Welcome to the 2002 Shepherds
Conference. Well, this is a first of several
question and answer sessions. And somebody said to me yesterday,
you know, are you just going to stand up there and let them
ask you anything and do that repeatedly? Well, originally,
this wasn't the idea. But one of the complaints last
year was that there wasn't enough question and answer time. So
these guys who run this conference just keep plugging me in for
more. Hopefully we'll be able to answer your questions. The
idea is not to stump John MacArthur. That's easy. It's real easy to
do, and I have learned long ago to say what the rabbis taught
the Jewish people, and that is, teach your tongue to say, I do
not know. That doesn't frighten me. Also, Deuteronomy 29.29 is
almost my life verse. The secret things belong to the
Lord, and there are lots of those. But I will do my best to try
to help you with an honest question. Whatever it might be about, whether
it's something out of Scripture that I can perhaps help to clarify,
we have an awful lot of illumination in this room, don't we? Through
all the years that all of us have preached, This is a wonderful
place, and I'm certainly not under any illusion that I'm going
to be able to answer everything. But the pooling together here
could be really, really significant if we could tap into it. So let
me suggest to you that if you ask a question and I give you
a pretty lame answer, somebody who really does know the answer
and can articulate it better or more fully, note the person
who asked the question and get to them and help enrich them
a little bit. I mean, I think that'd be a wonderful way to
fellowship. and to spread around what all of us know. But anyway,
this time it's yours, and the mics are in the aisles. There's
one in each of the aisles, and I want to help you with anything
that I can, even explaining something that in our ministry may appear
to be inexplicable to you or confusing or deal with issues
that we're confronting in the Church. You probably want to
only get about three deep there, or you may have to stand for
a long time, but feel free to do as you please. And we'll just
take the question. I'd like to hear your name. I'll
try to give short answers. Sometimes that's not And generally
for me it's difficult because I always feel like I need to
explain everything, but I'll try to get to as many as we can.
And we're going to do this again tomorrow morning, is that not
right? And then on Saturday afternoon try to wrap up whatever questions
you have not had answered. So why don't we start over here.
Give me your name and your question. My name is Alex Chediak, and
my question is, what do you think of the recent apparent change
in tone in Revival and Reformation ministries with regard to ECT
and with regard to their stance on justification by faith, particularly
regarding the new perspective on Paul and those kinds of ideas? Well, he's referring to, I think,
John Armstrong's ministry, which was distinctively and decidedly
reformed, and I would say reformed in the classic sense that it
was anti-Catholic. But in recent months, they have
taken steps to embrace the sort of J.I. Packer, E.C.T. mentality that has manifested
itself on a number of fronts, not only in their own publication,
but in John Armstrong's appearances at certain conferences and events
where that is clearly the emphasis. And you're asking me to make
a judgment as to why that's happening. I don't know the motives of anybody's
heart, and I certainly wouldn't intend to read those motives
at all. But to me, no matter how you
define motive, there has been a serious compromise made with
sound doctrine. And that's what I said when I
did a three-part or four-part or two-part, I don't know how
many, video series with John Ankerberg and with Jim Kennedy
and R.C. Sproul. And we did that thing
there. And then I had seven hours in
a locked room down in Florida with J.I. Packer sitting on my
right. Chuck Colson and Bill Bright
and R.C. Sproul and Michael Horton and
some other guys, and we were engaged in an effort to try to
help these guys understand that this is an abandonment of biblical
gospel to embrace that. Are you referring to ECT or are
you referring to the new perspective on Paul? I'm talking about ECT. Okay. Yeah. Now, I don't know
specifically what the new perspective on Paul is, but my assumption
would be that redefining Paul to accommodate their sort of
inclusivism. Right. My understanding is that
what's happened is they're saying that Paul wasn't responding to
Judaizers, that the Judaizers weren't totally wrong. They weren't
trying to be salvation by works. They were just Judaizers were
only a little bit wrong. So then they have this system
of justification by faith, but then we go on completing it.
Yeah. I mean, that's the point. The
point is, once you've come to a view that's wrong, you have
to do revisionist theology. You have to go back and reinvent
Paul. You have to go back and reinvent, you know, whatever
doesn't fit into the system. And so you look for some heretofore
undiscovered quirky interpretation. This is precisely what the Openness
Theology group is doing. You know, their great error that
we know publicly is openness. They are worse on the atonement
than they are on openness. They are rank heretics on the
atonement. And in order to justify their
rank heresy on the atonement, they have literally taken the
quote-unquote Roman judicial concept that Paul uses and wiped
it out of the New Testament altogether and replaced it with some kind
of father-God imagery. So that is a typical approach. When you will not And I don't
know why people abandon things. I don't know what their motives
are. I suppose it's different. It seems to me it is a response
to some kind of pressure. I mean, I can only tell you this,
personally, if I were to abandon a conviction about the Bible,
if I were to do that, I cannot imagine any scenario that would
make me do that. But if I were to do that, the
only compelling issue would be some relationship that I considered
so important to my well-being that I would sacrifice my theology
to keep that relationship. There's nothing that's going
to make me pick up my Bible, go back, and reinvent what I
believe. Nothing in here will make me
do that. Nothing in me will make me do that. Somebody has to put
the screws to what I view as my ministry, popularity, breadth,
acceptance, scholasticism, you fill it in. And I think what
happens is they capitulate to some pressure to be accepted
on a wider basis. And I mean, that may not be the
case in all cases. Sometimes that embracing of the
wider basis, like in J.I. Packer, has been there all along.
Because he said to me, he said, you know, why are you getting
upset about this? He said, I have felt this way for 35 years. He
has always believed that non-converted Anglicans are going to heaven.
He says, I've always believed it. So I don't know what the
constraints are in individual situations, but when I see a
flip-flop, I don't think you get there by reading your Bible.
I don't think you reinvent the whole paradigm for the Apostle
Paul by reading Romans. That's got to come from the outside,
and there has to be some compelling personal gain, as I would see
it. I can't say any more than that,
and I certainly love John, and I've served with him on a number
of ministry opportunities. I don't purport to know why people
do what they do, but I just, I guess I don't understand compromise. I just don't understand that.
I don't, if I, if I held a view that nobody else held and abandoned
that, that would probably be good. But when I am standing
in the historic faith and all of a sudden I'm going to say,
we have to reinvent this. This is bizarre. This is like
the openness theology. You mean nobody up until now
has ever understood the nature of God. That's absolutely wacky. Say nothing of egotistical beyond
description. So I don't know if that helps
to answer, but I can't say any more than that. But you know,
that is a great pain in my heart to watch people in public vacillate
and then defect. And it just seems that Don't
want to say they're being influenced by post-modernism, but because
I don't think that's it But there's some influence some need to be
accepted somewhere that makes you do that That's all I can
say. I mean I can only tell you when
I'm on the Larry King show people keep saying to me Well, you know,
you just said the truth. You just what am I supposed to do? What
else would I do? What am I gonna do? They're not say the truth.
I don't I'm not wired that way and I I don't want to be unkind,
and I had a wonderful relationship that developed with Larry King
right there in those few moments, and you know, it was really interesting,
because he asked me questions, I gave him straight answers,
and you know, people were kind of, Christian people were shocked,
and Deepak Chopra was unhappy, and Rabbi Kushner was unhappy,
because I said, you know, with all due respect, you guys aren't
the authority. And Larry King picked that up and he said to
me, and he said, and you don't believe you are either, do you, John? And
I said, no, of course I'm not. The Bible is. And he knew that
about me. So he expected me to answer that
way. I spoke recently at a Jewish
group. I was invited to speak to traditional
Jewish group. And I said, well, you know what
I'm going to speak on, don't you? And I did a message, you know,
that I recently did at the CNP, the Council on National Policy,
and I did a message called, Can God Bless America and Not Lose
His Reputation? Because they're all talking about
God bless America, their traditional values. And I just had to say
the truth about what the Word of God says and the condition
of the heart of man and the solution. And the head rabbi of it all
came to me afterward and said, if you hadn't said that, we would
have been disappointed and we would have questioned your character. So I don't understand how people
give up the truth. It's just too precious. I mean,
what else are we but guardians of the truth? What else is there?
I'm not a guardian of my own career. It's a guardian of the
truth. So if I go down in flames, I
go down, but I'm going down waving the truth. And you know, another thing about
that, just thinking about that Larry King thing, people said, oh, wasn't
it too bad you didn't get to explain, you didn't get to explain, you
didn't get to use any apologetics or give defenses. You know what?
I've learned through the years that proclamation has power.
I mean, just flatly saying it. And the Word of God, when truthfully
proclaimed, not always defended, but when truthfully proclaimed,
has the power to save in the energy of the Holy Spirit when
God chooses to use it and apply it to the heart. Pastor John
Barry McGee from just outside of Redding, California. First
of all, on my behalf, and I imagine probably on everyone else's behalf
here, thank you for just another wonderful Shepherds Conference. I wanted to ask this question
last year. Based upon how John Piper defines
his terms and explains and defends his content, do you consider
yourself, first of all, a Christian hedonist? If not, where do you
take issue with Mr. Piper? And if you do consider
yourself a Christian hedonist, how would you state that theology
somewhat in your own words? Well, it's not really important
what I consider myself to be, but it's important to understand
things accurately. I would never call myself a Christian
hedonist because that sounds like antinomianism to me. Just
the term. I mean, in most people's mind,
to say I'm a Christian hedonist would conjure up some kind of
antinomian attitude, I mean, some kind of belief that I can
be a Christian and live the way hedonists live. So I understand
what John means by it. I wouldn't personally use the
term. I've never called myself any kind of hedonist. Christian or non-Christian, because
I think that is a supercharged term. And I think to a person
who doesn't get a full explanation, it could conjure up the idea
of antinomianism. I think John Piper has a way
of grabbing our attention with terms that he uses and phrases
and expressions that make us think we're hearing things we've
never heard before, when in fact it's just another way to say
what we already believe. For example, do I believe that
man's highest privilege, man's highest responsibility, man's
highest duty is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever? Of course! Of course! That's the first statement
in the Catechism. The chief end of man is to glorify
God and enjoy Him forever. Duh! Right? I mean, what else? That's not
like you've got to dig a long ways into the deal to find it.
It's there. And it's just that John has a remarkable way of
taking Jonathan Edwards, who extrapolated that concept to
the nth degree in his incredibly logic, sort of spiritual process. And John has a way of giving
new life and freshness to that concept. I want you to know this. I may have sounded a little somber
last night, and again, I wasn't myself for whatever reasons,
but I want you to know that I don't know anybody in my little world
that's a happier man than I am. I don't know how I could be more
joyful in the grace of God. I don't know how I could enjoy
God more than I enjoy Him. I am a joyful person, and I tell
you this, my joy is in the Lord. And I will tell you something
tomorrow night about that. Suffering enhances my joy. Sorrow
enhances my joy. Pain enhances my joy. Because
it makes so vivid the depository of grace that is at my disposal
in those times. So I'm a very hard person to
discourage. And I think I understand what
it means to live in the full joy of giving your life to God. But as far as labeling that by
the word hedonism, I agree with the concept. And certainly he
has every right to choose to use that word because he defines
it so carefully. But I think apart from that definition
in a book, it might easily be by some people understood to
be some kind of antinomianism where you're just saved. So there's
You're sort of deposited in a grace environment, you can do anything
you want, and I don't want to leave that impression, okay?
My name is Mike from Lake Arrowhead. I understand you're at least
a third generation pastor. I'm wondering if there are any
sons following in your footsteps. I'd like to know about your kids,
I guess. Yeah, thank you, Mike. I'm actually the fifth generation,
coming from Scotland. My dad, who is still preaching,
Still teaches a Bible class every Sunday. He's 80, what is he,
87 this month? And his mind is as clear as ever.
And he's still teaching the Word of God. So he's been a great
example. Talk about finishing pure and strong. That's him. He's never had a blot on his
life. And he is a constant testimony
to me that you don't have to blow up your life somewhere along
the line. And he's faithful. And then his
father before him, Dr. Harry MacArthur, was converted
while he was the chief telegrapher for the Canadian Pacific Railway
in Calgary and didn't know what else to do. So he packed up his
family, came to Los Angeles, went to the Bible Institute of
Los Angeles back in the 20s, became a preacher. Interestingly enough,
going back to my grandmother's side, her dad was the pastor
of the First Presbyterian Church in Charlottetown, Prince Edward
Island, where the family migrated over and then goes back to Scotland
from there, so five generations. At this point, I have two sons
and two daughters. All four of my children love
the Lord and are a joy to me and to my heart. They love this
ministry. They support this ministry. Neither of my boys feels called
to preach. Both of them are involved in ministry. Both of them have
taught, and Mark, who lives in Chicago, is teaching in a church
in the Wheaton area there as a lay leader in the church, and
that's really his love and his passion. He calls me to talk
about theology and interpretation of passages, and Matt is involved
here in our church, my son Matt. My daughter Marcy is married
to Mark Gwynne. They are very involved in our
church and ministry here, love this church, and I have one daughter,
Melinda, who is not yet married, and I am accepting applications. Now, she's free to look around,
but I have veto power. And she's involved in our church
and has been a part of this conference, as have the other kids who are
here. She works at Grace to You. She
does all of the design of all of our albums and graphics and
the website and all of that. And all four of our children
graduated from the Master's College. And we, listen, we praise God
for the salvation of our four children and the loving, encouraging
support that they give to our ministry. And now they're raising
11 little gals and guys, seven or eight girls and three boys. And the joy of our hearts now
is to see them being raised in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord. And we're very grateful for that. But so far, no preachers
out of that next generation. But again, you know, this isn't
something that's genetic, right? And the one thing I never did,
I'm not going to try to force my son to be a preacher. I'll
tell you, there are many days in the ministry when the only
reason you stay there is because You have no choice. And I've taught young men through
the years, if you can do anything else, do it. But you either are the preacher
or you support the preacher with your heart and your life. And
if you're going to work in the world, you support the kingdom
and the work of the Lord and you serve. And for that we rejoice
in our family. And again, I don't call people
to preach. And, you know, the Lord has given me many sons in
the ministry. Many, many who, through the years
of influence in the college and seminary, and just many of you
who have come along to be taught by me as well as others, you
know, are a reflection of the things that I've learned and
been able to pass on. And that's an immense joy, that is. Okay. Kurt Spencer from Montana. Could
you please give the scriptural basis for encouraging a member
or an elder in the church to be committed to the services
in the church, morning and evening services? Oh, well, yeah. Everything floods my mind. You
know, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the
manner of some is. You could start there in Hebrews 10 and
remind them that they have to be obedient to the Word of God.
And whenever the saints assemble, you need not to forsake that.
And that goes for everybody. And then you could, you know,
since we're in the book of Hebrews and that's just, you know, there's,
that's just what comes to my mind at this moment. But when
you think about what is stated later on in the 13th chapter
of Hebrews, it says in verse seven, remember those who led
you, who spoke the word of God to you and considering the result
of their conduct, imitate their faith. Are you that you are the
man or the men that the congregation is called to imitate. Imitate their faith. Then down
in verse 17, obey your leaders, submit to them, they keep watch
over your souls, those who give an account. So if the leaders,
if the standard is to be there when the saints assemble, if
you are the example of that standard, and are therefore accountable
to God for the kind of example you set, this is not arbitrary
stuff. This is not optional. If somebody doesn't do that,
then they're not an elder. They're not a pastor. They're
not a shepherd. They're not leading by example. They're not obedient. I think that's pretty clear cut
just from that line of reasoning. You could also approach it from
every other conceivable angle. If the Word is going to be taught,
do I want to hear it by an anointed and prepared servant of God,
or do I not? If there is any other priority
in my life, then I shouldn't be the leader and the example
in the church. If God's people are going to
gather and for the purpose of worship, do I have a higher priority
than worship? If I don't have… if the worship
of the living God, the exaltation of Jesus Christ, the proclamation
of the Word of God are not the priorities in my life, then I
don't belong as an elder. So does that… Yeah, just one
more thought to that. This is not like a board member
in an organization. We don't want your wisdom so
much isolated from everything else. We want the integrity of
your wisdom worked out in the godliness and the commitments
and priorities of your life. Anyway, go ahead. The thought
is, the argument is, well, I need to spend time with my family
for evening church, or I've got another organization going on,
you know, that takes part of the ministry and... Yeah, that's
good. You know, you need time to show
your family a bad example. And what's the other organization?
You know, Little League or... Well, like a campus ministry.
Look, everything set aside when God's people assemble. Those
who are the leaders, those who set the pace, those who establish
the example, they have the responsibility before God as those who will
give and account. That's enough for me. Besides,
I'd rather be with God's people worshiping Him and hearing His
Word than anywhere else on the planet at any time. I don't understand
that. But I know, the flesh being what
it is, that that's... And you know, sadly, people who have had a wide and
long exposure to the truth can get really used to it. And that's
sad, too. You know, there are people who,
when they're new in our church, for the first months and maybe
even years, they're here every time the doors are open. They're
here early. They stay late. They suck it all up. They buy tapes.
They get books. And you look at them six, seven, eight years
down the road, and you ask them, where are they? That's really
going in the wrong direction. And we need to set an example
that that's not the way it is. That's not the way it should
be. That's a sinful path. But it happens. It's the downside
of blessing is that the sun shines so much on their souls that they
don't appreciate it. And then we pray that God will
make it rain and storm so that there'll be a new longing for
the sunshine, you know? I'm Ross Bolinas from Grace Community
Church in Long Beach. The question I had was concerning
limited atonement or was the atonement, you know, did he die
for the sins of everyone or just for the elect? Well, without
going into a whole explanation from front to back in the Bible,
I would suggest that I wrote a book called The God Who Loves. It used to be called The Love
of God, now it's The God Who Loves. Either of those titles
will get you the book. And in it, I dealt with that. There
are ample evidences both in the text of Scripture, as well as
from the deduced theology of scripture that Jesus actually
paid a full atonement only for those who will believe. And those who will believe are
those who have been chosen and regenerated by the sovereign
work of God. I think that is evident in Scripture. So if you're asking me, and this
is sort of the classic way to approach it, is the atonement
limited? I would say that it is not limited
in its potential. That is to say, if God determined
to save the entire human race, no further atonement would be
required. So, in that sense, it is unlimited. It is unlimited in terms of its
potential, but in terms of its application, it is limited to
those who believe. So that Jesus actually paid the
penalty for the sins of all who would ever believe. I mean, just
from a logical standpoint, you can't have Jesus paying for the
sins of people and then sending them to hell. So, the Lord has, in actuality, offered
a full atonement for the sins of all who will believe. And
that would be, in John Calvin's system, a limited atonement. In my book on The God Who Loves,
I talk about some of the elements of God's unlimited love Which
he demonstrates to the world through providence Through a
universal call and things like that, but in its in the end The
atonement is limited to those who believe now. I don't know
why this becomes such a big issue because Everybody believes in
a limited atonement everybody We all believe that the atonement
is limited in its application to those who believe, right?
You say, not me, I'm an unlimited atonement man. Well, if you mean
by that that the atonement applies to everybody, then you're a universalist.
Everybody who believes right believes that the atonement is
only applied to those who believe. Was that in the mind of God when
he planned it? Or was there something else in
the mind of God when he planned it and it didn't work out? See
where I'm going with that? Everybody lands at limited atonement
in the end, unless you're a universalist. The only question of what was
the divine intention. And I believe that scripture
speaks to us of the fact that When it tells us that God is
not wishing for any to perish, the any are clearly identified
earlier in that very chapter in 2 Peter 3 as those who belong
to the Lord. Okay? Shalom, brother. My name is Henry Morris. I'm
a Messianic rabbi from the Boston area. I'd like to know, and I wrote
my question down because the nature of being Jewish means
I would talk forever, so I'm making this brief. Now the problem is
you got to hold a piece of paper, which is equally as difficult,
right? I'm learning as I go along. I'm working on it. I'd like to
know where you put Istria. in God's economy. Do you consider
them as God's timepiece on this earth? And I think I might have
gotten a little bit of a viewpoint on some of the things you've
said earlier. Do you accept that the gospel is to the Jew first?
What does that mean to you? And I want to hear not so much
about your congregation. I want to hear what you personally
believe in this area. We have one more question because
this is the nature of being Jewish. I am not done yet. And by the way, neither is God
with you. I can accept that. I can accept
that. If you do accept them as God's
timepiece, how do you fulfill that and how do you fulfill a
biblical mandate? Yeah, you know, I really appreciate your question,
and I'm having a little fun with you, but my biggest regret in
life is I'm a Gentile. This is true. This is true. We
can do something about that. No, actually that's been done,
so... Are you guys having fun yet? Not exactly what I had in mind,
but... Let me answer your question. I do not have a personal opinion
about Israel, but I really believe what the Scripture says. And
I believe that Israel was chosen by God purely on the basis of
His uninfluenced sovereignty, not because they were greater
than any other people, He says, but because He predetermined,
uninfluenced, to establish His love upon that people for the
primary purpose, not of making them the recipients of His blessing,
but the channel of that blessing to the world. And sadly, they
failed to fulfill that. The symbol of Jonah is the symbol
of Israel's attitude toward the world that God had determined
that they should reach. He made them the trustees of the revelation.
He gave them, as Paul says, the doctrine, and the covenants,
and the adoption, and sonship, and the Messiah, and all of that. And the heart of Paul aches to
the point for their salvation that he could wish himself accursed
were it possible, perishing forever in hell for the sake of Israel's
salvation. So we know they failed in that.
The compelling question is, did that end God's purpose for Israel? And the answer of Scripture is
absolutely not. Absolutely not. And Paul says
that every way it can be said in Romans 9 through 11, and most
particularly in chapter 11, when he says, is God finished with
the Jew? No. It can't be. It's impossible. Because the
gifts and callings of God are without repentance. And I believe that the Bible is absolutely
clear in the Old Testament that every curse that God ever pledged
to bring on Israel for disobedience, he brought on Israel. He never
punished the Edomites in place of the Israelites. He never punished
the Egyptians. He punished them for their own
sins, but he never punished them in the place of the Israelites.
He never punished the Assyrians or the Chaldeans in the place
of the Israelites. And when it comes to the blessings
that God promised to Israel, when the time comes that they
look on him whom they have pierced, mourn for him as an only son,
and a fountain of blessing, as Zacharias says, is opened up
and floods them, and they are cleansed from their sin. At that
moment, all the God-promised blessings that have been held
back from Israel will flood them, and everything promised in the
Abrahamic Covenant, everything promised in the Davidic covenant
will come to pass in all its fullness and far more, and it
is now being damned up because they will not meet the conditions
of that other monumental Old Testament covenant, the New Covenant,
of which Jeremiah spoke. There is no provision for forgiveness
in Abraham's covenant. There is no provision for forgiveness
in David's covenant. There is no forgiveness in Mosaic
covenant. The forgiveness is all in the
New Covenant. And I believe that the time is
going to come when Israel is going to see the one they've
pierced, the Messiah, they're going to embrace Him. I remember
some years ago hearing that there was a meeting of evangelicals
in Europe and a very well-known evangelical writer, all of you
would know, was asked the question, what does the rebirth of the
nation Israel and the regathering of the Jews to their promised
land have to do with the Bible? And he said, absolutely nothing.
I never met a Hittite, an Amorite, a Hivite, a Parasite, a Jebusite,
or any otherite, but I know a lot of Israelites, and the compelling
question is, why are they around? And the answer to that question
is, God is in the process of preparing them for the regathering
that unfolds for us in the promise of God in the Old and the New
Testament. People say to me, are you a dispensationalist? And that's another word that
has so much baggage I don't use it. My dispensationalism can
be summed up in one sentence. I believe, I believe God still
will fulfill all the promises to Israel. Did I get that right? Excellent. Thank you, Brother John. What
time is this supposed to end? John, my name is Mike Griffith. I'm from Eastside Bible Church,
Gilbert, Arizona. I was just curious, how would
you address someone who goes to 1 Corinthians chapter 14 as
a basis for a private prayer language? Oh, well, let me suggest,
and I don't want to do this commercially, but if you don't have my commentary
on 1 Corinthians, go up to my office and ask my secretary.
She'll give you a free one because you need to understand that.
So, I'm talking to him, you understand that? This could be a small disaster. But you know, this is a very
important question, and I took a tremendous amount of time and
effort to answer it in such a way that you need a good answer to
it. The 14th chapter really does
do serious damage to the contemporary view of tongues as a private
prayer language. And there are a number of reasons
that are laid out in that 14th chapter, and I think it would
be most helpful for you to do that. First of all, I can give
you one simple answer. Nowhere on the pages of Scripture
is speaking in tongues ever described as a private prayer language. I believe that where Paul says
in verse 4 of that chapter, one who speaks in a tongue edifies
himself, that he's saying that sarcastically. What are you doing? Standing in a corner talking
to yourself in a language you don't understand. And I think
he's trying to show how ridiculous that is as compared to speaking
to the church. And there are a number of other
things very, very important to be understood in that chapter.
It'll help you. Just go up and ask my secretary.
They'll tell you where it is. My name is Kendall Holley from Broad
Acres Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. I want to say first
of all that I'm very thankful for the endurance that God has
given you over these years. You have brought a lot of direction
to the church, and I was first influenced by your ministry about
12 years ago, right after the Gospel According to Jesus came
out, and that played a major part in my own life and ministry.
My question is a phrase that I've become more familiar with
through the writings of Doug Wilson, and then you used it
in your message yesterday morning, the feminization of the church.
Would you mind elaborating on that, please? Yes. No, I don't mind. Yes, I will. When I talk about the feminization
of the church, I don't even know why I started using that term. What I mean by that is the virtual
softening up of the church, the church's unwillingness to be
strong. Do you remember when Paul was
writing to the Corinthians and he said, Act like men act like
men. There is a way that men act that
Paul was driving at. He went on to say, be strong. And I think that that concept
is how I define the masculine aspect of the church. If you go back, that concept
that Paul, where is that? I was just trying to think. 1
Corinthians, verse 13 of chapter 16. Act like men. Be strong. That defines what I think is
the masculine nature of the church. And I think Paul borrows that
from Joshua, first of all, it appears a lot of places, but
go back to Joshua chapter 1, and that's really a portion of
Scripture that would have been obviously familiar to Paul, and
gives us some good insight. Verse 6 is the same language. Be strong and courageous. And
God says to Joshua, Verse 7, Be strong and very courageous,
careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant
commended. You do not turn to the right
or to the left. You may have success where you
go. Verse 8, this book of the law should not depart from your
mouth. Meditate on it day and night. Be careful to do according
to all that is written in it. Then you will make your way prosperous.
Then you will have good success. Here it comes again. Verse 9,
I have commanded you be strong, courageous. Don't tremble or
be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with
you wherever you go. That's a masculine kind of concept. The woman is the one who needs
to be protected. The woman is the one who, under
the frightening circumstances, goes into fear. The man becomes
her protector. So when I talk about the feminism
of the church, I mean the abandonment of courage, conviction, strength,
holding fast to the truth, being obedient, contending for the
faith. That's what I mean. One more, and we'll pick you
guys up first tomorrow. Hello, Dr. MacArthur. My name
is Scott Adams. I'm a family physician from Roanoke, Virginia.
You're a what? A family physician from Roanoke,
Virginia and also a lay leader in my church. And I want to ask
you a question from Psalm 139, verses 13 to 15. And I'll just
read it real quickly here for all of us to hear. For thou didst
form my inward parts, thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to thee, for
I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are thy works,
and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from
thee when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the
depths of the earth. The question that I'm facing
right now for my pastors in my church has to do with the issues
that all of us as Christians are facing in the area of bioethics
and medical research, specifically stem cell research and human
cloning. There are two researchers in
the world right now, one in Kentucky and one in Italy, who have made
pronouncements that they will have the first human cloned person
in existence by December. My question that I've been asked
many times is, if God will allow this to happen, will he place
a soul in these cloned humans? Well, and the answer to the question
is, I have no idea. But, you know, I don't want to
venture a guess except to say this, that that is a massive
question because that question theologians have wrangled over
for centuries about whether the soul comes through the genetic
material, or whether God actually creates it at conception. And
I don't know that there's any way to argue that, but it takes
you back to that question. Then you'd have to ask the question,
if in fact the soul of a person is not passed down through the
genetic material, obviously by a divine creative act of God,
but that God somehow creates the soul at the time of conception,
and places it within that material, then you'd have to ask the question,
will he choose to do that in the case of a clone or will he
not? And I don't even know how to answer the first question.
So the second question is impossible for me to answer. My guess would
be that stem cell research and cloning
is just another mechanical means to produce a human life. different
than the normal way to do it. And the assumption then would
be that because the fabric is there of human life, it's reasonable
to assume that you would have a human life. Like you, and that
would mean with a soul, because that's human. But with you, this
is pretty frightening stuff. This is seriously frightening. Dealing with all of these bio-ethical
situations. I don't know what God's going
to do with this until it happens. You know, the questions that
we don't ask anymore are would God ever allow people to be conceived
in a test tube? He did. How far will God go in
allowing this? Know this, and I think what Mark
ever said last night is very important to understand. Man
doesn't go anywhere that God isn't there already. So, you
know, nobody's going to pull one on God, unless you're an
openness theologian, and God needs to find this guy and check
with him so he can get working on whatever he's supposed to
do when this thing happens. But man's not going to go anywhere
God hasn't been. I can't predict what is going
to happen, but I would assume that human life is in—I lean
toward the fact that human life, as created by God, is in the
genetic material, including the soul of man, to whatever degree. I don't know that. And so when
a life is created, a human life is created, it will be human.
That, to me, is really frightening. I guess I would almost rather
that it weren't, so people wouldn't do it. Because what would you
have if you had a human without a soul? What would you have?
You wouldn't have a human. So they would stop doing it.
Because soul is personhood. So there wouldn't be any person
there. There would be a material body with no immaterial part.
And if you had a material body with no immaterial part, you'd
have Well, you'd have a living zombie or something. I don't
know what. So I don't know. But I do know we're going to
have to deal with these questions. My guess is that if they can
do it, it will be a human being. And that begs all kinds of other
questions. OK. That concludes this recording. If you would like to order more
audio recordings, please visit our Web page at www.shepherdsconference.org
or call the Shepherds Conference office at 818-909-5530.