Welcome to the 2002 Shepherds
Conference. My name is Richard Bodo, and
I'm with Faith Bible Church in North Canton, Ohio. Today in
the church, there appears to be an apparent distinction between
clergy and laity. In order for the body to function
properly, this has got to go away. And obviously, we've been
impressed with what we've seen here from your body of believers
in serving us at the conference and taking care of us and ministering
to us. What specifically have you done in your church here
to train men so that they don't see that distinction between
clergy and laity, but that they see that they function together
as a body? Well, there are so many ways
to answer that question. I understand what you're saying.
I think the key in our church was many, many years ago when
we intensely studied Ephesians 4, 11 and following. that the
Lord has given to the church apostles and prophets, evangelists
and teaching pastors for the purpose of the edification of
the saints for the work of the ministry. They might be built
up to do the work of the ministry. So we understand the distinction
this way, that within the body of Christ there are many gifts
and varying callings for the use of those gifts. There are
those who are called to be pastor teachers. and evangelists, who
sort of replace the apostles and prophets with a similar function.
Their responsibility is to train the saints, to build them up
for the work of the ministry. So we see this flow very simply,
that those of us who are gifted as teachers, those of us who
are the shepherds, the evangelists, have the responsibility to train
the congregation to do those things which the Word of God
commands them to do. There is no authority. I have
no authority as a pastor. The only authority that exists
in this church is the authority of the truth of Scripture. I
don't possess any authority. There's no ecclesiastical authority
given to me. There's no authority in the office
or the title. Even with regard to our staff,
we don't run a sort of top-down operation like a corporation
does, but we function even as elders and pastors in a circle
where there is dialogue and there's discussion and sharing and nobody
pontificates. Nobody is, in a sense, the final
authority on things. The only difference between us
and the laity is our giftedness and the position the Lord has
put us in—the calling. We are equally answerable to
the Scripture, and the distinction comes only in the sense that
our responsibility is to disseminate the truth to the people so that
they can do the work of the ministry. I think our people have understood
that through the years. We don't usurp any authority. We don't
take any authority. In fact, I think one of the things
that really, if you're going to develop this kind of attitude
in a church, you've got to give things away. You've got to let
go of things. You can't, you'll never get people
to own ministry if you don't just let them be free to do it.
So, you know, I do what I do and I try to prepare people and
the men on our pastoral team do what they do and they try
to prepare people and then they give them the responsibility
and let them use their gifts to do what they do. There's no
hierarchy with that. The gift of teaching or the gift
of leadership, preaching in the church is a unique and wonderful
gift. And the most important thing
in the church is the proclamation of the truth. But the Lord has designed
the body so that there are many, many gifts. And in His purposes,
they're all equally critical to the life of the body. And
I think that people have to understand that. I think what it comes down
to eventually is the singular authority of Scripture. I have
no authority other than the Scriptures. That's the only authority I have.
I have no authority to go into a meeting and say, paint that
building blue, you know, buy that carpet, build this thing.
And they know I don't. I don't want any of that authority.
That's something we collectively discuss. So you don't take any
authority in the sense of some official authority. The second
thing that I think is critical in having a body that really
functions together is humility. Humility is very elusive. Just
the moment you got it, you lost it. But I really do believe that
self-effacing, selfless servant leadership conveys the message
that I'm here not to control you. I'm here not to lead you.
I'm here not to demand your respect. I'm here to serve you. I'm here
to give you my life. And I think you convey that to
people. It's amazing how people react.
People will say to me frequently through the years, I know you
love us. I've heard that many times. And
when I say, well, how do you know I love you? I don't know
you personally. How do you know I love you? And they will typically
say, because you make such a consistent effort to teach us the Word of
God. They see whether you're giving
your life away or whether you're taking theirs. They see that. They see whether or not you're
their servant. It isn't that you have to, you
know, run around doing menial tasks. You need to do some of
that. But it is that it's very evident to the congregation that
you have given your life for them so that they can be built
up in the faith and be effective in ministry in the body. OK? Thank you, John. Hello, my name
is David Mora. I'm from Practical Bible College
in Johnson City, New York. Hi, David. And I've only been
a Christian for over three years. And I just want to personally
say, you know, thank you and the congregation and the seminary
for encouraging me and many other Christians to study the Word
of God to see whether these things be so and to study and just be
the Bereans. I just want to thank you for
that. And one of the questions that I have for you today is,
let's see, can you tell me what you think about people today,
like on TV, casting out demons? I know in the area where I live,
that's like a regular basis, kind of like taking a shower.
But my question is, was that only
for the apostolic era only? Can Christians do that today?
I'm not sure about that subject yet. Sure. Good. Good question, David, and glad
you're here. I wrote a book called How to
Meet the Enemy. How to Meet the Enemy. If you
come up to my office, my secretary will give you one later on, and
it'll give you some further detail about it. Let me express this
to you in a sort of condensed way if I can. We do not have the power to command
the demons. That is a power that belonged to Jesus Christ. There is no one in the Old Testament
who ever exhibited that power. Not a prophet, not a priest,
not anybody. That is not something that's germane to belonging to
God, to have command over the kingdom of darkness. What happened when Jesus came
into the world is that the kingdom of darkness cranked up its major
assault to obviously thwart the purpose of God. And the conflict
was raised to a fever pitch. So, as I said the other night,
demons were then, I think, more aggressively trying to hold on
to the souls that were within the hearing of what Jesus was
preaching. And the conflict was tremendously heightened. But
that was only part of it. The real issue was the Messiah,
if He was going to save souls, save sinners, would have to Move
people out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of
his dear son, as Paul put it. So Messiah had to demonstrate
not only power over disease and power over nature, but he had
to demonstrate power over Satan and demons, not only on his own
behalf, such as in his temptation, but on behalf of other people.
So Jesus went everywhere. He went, two things were happening.
He was doing miracles, physical miracles, and he was casting
demons out. There is no occasion where he
ever did that to anybody who's identified as a believer. In
other words, there was no spiritual process going on by which that
person was divested of the demon, other than the absolute authority
of Jesus over those spirits. And you find what we said the
other night in Luke 4 that the demon is saying, you know, is
this it? Are you here to destroy us? They know that he has that
power and they know their ultimate destruction is already written.
They know. And he was saying, is this the
time? It's reminiscent of, you remember, the demon, demoniac
of Gadara, when Jesus sent the demons out of that individual
after an amazing conflict into the pigs and they all dove into
the sea. This kind of exhibition of power
goes on throughout the life of Jesus to demonstrate that he
has absolute authority over the kingdom of darkness. and to verify
that the apostles were in fact the representatives of Jesus
Christ who spoke the truth. In the midst of all kinds of
teachers and preachers and philosophers and religionists who paraded
around, what set them apart as the preachers of the truth was
not that they squared up with the Bible because the Bible hadn't
been written. There was no New Testament. So how would you verify
that they were the true representatives of the true Messiah Jesus knew
how they could do essentially the same kind of miracles that
he could do. And that has to do with physical
miracles and the casting out of demons. So that in second
Corinthians 12, 12, Paul says, these things are the signs of
an apostle. When the apostles pass from the
scene, those things pass from the scene. And that's why you
have absolutely no instruction anywhere in the epistles of the
New Testament as to how to do that, because that's not something
we are capable of doing. I cannot command demons to do
anything. I cannot bind Satan, which is
absolutely ridiculous. I cannot bind demons. I cannot
pray them out of my house or somebody else's house. I cannot
pray away territorial spirits. That is absolutely ludicrous. I have no authority over them
whatsoever. But I can resist the devil and
he'll flee from me. And if I come to Christ, then
my life is not going to be a dwelling place for demons. It's going
to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. So what we need to do
is to resist the devil, put on the armor that's indicated in
Ephesians 6, and we'll win the battle. And I said this the other
day, and I'll say it again. People who are running around
talking to demons, and I was at a pastor's conference one
time where a guy got up and said, let's pray. And here's how he
started his prayer. I'm telling you, I almost fell
off my seat. Is he talking to Satan? I've
never said a word to him in my entire life and don't intend
to. Besides, he's not omnipresent. He might not even hear me. And
if he did, ha ha ha! What is that? Satan, we bind
you! I don't want to mock that kind
of thing, but who are these people kidding? The Bible says, he goes
about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. It doesn't
say, comma, until you bind him. You can't bind him. And by the
way, whoever's binding him keeps letting him loose. Can't. And this idea, this idea
of praying against demons, that's not spiritual warfare. I tried
to say this before. When you look at 2 Corinthians
10, 3-5, that is a definitive passage on spiritual war. If
you understand that passage, you understand spiritual war.
It is an ideological war. It is a war engaged between the
truth and error. So if I want to free men from
the bondage of Satan's lies, I have to bring the truth to
their minds. Chasing demons is pointless.
It's pointless. We're not called to evangelize
demons. We're not called to bind demons. We're not called to talk
to demons. We're told to preach the truth to everyone, to give
the gospel to men. And the real spiritual war is
fought when we bring the truth against the ideologies that have
been raised up against the knowledge of God, and the truth shatters
those ideologies, and the walls come down, and we bring those
people out and bring them captive to Christ. So these people who
spend all their time fussing around with demons, it's like
Shakespeare said, it's much ado about nothing. Okay, that's kind
of a short answer, but the book will help you. What was the name
of the book again? How to Meet the Enemy. Okay.
By the way, just as a little footnote, Jesus said to Peter,
Satan desired to have you. Remember that, Luke 22? If I'd have been Peter, I'd have
said, well, you told him no, right? Jesus said, actually, I told
him yes, just like I told him with Job. I'm going to talk about
that tonight. So you might be chasing away
Satan when Jesus sent him. Who do you think you are to be
trampling around in that realm anyway? And we'll talk about
that tonight. Dr. MacArthur, my name is Paul
Brewster. I'm a Southern Baptist pastor from Booger County, Arkansas,
and it's a measure of your worldwide influence that I've heard of
you, I suppose. My question is, is there any plan… Now, it went out of the outhouses
in the Clinton administration. My question is, are there any
plans to release your MacArthur Study Bible with a New American
Standard translation or not? Yeah, I really have that plan
in my heart. I have for a long time. There
are a number of problems. Obviously, I preached out of
the New American Standard. I love it. It is a small part
of the Bible market. It's down around one or two percent,
and it's an economic issue to produce that kind of thing with
a small market, but I think it's a very loyal one, and we are
making some slow progress on that. It's not that we don't
want to do it. publisher that has the rights
to the NAS text and another publisher that has the right to the notes
and whether or not those two can Negotiate this thing has
to do with how they view how it serves them so it's just been
a very challenging thing, but you know I heard when I came
in this morning that in October the German edition of the American
MacArthur study Bible will come out the Russian edition is in
progress the Spanish edition is in progress and And if they
can do all of that in a foreign language, I can't understand
why we can't get to the place where we can do this with the
NAS text. So it's just been something that
I have wanted to do because I felt that it would be a real help
and service to many of us. So that would be something to
put on your prayer list. You know, when the publisher has
the rights to this, and of course Thomas Nelson and Word own the
rights to the New King James, it serves their interests best
to to keep it in the King New King James, so that they don't
dilute their market. You know, it comes down to those
kinds of economic things. I'm not sure I'm aware of all
of that. I don't get involved in too much of it, but it would
be a good service to many. And I like to see that happen.
That's something you need to pray for. Thank you, sir. My name is Seth. I'm an elder
in training, Grace Bible Fellowship, Northern California, Brentwood.
Good. Being that I'm in the situation that I am, I would appeal to
you and to anybody else I can talk to is one that's simply
seeking the truth, and this is my question. We all agree that
the word of God alone is the authority for truth. 2 Timothy
3, 16 and 17. Earlier this week, you were commenting
on how we must arrive at what is the meaning of the word of
God, the true meaning, and if we don't have that we don't have
the Word of God, that is the correct interpretation. My question
then is, what then is the correct way to arrive at that true meaning,
specifically since the process of hermeneutics is a system devised
by us men and we are fallible, simply evidenced by we have differences
of opinion, we arrive at different opinions by good men. How can
we know that we have the right criteria God wants us to have
for getting at the true meaning of Scripture? No, it's a good
question, and I appreciate that. First of all, we have to assume
that there is a true meaning. Fair enough? There's a true meaning.
Then we have to assume that God intended in the revelation of
that true meaning to make it clear, not to make it obscure. Okay? We now believe, then, that God
intended to say something specific and that He intended to say it
in such a way that we are absolutely responsible for it. So, that's
important to know. There is a true meaning and there
is perspicuity, there is clarity with regard to that true meaning.
And what I said the other day, then, is so critically important.
And the way to understand that true meaning is the way you understand
any meaning of anything in the normal course of language. Normal
language, real people, actual history. So then the hermeneutical
process becomes getting into the language, understanding the
language in which it was originally written. That's why, always,
scholars Go back to the original language. That's absolutely critical.
You have to know the language so that you can understand it
in its original intent. Secondly, you go back and reconstruct
the historical setting as much as is possible. I don't think
there's anything mystical about hermeneutics. When I study a
text, I want to know what is the What is the meaning? What is the syntax? Meaning is
lexicography. I want to know what the word
means. The syntax is how the single word relates to the phrases
around there. You know, you can talk about
accidents, all those words that are used in terms of determining
meanings in phrases. We do them every day. Every time
somebody has a conversation with you, The conversation has to
be interpreted by you. You have to understand exactly
what they're saying, and there's an interpretive process going
on. It's readily easy for you because you're in the contemporary
vernacular, and so you know just exactly what it means. If somebody
says, you know, it's a… that was really a cool event. Move
that 50 years ago and it's going to have a completely different
meaning than it does to you right now because cool Has has become a
buzzword in our society for something that's good So you're in the
vernacular and in the flow so but you're doing that interpreting
process all the time with your normal rational powers You're
accepting that conversation at face value not as if it's mystical
or has a hidden meaning or anything like that. So The same thing
is true with the Bible you go back you try to get as far back
as you can into the original understanding of that text and
to understand the words that are there. Then the second process
that you need to engage yourself in is to then understand the
historical environment. And that's part of the great
challenge in interpreting Scripture, is to go back and ask yourself
the question, not what does it mean to me, but what would it
have meant to the people who were there when it was written?
Because that is the context that may involve geography, that may
involve culture, that may involve philosophy, that may involve
history. It does involve history. That
may involve a certain amount of knowledge of social conduct. It may involve understanding
of marriage laws, laws that relate to various areas of life, and
so you go back and you dig in to find the historical setting
in which it was said so that it has some sense. Then I think
it's critical to understand the theological context that is essential
to understanding that, or you could say the biblical context,
and that is to say, what is the broad teaching of Scripture What
are other things that are taught in Scripture that bring some
kind of clarity to bear upon this particular passage? I mean,
it's simple as saying when Jesus says to Nicodemus, you must be
born of the water and the Spirit. I've heard a number of preachers
say the water there is the water that breaks before the birth
of a child, and he's saying you have to be physically born and
you have to be also spiritually born. That's not what it means.
because the Jews didn't call that fluid water. And that's
not what the context was. Nicodemus was a teacher of Israel.
He knew Ezekiel and he knew the new covenant text of Ezekiel
said that when Messiah came, he would bring salvation and
he would sprinkle clean water upon you and he would take out
your stony heart of flesh, stony heart and give you a flesh and
put his spirit within you. And the only water and spirit
that Ezekiel knew about was the messianic fulfillment of the
new covenant salvation promise of Ezekiel that would involve
the water and the Spirit. In other words, that's just an
illustration of a context. And in saying all that, say this,
if people will try to limit their presuppositions and just take
Scripture at face value, we have We have a consistent, do we not,
testimony as to a true and right interpretation of the Bible that
flows through all of the history of Christianity. Mark Dever was saying last night
how greatly enriched he is by reading the Puritans. The Puritans
understood the Bible, and I understand the Bible pretty much exactly
the same way they understood it. Eschatologically, they hadn't
arrived at that point where they clarified eschatology. So the point is, there is a flow
of interpretation that is consistent. And the aberrations, it was recovered,
as you know, in the Reformation. The aberrations are usually outside
of that. Now, it is also true that there
are some things in the Scripture that are hard to understand,
and the Bible even admits that. Because we can't reconstruct,
like, the baptism for the dead at 1 Corinthians or things like
that. They are peripheral in some ways. But I think if you
can eliminate your presuppositions, not try to make the Bible say
what you want it to say, both your sort of personal presuppositions,
your emotional presuppositions, and the historical ones, like
the way you were brought up, and go to the Bible Without those
presuppositions and let it speak, it is the purest way to understand. Now you can only do that so long
because eventually what's going to happen is you're going to
understand the theology of the Bible and then you have a set
of right presuppositions. If you've been an exegete long
enough, you have the right to be a theologian. One of the things
that's been fun for me is coming out of seminary, I had the tools
to interpret the Bible. And so I knew that my theology
had to grow out of my exegesis, and so I had a framework of theology
that I was taught in my seminary, and for the most part, that has
stood the test of all these thirty-four years of Bible exposition. It
has stood up very well. There are a few things here and
there that I understand much more clearly than I did then,
but that view of theology that was given to me by my professors
had stood the test of time for centuries before them. So staying
in the mainstream is pretty safe. And as I said, there may be some
places where there are variations because we just don't have all
the information. But those don't speak to the
heart and soul of our doctrine, which is which is crystal clear
in Scripture. The principles of hermeneutics
are the same for everybody. You interpret something in the
normal use of language with actual history and real people. So you
reconstruct the scenario the best you can historically. You
take the normal understanding of language at that point and
take it at its face value, and that's what it means. And there's
room in that for metaphors, figures of speech, symbolism, and all
the other things in Scripture. Okay? Thank you. Morning, Dr. McArthur. My name is Scott Hill.
I'm from Temecula, California. And I was reading in your commentary
on First Corinthians with chapter 15, verses 45 through 49. You made a comment in that commentary. And I'll just read the comment
that raised a question for me, says Adam and Eve originally
were in a probationary period. Had they proved faithful rather
than disobedient, their bodies would have been glorified. and
immortalized by eating the fruit of the Tree of Life, which they
then could have eaten. Because they sinned, however,
they were put out of the garden, lest they eat of the Tree of
Life and live forever in a state of sin." I've got a lot of questions. I'll just ask you if you could
elaborate on them becoming glorified when they ate of the Tree of
Life, or I'm assuming that they didn't eat of the Tree of Life. Any time you say, if they hadn't
done this, this would have happened, you have just gone somewhere
speculative, right? So understand this, that we're
talking about what didn't happen. So it's really not important
that I get it right. But I will What did happen, I have to get
right. But what I meant to say by that was, I think it's implied
there that in their probationary form, as yet their eternal form
had not yet been determined. That is true. because it was
altered so dramatically in their sin. And all I'm saying is that
their probationary form, had they not fallen, had they never
sinned, would have at some point become permanent. And at that
point, they would have been glorified. That's just a word to explain
the fact that they would have been able to live forever. in that form. We have to assume
that. So that's not the same glorification.
You're not referring to the same glorified bodies we would have
in heaven because well, procreation issue is really what came right.
And I think that, um, I mean, there may be some way in which
the glorified body of the believer approximates the pre-fall body
of Adam and Eve. But the distinction is this,
and this must be remembered, that in the pre-fall condition,
Adam and Eve were told to cohabitate and to replenish the earth and
fill the earth and subdue it and all that. Sex was a part
of that probationary form of life. It is not a part of a glorified
form because Jesus very clearly says in heaven, there's neither
marrying or giving in marriage. So, so I would, I think the better
approach and it's the approach the Bible takes is that the glorified
body of the believer approximates the glorified body of Christ.
And that's Philippians 3, 2021. Our body will be made like in
his glorious body. But all I meant to say when I
said glorified was to give the idea that it would become permanently
transcendent and suited for eternal life. But that begs the question
then, would Adam then be a Mormon and have celestial sex with Eve
forever on a planet? So, you know, you don't want
to follow what ifs too far. Dr. MacArthur, my name is Ray
Prince, a pastor of Berea Baptist Church in Dahlonega, Georgia.
Probably 20 years ago or so, I heard your teaching on the
radio and followed you fairly closely. And your teaching regarding
the matter of church leadership, particularly elder rule, was
of particular interest to me in Baptist background, not ever
having seen that. Presbyterians have elders and
Mormons have younger elders than anybody else, but Baptists don't
have elders. Um, so in any case, uh, studied that and, um, had
the opportunity about six years ago to be involved in a startup
church. And we determined from the outset that we would not
simply do what we'd always done, but we would spend some time
to follow the biblical pattern, to determine the biblical pattern
spent about a year and a half. studying biblical eldership.
In the course of that study, some of our men wanted me to
go with the position that an elder should not drink wine at
all, could not get there, having studied that out quite a bit.
They knew how much I'd been influenced by your ministry. One of the
men brought in an older tape of your teaching on elders, where
you went into the etymology of paroinos, not standing beside
the wine and not even touching it. And he kind of laid that
down as a trump card and said, here it is, this is the law and
this is how it is. And, uh, and so my response was
to, of course, to go back into it quite a, quite a bit, spend
a good bit more time on it. Um, and I could not, uh, reconcile
that position with scripture that an elder could not touch
wine at all. None of our elders drink. I never have in my whole
life. It's not an issue of that. It's an issue of being faithful
to the word. So, number one, have you moderated your position?
Because in some recent writings, your questions about elders,
you say not addicted to wine. You refer to that, but you do
not say total abstinence. Have you moderated your position?
And secondly, if you've not moderated your position, how do you respond
to the fact that Paul told Timothy to use a little wine for his
stomach's sake? If complete abstinence was required, would not that
command then have disqualified Timothy? Well, of course, the
argument there is that Timothy wouldn't have used it unless
he had been commanded by Paul to do so. So that really works
to the other side of the argument in one sense. He had to tell
Timothy to do that because otherwise he wouldn't do it. But here's
where I am on that. I agree with you in this sense.
I don't think you have a flat-out, straightforward, absolute prohibition
against an elder ever drinking wine. I don't think you have
that. I think it then becomes a question of at what level do
you want to live? At what level of example do you
want to live? You're going to be the example and the pattern
for the church. At what level of spiritual commitment
do you want to live? Obviously, abstinence was the
highest level of spiritual commitment in the Old Testament, in the
Nazarite vow. John the Baptist didn't drink wine or strong drink.
You know, that kind of thing wasn't for kings, Proverbs 31,
because they needed their senses and they needed to make good
judgment. Obviously, in the day of Christ, in the time of Christ,
just being practical, you know, wine was just a part of life.
And wine basically was diluted, five to one, eight to one. Because
water was impure and there were not means to purify the water
and the water carried all kinds of diseases, whereas a fermentation
introduced into the water, the alcohol content would kill some
of that. And so, you know, that was important to do. And I've
talked a lot about through the years that the difference between
strong drink and wine is the wine was the diluted part of
life. And that's essentially juice diluted. That was just a part of life.
It would be very hard not to do that. That would be a severe
vow, like John the Baptist took, not to do that. Because wine,
essentially, was made out of everything. I mean, they didn't
make artificial drinks like Diet Coke and whatever. So whatever
fruit it was that produced the juice, if you didn't drink any
of that, you were stuck with milk or you were stuck with water.
So that would be That would be a more challenging, abstinence
would be a more challenging situation in that part of history. But
today, our elders, collectively, to a man, always have felt that
we don't have to struggle with that issue. There's no need for
that. There's no need for us to ever
put ourselves in a position where we might lose control of our
faculties and our thoughts because too much is at stake furthermore
we live in a world where people are just being devastated by
alcoholism and I don't ever want to be the reason somebody thinks
it's okay to do that because I don't I mean it if I know this
because it happens on a lot of fronts but if People were trying
to decide whether to drink. All some people would need to
hear was that John MacArthur drinks and that would be enough
for them to sort of sign off on this as an OK thing. And then
who knows what damage could be done to them. I really don't
need to set that kind of an example. I can rise above that and it
doesn't limit me in any sense. I can still drink all the juice
I want, and I can drink all the other stuff that's available
today. Why would I, why would I want to put myself in a position
to become, people want to use me for everything anyway, even
things I don't do, they say I do, but I don't ever want to be in
a position to set the standard of doing something that's going
to cause people to fall. It's the, that's the same reason
I don't go to movies. I don't go. If you ask me if
I go to the movies, I don't go. First of all, there's nothing
to go see anyway. But secondly, I just, I don't need to fill
my mind with 18 foot high people saying and doing things ungodly.
I don't need that. Why do I need that? And furthermore,
I just, and I don't make an issue out of it. It's not any kind
of a law. I just don't do it. And I just don't want to be a
part of giving people some kind of okay to go have their minds
polluted. You understand what I'm saying?
I mean, it's just a, it's just, maybe I'm John the Baptist, you
know, maybe this is my little Nazarite deal. I just, I just,
I feel the weight of the responsibility. Now, in other parts of the world,
it's less of an issue. Over here, it's cultural in Christianity
not to drink, and I think it's good. I really do. In Europe,
if you go to Europe, you know, pastors and people and missionaries
and everybody drinks wine, and it's much more a part of the
culture there. It's not viewed the same way
it is here at all, but it still has a potential to damage people. and to put somebody in a compromising
situation if they aren't very careful. So I agree with you.
I don't think you can draw an absolute on that issue, but wisdom
teaches me that I need to set the highest example of separation
from those kinds of things that I see as potentially harmful
to the people. And why do I need any of that?
I don't need it. So sure, and that's and that's
pretty much where we were with the weaker brother, the stumbling
issue. Sure. Being brought under the power of the testimony. Paul
says that meat makes my brother offend. I eat no meat. If drink
makes him offend, I drink no drink. I'm just glad that I can
still eat meat, that that's not an offensive thing to people.
But you're not going to lose your mind if you have a steak,
you know. Sure. But we had some who were very
upset that I would not establish that as a rule. Right. And that's
good. John Steve Van Horn from Beaverton,
Oregon. I'd like to frame my question
with some background so you know where the question is coming
from. Graduate of a Southern Baptist college, also graduate
of a conservative Baptist seminary, 15 years a senior pastor at an
independent Bible church, theologically a cessationist. For 20 years,
your ministry has been a model for my own. That's a setup. Here
comes the question. For the last six years, by God's
providence, I've been an associate pastor at a Calvary Chapel and
having a great ministry there and missions, serving alongside
some great men of God. We agree to disagree on some
things. How do you respond to things that are in writing? And
I'm thinking mainly of things that are in writing because when
you hear stories that are second or third hand, that's one thing.
When reputable people put in writing that in their church,
somebody stood up on a Sunday morning, spoken a language that
they had never learned. And as a result, somebody came
to Christ. And we hear reports, maybe second
or third hand reports that similar things happen on a mission field.
How do you respond to that? Well, I really, I can't. I can't
respond to that. for the simple reason that it
is not verifiable and it is not reproducible. I can't. And that
is exactly why, if you'll give me a second, 2 Corinthians, this
is a good word here on that, 2 Corinthians, and I appreciate
your question, 2 Corinthians Chapter 12, verse 1, just listen
to this. Paul says, I'm reading out of my study Bible
here, so it's New King James, it is doubtless not profitable
for me to boast, literally says, it's not profitable for me to
boast about visions and revelations of the Lord. Paul says, look, I knew this guy, meaning himself,
who, in Christ, fourteen years ago, whether in the body or out
of the body, I don't know. God knows. I was caught up to
the third heaven. I don't know whether I was in
the body. I don't know whether I was out of the body. God knows. I heard some things. I'm not even allowed to talk
about them. So it's not profitable. You know, today, if anybody was
caught up to the third heaven, it would be very profitable. You could take that show on the
road. You know, the man who went to
heaven, and I think what Paul is saying here is just a principle
to keep in mind. Paul says it's not profitable. It's not profitable. He says in verse 6, I might desire
to boast, but I'd be a fool. I'd be a fool to do that. But
I will speak the truth. You cannot ever use, I don't
care how exotic or how real the vision in Paul's case was. He
says it's not helpful. And see, they were asking him
for credentials. And so he had given them in the prior chapter.
He says, I was beaten more times than you. I was whipped more
times than you. I was shipwrecked more times."
These are his apostolic credentials. It's what Mark was saying last
night. You want to know whether I'm a true apostle? Here's the
story of my rejection. And then he said, on top of that,
I have this care for all the churches that disappoint me and
break my heart all the time, like you. And yes, he said, I
went to heaven and back, but that's not profitable. Why? It's
not reproducible and it's not verifiable. So I don't want to
seem hard on this, but it is meaningless to me what somebody
reports or writes. The only thing that I'm concerned
about is what is the Bible saying about those things? And I've
said this many times. God can do anything He wants
anytime He wants. He can do anything He wants anytime He wants. But Scripture is pretty clear
on matters, and this gift of languages is one of the very
clear ones. If it conforms to what's in the
Scripture and to the purpose for the gift of languages in
the Scripture, then it might be the real thing, except for
the fact that Historically, there is clearly a cessation of those
gifts, and when they resurfaced, they surfaced in an aberrant
theology. And the question then is compelling to me, why would
God validate with supernatural gifts bad theology? If God was
going to give anybody the gift of healing, He wouldn't give
it to a bad teacher. What would He validate that for?
Believe me, if God gave the gift of healing to anybody, it would
not be Benny Hinn. It wouldn't be. I'm not saying
that in an unkind way, I'm just telling you that's not what God
would validate. And I don't believe that God
would give particular miraculous signs and things to obscure situations
in people. I think we are at a point now
where those things have ceased, and I heard you say you're a
cessationist, and I think that's a right view. But again, I think
in the future, according to Acts and the prophecy of Joel, there's
going to be some visions and some dreams and some supernatural
things coming again in the future. And God can do that when he chooses
to do it. But bottom line, take me to the Bible, show me what
the Bible says. Even if I saw the person face to face and they
told me the story, I have no way to make that story a part
of my theology because it's not verifiable and it's not reproducible.
Okay. OK, go ahead. Follow up when
a reputable pastor who has been used of God puts this in a book. And I understand what you're
saying, it's not verifiable. Do we allow for the possibility
of occasional extra biblical experience that God may want
to use? I mean, do we allow that or do
we just say it's not in the Bible? Therefore, it cannot be a true
experience. That's my final question. Yeah. Otherwise, I would say it's not
a true experience. Otherwise, we're calling a liar.
I would say it's not a true experience in the sense that it's not an
experience of God. In that life could be a true
experience of emotion of Satan of You know, Kildall and Colbin
did a long-term research project on tongues, and at the end of
massive amounts of research, the determination was it's learned
behavior. It's learned behavior. It's mimicking a pattern that's
been established, and there are a lot of other issues like that.
But the bottom line is... It's a language that someone
sitting in the congregation understood. It was their language. That was
the report. To me, that's a little on the
scary side, because I wouldn't know whether
that was demons or God. Right? I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. You know, there
was a book I read not long ago, and I don't know if this would
fit in the same question, too. A book I read that said, When
someone, I wish I could remember the name of it, the guy that
wrote it said, when someone stands up in our church and says, thus
saith the Lord, we know that's either true or it's not. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's why the Lord of the church,
the head of the church, expects the church to respond to the
revealed truth of the church. That's why you can't have extra
revelation floating around, Jesus telling this guy that, and Jesus
telling this guy that, and the Lord told me to say this, and
the Lord told me to say that. We know, we know I think we know
that that is not really from the Lord. Boy, that's a great way to intimidate
people. I'm Jason Irish from Sioux City,
Iowa. My question is, if or since unconditional
election is in the Bible, how would you explain that with man's
responsibility or will? Well, that's an easy question. Steve, you want to come and do
that one? I don't know how to explain it.
I just believe it. I believe that only God can awaken
a dead sinner, and we are dead in trespasses
and sins. The natural man understandeth not the things of God. Satan's
blinded his mind, so he's dead, he's ignorant, he's blind, he's
hopeless. How is he going to get saved
if God doesn't awaken him? If God doesn't open his eyes,
if God doesn't open his mind to understand, that's a mighty
work of God. And you know what? Christians
have always, always, always believed that. That's why that Christian
people pray that unsaved people will get converted. Why do we
do that? I don't care if you're a flaming
Arminian. They have prayer meetings for people who aren't saved.
Why do they do that? Because, down on the bottom,
they know this is a work of God. So, it's a work of God. And the
only way that you can ever believe is when the Spirit of God awakens
the deadness, brings life and understanding and sight in the
hearing of the truth. And so, that's why, you have
to believe in election. You can't not believe in it,
because it's all over the Bible. Christ, mine elect. Israel, my
elect. I mean, that's the way God is. God is God. And nothing happens
that God doesn't determine to happen. And so, He has chosen us in Him
before the foundation of the world. That is not ambiguous
talk. Our names were written in the
Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world. You say, well,
yeah, but you know, he looked down the road and saw what you
were going to do. That's absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't get him
off the hook anyway, because if he saw what we were going
to do and we were going to do the wrong thing and he let us
do it, how's that any different? The Bible is so clear about that.
Salvation is a matter of sovereign election. But on the other hand,
as you say, Condemnation is a result of human
choice. Now, that's hard to kind of bring
together, isn't it? If you are going to heaven, it's
because God saved you. If you go to hell, it's because
you rejected Him. That is incomprehensible to me,
but that's precisely what the Bible teaches. Jesus even wept
over Jerusalem and said, I tried to gather you, but you wouldn't
do it. Jesus said, you will not come to me that you might have
life. The Bible says, in the Old Testament, Ezekiel, why will
you die? Choose you this day whom you will serve. Isaiah says,
come, come, buy wine. Come, you that are thirsty, drink.
The book of Revelation, come. The Spirit and the bride say,
come. How do you bring those together?
Well, the simple way to illustrate that, and I've done it in the
past, You have to believe both, just leave them alone. If you
can't resolve them, that only means you're not God, and that's
okay. We don't need you to be God. But don't be too surprised to
find out that, as John Murray says so aptly in one of his books,
there's an apparent paradox in every major doctrine in the Bible.
We can start with the Trinity. How can God be one Essential
oneness, undivided, indivisible oneness, and at the same time,
three distinct persons. Incomprehensible to me. How can
Jesus be fully God and fully man, 200% of himself? Incomprehensible
to me. If I ask you a simple question
like, who wrote Romans? What's the answer? You understand with that? You
can't even answer the question. And you're a pastor. Just a layman. Oh, you're a layman.
You can't answer the question. Well, it's Paul. Well, it's God.
Well, what do they do? Alternate verses? You take one,
I'll take one, you take one, I'll take one? You have the same
dilemma. You have Paul writing in his
own vocabulary, out of his own passion, out of his own mind,
out of his own life experience, and every single word he puts
down is the word of God. Another simple question you can
answer for me is, who lives your Christian life? You or God? That's basic, isn't it? You can't
answer it. You say, I do. I live my Christian
life. Really? Really? You say, not I, but Christ. I wouldn't blame it on Him. Not
all of it. You have the same You have the
same dilemma. Any great spiritual reality,
any great doctrine has these tensions. Paul said, here's his
answer, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live, yet not
I. He didn't understand either,
so you're in good company. What I'm saying is the bottom
line, look, your puny, pusillanimous, hammered down, disconnected pea
brain is not going to be able to grasp the massive verities
of the eternal mind. But what is something you better
not tamper with is to mess with what the Bible teaches. Don't
invent something in the middle and destroy both of those things.
Human volition and divine election are there. Leave them there.
Believe them. That's a great evidence to me,
all of these things we've talked about. All of these things we've talked
about are great evidence to me that God wrote the Bible, because
if men wrote it, they would edit all that, they would fix all
that. That's the stamp of deity on scripture, okay? Good question. Hi, John. My name is Kerry Norman.
I'm pastor of Westview Bible Church in Imperial Beach, down
in the San Diego area. Pastoring there for the last
22 years. I've got two questions. One is...
Do this real quick. We're going to end right in a
minute. OK. I was disheartened over this whole Christ in a Zodiac
thing with Dr. James Kennedy. I'd like to get
a little bit of a take on that. But more importantly, Twenty
years ago, I felt like my responsibility in teaching the word and protecting
a flock from cults and false teachings and all the rest of
that. Of late, I feel a greater burden
of heart where I feel like I have to protect the church from the
church, and the church from clear, respectable Christian leaders
who seem to have drifted and just would like to come. Well,
you know, you're right. In his book, he says that the Bible
is God's little book and the Zodiac is God's big book. You
know what the Zodiac is? It's just outright paganism.
There's no gospel in the stars. That's nuts. God didn't reveal
his revelation of the gospel in the stars. Let me tell you
how, you know, Kennedy talks about how that's going to lead
people to salvation. Natural revelation, natural revelation
is very efficient at giving God a just reason to damn men, but
it saves nobody. It saves nobody. It's Romans
1. When they knew God through His creation, the things which
are created manifest the Godhead, as Romans 1 says. When men know
God in that sense, but do not glorify Him as God and move away,
then the wrath of God comes on them. That's just to speak to
that issue. The Zodiac is a pagan is a pagan
thing, absolutely outright pagan. And who said the lines had to
be drawn like that? They were drawn in bizarre images
in ancient times. Is there some kind of possible
connection to Christianity? Sure, because the enemy of the
souls of men, Satan, would do anything devious he could to
connect Christianity with anything that's bizarre and pagan. But
as far as the gospel being in those things, I think that's
tragic. And I understand what you're
saying. You know, I probably spend far more time as a pastor
protecting my people from evangelical influence than I do from the
cults. It's true. You know, people who know sound
doctrine, the cults are pretty blatant. You know, they're not
subtle. Mormonism isn't subtle. It's
not a subtle deviation, neither is Christian science or any of
the other ones. Jehovah's Witnesses, they're
not subtle. They're just blatantly, Christ isn't God, and so forth. It's the subtleties of these
deviations that find their way in that are difficult to work
with. And I agree with that. And your people need to be armed
to understand that. And those people are right about
so many things, which is what makes them dangerous, because
they gain a measure of trust because of the things they're
right about. And then they move people into things that aren't
right. I think, again, anything that you come up with, when you
say, this is God's little book and the sky is His big book,
is an attack on the Bible. This is the singular, once for
all delivered to the saints' faith. So I agree with that. All right, we're going to quit
right now and tomorrow morning. Don't we meet again? And we have
another question answer. You guys can be first there.
As we bring this to a conclusion, I think Jim Rickard, my friend,
is here. Jim is chairman of our board
at the Master's College, longtime friend, and has an amazing ministry
called Stewardship Services that you want to hear about for just
a few moments because it involves how much money you pay the government,
or how much the government pays you. He is the all-time pastor's
tax expert. He wants to tell you about an
amazing opportunity. Jim, thank you. Thank you. Forty-two
years ago, I went to college and I gained an interest in income
tax law. You have to have a screw loose
to like income tax law. I qualified. In 1969, I did my
pastor's tax return, found out this guy's really different.
So I poured myself into that, and the word got out that I was
doing pastor's tax returns. Moved out here in 1975, went
up to the Sylmar Conference Center, Spoken to pastors conference
on the subject, the pastor and his income tax. 400 pastors were
there. I finished at 10 o'clock that
morning. They allowed a half hour for questions. The guys
asked me questions for three and a half hours. That's when
I realized how great the need was. That launched a ministry
called the Stewardship Services Foundation. Guys, this ministry
is for you. There's a handout that you received
when you came in. It's front and back. It tells
you a little bit about it. I have a booklet that comes out
every fall called The Pastor and His Income Tax. There's a
bunch of copies. There's a number of copies right
over here on the front pew next to Dick Mayhew. You're welcome
to them. Pick them up. Take them with you. In the middle
of the booklet are some green tear-out sheets. You fill those
tear-out sheets, send it to our office, and we'll do your tax
returns free of charge, the federal and the state. It's available
to you. We have a number of other seminars
that are available to you. You can see there in the handout
a couple of hot spots, of bullets I want to point out to you that
we're finding in the tax preparation that we're doing. We help about
8,000 pastors across the country with this ministry. We'll prepare
probably about 1,700 tax returns in our office just up by the
college. Guys, the Bush tax rebate is not taxable income. We're
getting overwhelmed with phone calls. That is not an issue on
your tax return for this last year. It is not a taxable issue. The only issue is, if you didn't
get the full rebate, you'll get the full rebate if you qualify
for it. That's done by your tax preparer. But there's a lot of
tax preparers out there calculating pastors' tax returns and making
them pay tax on that rebate, and that is an error. The mileage
rate for this year is 36.5 cents. Now for the first time, you can
reimburse your volunteers at your church at 36.5 cents a mile. That's new. Used to be 14 cents. So all your volunteers that work
at your church, that drive their car for church use, you can reimburse
them out of church funds at 36.5 cents. Make sure that your board
reimburses you for professional expenses. That is an important
issue in tax law. As you read down there, the earned
income credit this year for 2002 tax returns is calculated this
year after your housing allowance. That's brand new. So if a guy
makes $60,000 a year and gets a $40,000 housing allowance,
you're going to get an earned income credit, which means the
government pays you. That's an interesting tax change,
but that's effective for this current year. The additional
child tax credit Prior to 2001, that was calculated for people
with children, three or more children under the age of 17.
Now you're qualified for it if you have any children under the
age of 17, and that is a credit. That's not just a credit against
your tax. A number of preparers are not realizing that, so you
want to make sure you take advantage of that. The bottom of the front
page is the Rick Warren case. That's the housing allowance
issue, where they took away the maximum allowed for housing allowance
because of the Rick Warren case. That is being appealed by the
IRS, and I believe the IRS will win that appeal. So in our tax
book, we define the maximum for housing allowance. I would really
recommend you go by that definition, because if the IRS wins that
appeal, I'm sure they will grandfather it and go back a couple years,
which means you will have to amend those tax returns. Those
are issues that are affecting your tax returns, and I just
want to tell you, a number of your preparers, or if you're
preparing your own tax return, may not be aware of all those
changes. Call our office if you need help.
The phone number is on the top of the page there. We're there
for you guys. That's why we exist. John is
a part of my ministry. He's on my board. It's been great
to have him. We've got ten businessmen who
fund this thing, and so you're welcome to take advantage of
it. Please do that. Thank you very much. Yeah, I mean, it's free. They
do your taxes free, and they do them right. And they know
how to handle pastor's taxes. Jim even goes around to churches
and talks to boards about how much they ought to pay the pastor,
how they ought to take care of him, talks about stewardship,
has great seminars. We've had him here at Grace many
times. Get that material and plug in there. You need that
help. One final thing, and we'll let you go. Over the number of years here
at Grace Church, we've developed a pretty extensive world mission emphasis. We have been doing this for nearly
50 years since the beginning of the church. And it was a few
years ago that we decided that it reached the proportions where
we'd just start our own mission agency. Having to work through
other mission agencies, certainly good agencies, we kept running
into a problem. And the problem was that sometimes,
in some cases, the vision wasn't clear. Sometimes the theology
wasn't clear. Sometimes, the leadership wasn't
strong, and in almost every case, the agency took so much money
of the support the missionary raised that they wound up getting,
you know, two-thirds or three-fourths of the money they raised, and
the rest went into the agency itself. And so we felt that,
after all the years of experience, we just started an agency ourselves,
Grace Ministries International. Through that agency we are sending
missionaries around the world in a very clearly defined strategic
way. Many of the graduates of our
seminary come out of seminary and go all around the world.
The complete operation of Grace Ministries International is funded
by our church so that 100% of all the money that is given to
the missionary goes directly to the missionary. There is absolutely
zero overhead. We provide leadership and commitment
to the sound doctrine. These mission efforts are happening
all around the world, and we just wanted to let you know about
that in case you would like to partner with us in any way, and
there are a number of options. If your church is looking for
missionaries to support, you can participate with us in the
support of missionaries that have gone through our program
here, have graduated from the Master's Seminary. There are
men and women trained by us in doing things the way we believe
God would want them to be done. If you have people in your church
who are interested in going into missions, they need to look at
the strategic kind of missions we're doing, and perhaps your
church would like to have those people associate with us. You
can adopt missionaries in your church, partnering a lot of different
ways. And I'm only saying all of this
to have you read that little maximizing missions brochure. Do they have those now? At the
door, when you go out, you're going to get one. Just read it
and, you know, just do what you want. We're not soliciting anything,
but I know it's a struggle to find good missionaries your church
wants to support, to partner, or if you have some people in
your church who want to go to the mission field, that's in
their hearts and they're looking for where could they go and who
could they partner with. Whatever can happen, we'd love
to work with you along that line. That concludes this recording.
If you would like to order more audio recordings, please visit
our webpage at www.shepherdsconference.org or call the Shepherds Conference
office at 818-909-5530.