it's hard to know where to walk on this I don't want to go into a funeral and offend half the people well and I just want to say there are a lot of african-american churches where I think you could talk about that oh absolutely you know what we know what happened the younger generation walked out the older generation came to me and thanked me and they thanked me in fact that of the same family the younger generation were hostile and the parents came to me and thanked me I think we have to talk about the family issues I think we have to talk about abortion issues and then we have to pour our love into those people that legitimately need our love and care and to sort that out is the challenge from the people who are just looking for power money or whatever [Music] again not as a matter of pride but just as a matter of fact there is no living evangelical who comes close to the amount of tension in words an argument sustained over years that I've given to this but it does take a little longer conversation than we often get into so if you're looking at the issue of african-americans and abortion remember that when Jesse Jackson emerged as a an activist he was not only anti-abortion but was making the argument that abortion is genocide of unborn black babies that all changed when he ran for president and accepted the rules of the Democratic nomination process it's still true on the briefing sometime back I talked about the fact that in New York there were more african-american babies aborted than born and we are that society we have to recognize the disproportionate effect of abortion in the african-american community we also have to understand that white Republican liberals in the 1950s and 60s encouraged legal abortion because they saw as a way to deal with the problem of too many babies from the wrong kind of people and that's extremely well documented including the fact that President George HW Bush's father Prescott Bush was the chief fundraiser for Planned Parenthood and names that are brand names are not associating President Bush with it nor his son but the grandfather so in other words a pedigree here so we have credibility I would argues Christians to talk about this because we understand the dignity and sanctity of every single human life born and unborn from the moment of fertilization until the moment of natural death [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and we also are the people have to make clear we care black about black babies outside the womb as well as inside the womb so we've got to force these discussions on the terms that we believe are biblical and write on some of the other issues here I mean again just over the last few weeks look at the attention I've given to identity politics identity politics doesn't work as politics by the way because you can't keep up the left is entering into a nihilistic combat to see who can be most intersectional and all the rest it is it is going to it's not going to work it's going to be a political disaster but the biggest problem for us is that identity politics is a contradiction to the gospel of Jesus Christ our fundamental identity cannot be first of all as human beings our fundamental identities made in the image of God and also in the fact that we have again you talk about taking a little bit more time it requires an original mother and father from whom we are all descended if you hold to modern evolutionary theory with multiple areas of humanoid development you cannot have the dignity and equal sanctity of every single human life so you got to have real creation but then in the gospel we are united to Christ at the marriage supper the lane or the vision of the book of Revelation they're men and women from every tongue and tribe in people a nation so that is not irrelevant but that is not our primary identity there is a part of God's glory shown in the fact that there are different tribes and tongues and peoples and nations and that God's redemptive work is going to draw men and women from every single one of them not one of them left out but our identity is first of all in Christ so the secondary identity is real but it must be redeemed and so that this takes a little bit more argument I'm trying through the course of my life to make that more argument that's where I hope to be found faithful Phil I am encouraged despite all of the circumstantial confusion that we're living in I think maybe the last six to eight years of my life have been the most disconcerting of my whole life really just with what's happening in our the the the public scandal and hypocrisy a government Church Hollywood culture in general is unbelievably unnerving and and you know has has caused tremendous skepticism of any institutional structures and yet it is proof of Calvinism right the doctrine of total depravity alone explains what we are seeing unveiled by God and his judgment falling on it and so as Calvinists we stand back and we say I give you okay I'm serious and though though though it's unnerving to live in the midst of that it's it's it's it's it's God most high saying this is what I told you in the word and this is my how it is as Calvinist Calvinistic premillennialists we say yeah [Laughter] so so even even in that disconcerting thing I do see God paving the way because the the bad news has to precede the good news and and the culture has been saying to us the bad news not is not true and it's it's almost like the Lord has said excuse me you know deny this and it's it's funny relativists can't even deny this I mean me too doesn't exist on relativistic terms it can only exist on Universal absolute terms and to which again we say hello we've been over here in the corner saying this so it's it's amazing how a relativistic culture is forced to acknowledge things that the Apostle Paul said are universal realities in Rome in Chapter 1 my brother I didn't I sorry I I just did interrupt you know I was gonna say you just you are right you just keep giving idiots too much credit no what I want to point out is you're exactly right moral judgment requires moral absolutes but there are people around us making moral judgments who still reject moral absolutes so what would be absolutely unacceptable for a Brett Kavanaugh evidently doesn't apply to the governor of Virginia or the lieutenant governor and so in other words they still are relativists in their die so I'm agreeing with you on DNA it proves Calvinism total depravity it proves the Bible but all around us are people who are still trying to make statements of morality while denying undercutting the very possibility of doing something totally agree with that nevertheless what the culture wants is it wants the moral high ground and you can't have the moral high ground if there isn't some sort of moral norm and so it is again what it does is you may look like the yokels in the eyes of the world but they're actually playing out what you've preached from the scripture and so just preach the word into that the second thing I would say is with all of this blowback that I've been watching for six eight years now I still see big God theology growing here and around the world like never before people are getting up and preaching the Bible in church people are coming to faith in Christ people sharing the gospel people are disciple according to the scriptures and I meet it everywhere I go on every continent around the world and so you know I think I think a lot of us have to be encouraged by what may be in the eyes of the world the day of small things in what we're doing who cares whether the world thinks it's small or not just keep doing it that's right and the Lord will grow the seed I could I interrupt just long enough to say how are things going in Scotland well as a representative of that nation I've I've kind of felt excluded for the last 45 minutes I I think I think by a declaration that was made in 1776 [Music] did did you sign that statement but [Music] I sent John Witherspoon to say we are somewhere between 20 and 50 years in advance I think of the United States in our decline in everything it doesn't show up in the the race issue is not quite the same as it is here the sexual revolution is pushed by the Scottish government the Scottish government is determined to be the most progressive country in the world in these areas to the point of child of whatever age declaring themselves no longer to be a boy but a girl and essentially the parents barred from any consultation and this extraordinary breakdown in logical thinking that under these pressures of power groups little children will be encouraged to do things whereas in every other area of the lives they will be discouraged from making relatively modest decisions about themselves and my my hope and prayer is that the Cataclysm comes sooner rather than later because if it doesn't come sooner we are we are heading for the dark ages and there is I really believe there's an underlying thought in our culture in the United Kingdom if we can get rid of the distinctives of the Christian faith then we will get back to being the decent people the free people we used to be and most of our people do not know enough history to know that actually before the gospel came we were pagans you know a run around with blue paint as in Braveheart which incidentally I've never seen and I do not want your old DVD but it's like Europe I think it's a situation where when a nation when a nation has had the gospel and rejected it it it it doesn't have first realize its it continues to borrow from the gospel and as it chips away at what has borrowed from the gospel it does end up in a kind of moral nihilism and disaster you see occasional signs on the horizon there was a there was an article in The Times of London last year where one of the journalists had an article how much longer will we sacrifice our children to the transgender Lobby but that was the first time I had seen in the press any comment the same week there was an article by a journalist who belonged to that kind of Lobby who was saying on things so much better isn't the world so much better and you know I don't keep footnotes but I wish I had surveyed I I surveyed the times every day since then and I and that was over a year ago I don't think I have seen more than two hands full of headlines that would have made me think the world is even a decent place the 90% of the headlines are about the the cesspool of life that has emerged and yet there is such a blindness that this is not is we are we are in desperate need that said I you know I find myself saying often to people we are we are living more like the New Testament than in our country we have lived for so long we need not be pessimists the gospel will prevail plus these are days in which living churches under the Ministry of the word are being built and these are so remarkable to people that when they're exposed to them they consistently say I did not know that church was like this and so the church I think is becoming like the one divine community in in a in a in a community that has rejected God that that will shine like a light in the dark place and those churches aren't being built they're small you need to know where to look but they are real and I belong to one of them and it's a it is a thrilling thing to see we are way over time and so we need to close meanwhile we pray for that Reformation that will change things exponentially both in the church and in the culture at large John would you close us in prayer father we thank you for the truth for your word or your spirit thank you for the promise that the Lord will build his church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it we thank you that the promise of Scripture is that all that the father gives to me will come to me and I will lose none of them but raise him up at the last day we thank you that we triumph in Christ and we are so grateful to be called into this service we are unworthy we we are from a human viewpoint incapable and unable but by your Holy Spirit the gifts that we have been given and the empowerment from him and the word of God in our hands with diligent application from our hearts and minds to it you have ordained that we can be instruments to change the world and that is our prayer whatever little part that we can play doesn't have to be big doesn't have to be significant it's enough to wear the uniform of Jesus Christ and march in the triumph with him so give us satisfaction at whatever we have been called to do and diligence and faithfulness in his great name we pray amen [Applause]

Channel: Grace to You

Views: 69,729

Rating: 4.7613535 out of 5

Keywords: John MacArthur, Bible, Preaching, Christianity, Expository, Exposition, Sermon, Jesus, Christ, social justice, racism, intersectionality, sjw, shepherds conference, ligon duncan, al mohler, social justice statement, john macarthur social justice

Id: oQ0kcMv1G5o

Length: 72min 58sec (4378 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2019