Science aside, Dr. Duncan twice made reference to
1 Corinthians 15, 19, and although I am, in prefacing my question,
I'm joyful Christian and I'm gonna spend eternity with all
these folks, but people I witness to say, what if you are wrong? What if Christ was not resurrected? What have we lost? I'm joyful,
I've gained everything, but what do I tell some of it? SPROUL
JR.: : Well, you know, the philosopher who's already also mentioned
today, Blaise Pascal, made his famous wager that if you bet
your life on the Christian faith and when you die you find out,
or you maybe don't find out, but the reality is that it was
not true, you haven't lost anything because you've still had a joyful
life and lived it to the fullest, whereas the person who bets against
it and it ends up being true, spends eternity in hell. Now,
that's a kind of facile view of things, I think. I've never
been all that impressed with the wager because Paul is not
that optimistic. The references that he made here
is that if Christ is not raised, the implications for that are
enormous. Not only are we of all people
the most to be pitied, but we are still in our sins. We've
become false witnesses of God because we've testified that
God raised Christ from the dead. And, you know, we have been…we're
following after a lie, and those who have gone before us who have
died, they have perished, you know. And so, I mean, the stakes
are enormous. But I'll shut up now because
our guests are here, and they are the ones who are the object
of this inquiry. We were just filibustering, giving
you… So let's start over here. Hello. Good afternoon. And my
question is for Dr. Duncan. You stated that science
does not possess the tools to prove or disprove the origins
of life. Can you expand on this? And also, does this apply to
those who preach the theory of intelligent design? They seem
to be trying to use science to prove the existence of God. Are
the tools of science equally limiting to those who preach
intelligent design? When folks in intelligent design
make arguments from the microscopic intricacy and the content of
creation giving evidence of a designer That's a perfectly legitimate
thing to do. But it's another thing to say
that you've got the tools of science to disprove the existence
of God or to disprove the Christian view of origins. In one, there
is much evidence that can be gleaned. In the other, you're
moving out of the realm of what an empirical process is actually
capable of doing. As I said, philosophers would
step in and say, There are some things that empirical study can
get you an answer for. There are other things that it
can't get you an answer for. So for instance, if a materialist
scientist were to say, if you can't measure it, if you can't
weigh it, it's not real. A philosopher might come back
and say, well, what about the laws of thought and the laws
of logic? Can you weigh those? Can you
measure them? No. Well, does that mean they're
not real? Well, he might then say, well, yeah, it means that
they're not real. They're just social conventions. And then
the philosopher could say, okay, does that mean that I get to
make up my own laws of thought? If so, I've just made up a law
of thought that I'm always right and you're always wrong, and
therefore Christianity is true. So there are limits on what certain
types of processes can yield with regard to philosophical
evidence and conclusion. But the guys who's the expert
in that sit next to me. So, R.C.? R.C. SPROUL JR.: :
We just passed a rule that only one of us would respond. But before I bite my tongue off,
I do have to say that one of the things that's almost constantly
overlooked, except by such people such as Anthony Flew in his most
recent book, and what was certainly present with Carl Sagan, is that
the metaphysical assumption of all science is that the universe
is knowable. That is, it is intelligible. that screams for design. If there
is no structure, if there is no design, then the universe,
contrary to Mr. Sagan, is not cosmos, but chaos,
and therefore unintelligible. So when the scientist wants to
rule out design in the universe, he's not simply ruling out the
possibility of theology and philosophy. He's ruling out all possibility
for science because the necessary assumption for scientific inquiry
is that there's something we can know out there. I have a question. They're talking
about the university campuses and intelligent design and those
kinds of topics. In the last couple of years,
there's been a forum that's developed primarily from scientists at
UCSD. having to do with, it's called
Beyond Belief, and it's on the video, it's on the internet. I think they're starting the
third one in November. And I'm just wondering if either
of you gentlemen or any of the Christians you know have thought
about creating a forum called Beyond Disbelief. and to go ahead
and provide some sort of counterweight to that. Now, I think the people
who would organize it would be receptive to having Christians
there. I just don't think they know
who, what theologians to invite. And so I'm just wondering if
you've heard of it and if you've... have thought about that kind
of…because I know that beyond belief is also on other campuses,
and that seems to be the phraseology for people who are trying to
put the scientific non-belief of Christianity in practice.
Well, just to…excuse me, I'm not contagious, but I think we
have to understand what we're talking about here. There is
no such thing as the science of creation. There's no such
thing as creation science, because creation can't be explained scientifically. Does that take you someplace
you've never been and you're thinking? There is any more than
there would be such a thing as observing Lazarus after he came
out of the grave, watching how he walked, how he ate, giving
him some kind of medical tests, and that would explain how he
came back from the dead. You're not talking about anything
that science can't explain. There is no scientific explanation
for creation. It is not repeatable, observable. It is not…it doesn't fit science.
It is one massive miracle. So what happens is all…good. I may say that again somewhere. Whatever works, right? I'm a
pregnant. So, listen, so here's what I'm
getting at. Creation, quote-unquote, scientists,
all they keep doing is disproving evolution. Right? They keep saying
it can't happen, it doesn't happen, genetics tells us it doesn't
happen, it's never happened, we don't see it, we haven't seen
it, we won't see it, it can't happen, it can't happen, it can't
happen. At the end of the day, okay, I give. That tells me nothing
about creation. because creation is a divine
miracle. So if you want to know about creation, you only have
one source, that's revelation. So if you're going to have a
group of people together, they have to be people who believe
the book of Genesis and can articulate it and show that science, what
is and is observable now, is consistent with that account. What I see in intelligent design
is a safe haven for people who are stuck with the fact that
evolution doesn't explain it, stuck with the fact of teleology
and design, but don't want the biblical account. So I see intelligent
design as a safe middle ground for people who are at least honest
enough to say the evolutionary model doesn't work but are not
willing to end up with the God of the Scriptures and with divine
revelation. So where Christians need to go,
I think, and what we need to proclaim is faith in the biblical
account, which is the only account. It's an eyewitness account from
the Creator. I'm not familiar with that group,
but I will say that I think that the kind of, and I don't know
what Beyond Belief does, I don't know what the substance of their
stuff is, but things like the Christopher Hitchens and Sam
Harris and Richard Dawkins arguments, all I want to do is give them
the microphone, say, please keep talking. You'll drive people
right to the Bible, right to the gospel, because the vision
of life that they then attempt to lay out after they've done
their deconstructing, I don't know how a human being can survive
with that kind of meaninglessness. So hand them the microphone,
let them keep talking. Invite that group to your campus
and just be ready to do the gospel in the aftermath. Hi, Mr. MacArthur, when you spoke of
the relationship that God has to evil, you used the word that
He allows evil and He wills evil, and they seem a little different
to me. One seems active and one seems passive, and I was just
wondering if you could speak to that. Well, I think that I'm
simply using simple terms, not in a technical sense. Evil exists. God is God, and He is absolutely
sovereign, therefore God allowed evil to exist. If He allowed
it, He had to will it. Allowing it is simply the act
of His will. So that's a simple distinction. without causing it, and God distances
Himself completely. Even in Romans 9, I didn't get
around to pointing it out, vessels fitted to glory is an active
verb. Vessels which have been fitted
for destruction is a passive verb. God even distances Himself
from that in a sense. So it takes all responsibility
for vessels fitted to glory, no responsibility for vessels
fitted to destruction. So it's simply the allowing is
the effect of His willing. Thank you. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait. We're doing this in sequence. No, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
wait. You have to wait. I'm very sorry. I know it's hard,
but you've got to do it because he's up at the microphone. In 2 Timothy 3.16 when Paul says,
all Scripture is God-breathed. What specifically is he referring
to? Is he referring to this obtuagent? And if so, what does that imply
as regards inspiration and inerrancy? To whomever. Who's he asking
that? In the first instance, he's referring
to the Old Testament Scriptures, whether you mean them in the
Septuagint translation or another early Greek translation or in
the Masoretic text. But his words, by extension,
apply to all Scripture. If you look over in chapter 5,
he has the quote where he quotes from both the Old Testament and
the New Testament in one verse and calls it Scripture. And so,
most directly, it's a reference to the Old Testament Scripture.
By extension, it refers to all Scripture. Hey, gentlemen, thanks for being
here. When sharing the gospel, how important is it to use the
law to reveal sin, to reveal the need for the Savior, and
how do you do it without being legalistic for anyone? Well, I think it's
essential that the person understand that what salvation is, is rescue,
divine rescue from eternal damnation. You know, we're not saving people
from a lack of purpose. We're not giving a gospel that's
going to bump them up on the few notches on the comfort scale
in life and make them more prosperous and happier and give them more
self-esteem. This is a serious rescue operation from eternal
damnation, which then begs the question, how did that happen
to me? why would God damn me? I'm a nice person," and etc.,
etc. Eventually, you're going to end
up, if you're giving any kind of gospel presentation that has
any kind of real spiritual weight with the issue that this individual
stands culpable before God as one guilty of violating the law
of God. And I think the ultimate sin
And this is where I think sometimes some of these approaches where
they drag people, you know, through the Ten Commandments, don't get
at the real issue, which was articulated by Jesus, who said,
you're going to be damned because you don't believe in Me. Sooner
or later, you've got to get past the Ten Commandments to the great
sin of all sins, which is ultimately to reject Jesus Christ. But I
think it is necessary that people understand that God is holy and
righteous and has revealed that in Scripture and has established
the law, not only the external law of the Ten Commandments,
but in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes the whole thing inside
and then expands it to rejecting Him, and they've got to understand
the consequences of having violated the law of God. Again, that goes
back to Romans 10. They have to understand that
God is far more righteous than they think He is, and they are
far less righteous than they think they are, and the separation
is impossible to bridge, and they need a Redeemer and a Savior
to rescue them from the consequences of these violations, which are
relentless and unending. And then, you know, Romans 3
plays into that. that there's none righteous, no, not one. There's none that does good,
and all of that, of course, is drawn out of the Old Testament
text. So, yeah, I think it's critical to understand that,
not in a superficial way and not in a way that is demeaning. Sometimes you hear people doing
this and saying, well, you've got to face it, you're a lying,
adulterous, you know, blasphemer. There's a lot more to understanding
this than just something like that, but I think it is essential.
The gospel only makes sense when you understand divine judgment. To Dr. MacArthur, still in this
quest for the source of evil in the context that something
cannot come from nothing. So if Satan was a fallen angel
and came and infected the Garden of Eden, what was the devil that
made the devil do it? In other words, where did that
evil in the devil come from and why? Parting shot would be explain
what a leaky dispensationalist is. Okay, stay there and ask
the second one. Let me compound your question
even more. The temptation that Satan fell
to theoretically didn't come from
outside of him, theoretically didn't come from inside of him,
because he was holy in one sense, and there was nothing unholy
outside of him, which makes the dilemma even worse in one sense. So, if you expect me to answer
where it came from… HITCHENS I hope you would. WEBB Yeah,
I'm not able to do that. I'm not capable of that, except
that's what I gave you a little bit of a hint when I talked about
the deprivation aspect, the metaphysical concept that because there is
good, it in itself speaks to the issue of evil. So it is the
opposite of what God made, the opposite of what God created,
but you still have the ultimate dilemma of where the prompting
for that came. We know where it came in the
garden, but in heaven we don't know from where it came. And
then your question was about? I think you described yourself
in the past time or two as a leaky dispensationalist. I was wondering
what that really meant. Well, because I have to distance
myself from what most people think of dispensationalism. You
know, seven different dispensations, two new covenants, the difference
between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, and the
book of Galatians isolates itself, and James has nothing to do with
us, and all of those convoluted kind of things that are imposed
on the text. I simply believe, and this is
the summation of my whole quote-unquote dispensationalism, I simply believe
that there is still a future for Israel as a nation, as an
entity in the purposes of God, because that's what's promised
in the Old Testament, and that's it. And anything that connects
with that or relates to that I just take the Old Testament
at face value and I'm unwilling to change my hermeneutics when
I come to those passages and make promises to Israel become
promises to some other entity, including the church. So that's
purely an exegetical thing for me, being consistent with your
hermeneutics rather than a system that gets imposed, which is more
complex and I think very difficult to defend biblically. Everybody
believes in dispensations, everybody. We all understand pre-fall, post-fall. We understand pre-law, post-law,
pre-cross, post-cross. We understand this age and the
age to come. So we all understand that there are different economies
in which God has operated. There was a time when God overlooked
certain things and now commands all men everywhere to repent,
Acts 17. So it's making sure that those
distinctions are biblical distinctions and not some kind of external
distinctions imposed on the text. I understand. Thank you. Over
here. Over here. Yeah, I guess this
question is kind of providential to the answer you just gave. I think you would all agree that,
between the three of you, you all unite around the gospel of
Christ. And Reformed theology is known
for being doctrinal theology. It places a great stress on doctrine. What do you do in a church when,
as I know you three, if you talked long enough, some of the differences
in doctrinal perspectives would begin to surface? Dr. MacArthur's
dispensationalism, R.C. Sproul's covenant theology, there
would be some issues over maybe eschatology and other things
that you unite together, but yet you're divided in certain
areas. How do you deal with that when
it happens in a body? Because I've seen churches split
over it, and what do you do? Well, since I'm the odd man out
here with these covenantalists… That's true, actually. I just
want you to understand this. What we disagree on is minimal, and much of it has to do with
eschatology, and I am humbled eschatologically by the words
of Peter who said that even the prophets in the Old Testament
looked at what they wrote to understand what person and what
time they were talking about. So, when you're talking eschatologically,
you decide that you're going to interpret eschatological passages
either in one way or another, but we all understand that we
are humbled by the reality that what hasn't happened yet is cannot be fully known, especially
when much of the passages that are eschatological are in visionary
form other than just simple, straightforward historical statements. But that's the future. So I think
with that and maybe a few other ecclesiological issues, we would
differ. But 98% of the things that the
Scripture teaches, we affirm together, all the way, certainly
all the way from theology proper through bibliology, sweeping
through soteriology, Christology, pneumatology, angelology, and we come all the
way down, and finally we get into ecclesiology, and maybe
we, you know, we talk about the baptismal mode and all of that
kind of thing, and then we get to eschatology, and there's some
dividing points at that juncture. I've tried to minimize those
in my understanding of Scripture by asking not to be referred
to as a dispensationalist because that's a buzz term. In fact, Gerstner said one time
that I was the only dispensationalist he ever met that didn't take
it to its logical conclusions because he said that at our seminary
when he was giving a series there. He couldn't understand me because
it bothered him that I didn't have consistent logical powers. He didn't. He was afraid of where
I was going to end up, you know. If it wasn't going to be where
all dispensationals end up, it would be some other tragic place,
you know. SPROUL JR.: : The scary thing about your question to
me is the worst thing you can possibly do in light of the reality
that doctrine at times does divide is to flee from doctrine. That's
like saying the truth of God doesn't matter. And God forbid
that we should ever set it forth in our church, because if somebody
gets upset or offended, we're going to have a split. A church
that never cares about doctrine is a dead church. But I think some people use doctrine
as a big club, and they beat people up with it. And I think
as a pastor, you encourage the faint-hearted, you help the weak,
you exhibit enduring macrothymia, you know, patience. We have a
doctrinal statement at our church, and it's 14, 15 pages long. We
call it what we teach. We don't call it what we believe
because we don't all believe it yet. And so we don't say to
someone, you have to sign this doctrinal statement to come into
this church because I don't want to spend my whole life preaching
what I believe to people who already believe it. That's redundant. I know all these people are in
process. All we want to have people say
is, are you willing to submit yourself to the instruction that's
going to be built on this? So I think it's being irenic,
it's being gracious, it's following the patience of Christ as He
endeavored to communicate with His apostles who were blockheads,
as we all know. and he was going back over the
same thing again and again. I think it's the patience and
the love, it's the 1 Corinthians 13 attitude, and it's… I know there's a side of me that
only…you hear a sermon and you read a book and you would think
maybe that Grace Church was a pretty hard-nosed place. Our doctrine
is clear and we don't hesitate to proclaim it, but the church
should be pervaded by the patient love of its leadership to let
people be in the process that the Spirit of God is working
in their hearts with the truth being taught to them to bring
them to that place of conviction. and slam-dunk Reformed theology
on people's heads, you're going to cause a fight because people
have reason to believe what they believe. Somebody told them this
was the truth of God, and it's sacred to them. And there's definitely
a process in letting people move along, and you want to make sure
that there's openness and generosity and graciousness in the proclamation
of these truths without wavering on the truths themselves. Thank
you. Very wise answer. My question is for John MacArthur. I want to ask if you think my
theology or belief is true or not, biblical or whatever. When I first became a Christian,
about the first, I don't know, five or six years, I started
to learn. I thought John the Baptist and Gospel of John were
the same guy. So I had to learn from my pastor
and asking questions and things like that. But then I started
to, you know, believe that, you know, read certain things that
said, wow, you shouldn't do this. And they would say the same things
over and over again. I'm like, well, I've got to stop doing this. And things like that.
And I would, you know, hear about daily disciplines, reading the
Bible in the morning or whatever, and starting your day with the
Lord, things like that, and turning from sin and so forth. So that
wasn't my focus. And then I met some people on
the way that said, well that's old covenant theology or you're
legalistic and things like that. And so the past seven years or
so, second half of being a Christian, I get scared that, man, am I
a Pharisee? One guy told me one time, he
was like, well, you're happy when you, or something like that,
you feel good about yourself when you do the right, what God,
you think God wants you to do, but when you don't, you're down. And that's somewhat true. So
I, is that the right way to grow as a Christian? And how do you
know if you're not trying to earn God's blessing or something
like that? Well, first of all, I don't know
who you're running into, but cancel all these people out. You need to be listening to the
right people telling you the right thing. As babes desire the pure milk
of the Word that you may grow thereby. If you have tasted that
the Lord is good, if you've seen the kindness of the Lord in your
salvation, if you've seen what the power of the truth did to
save you, then you understand what the power of the truth will
do to sanctify you. And you will, if you're truly
regenerated and converted, you are going to desire, you are
going to desire the things that the new nature longs for. You're going to have holy aspirations. It is irresponsible and wrong
to tell you that to pursue obedience to the Word of God is some kind
of legalism. That smacks of classic antinomianism,
the idea that, you know, where sin abounded, grace much more
abounds, so more sin means more grace, and you forget the God
forbid part. You grow by the Word of God.
Man does not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds
out of the mouth of God. John 17, 17, "'Sanctify them
by thy truth. Thy word is truth.'" You're in
a process now of being sanctified. You are being conformed to the
image of God. You have new impulses, new longings,
new desires. We say this, that You know you're
a Christian not by the perfection of your life, but by the direction
of your life. And all of a sudden, you're moving toward the things
that your heart wants. You have a new set of values,
a new set of motives, a new set of desires. You have an appetite
for the truth. You have a hunger to honor Christ.
You don't want to displace Him. Those are all the impulses of
the new man. And one dominating characteristic
of that new man in 1 John is if you say you're Christ, then
you walk the way He walked. And Jesus was no legalist, but
He kept the law of God perfectly, and He's the model. That's not
legalism. Legalism says, I'm capable of
earning my salvation by what I do. I don't think you believe
that. So, you understand that salvation
is by grace, and the drives and impulses of that new life shouldn't
be restrained, they should be exploited to the max. So you
want to take every opportunity you have to expose yourself to
the Word of God, understand the Word of God, and implement it
in every facet of life. So that's the other part of my
question. So when a Christian, when I do things that I know
are wrong, and I sin or rebel, if I do that, does it mess up
my, like Hank Hanegraaff says, it messes up your communion with
God, I think? Because that's what I thought. It messes up
my closeness. That's why I put it in there. Well, sure. It's
not going to change your salvation, because salvation is for the
purpose of saving you from your sin. And that's eternal. But that's why John said, these
things I write unto you that your joy may be full. He's writing
to believers and telling them how to have full joy. Full joy
comes from obedience. Jesus said, happy is the man
who hears my word and does it. So if you don't do it, you're
going to forfeit that joy. You're going to feel the striking
of your conscience, which will accuse you. You may even lose
your assurance of salvation. That's part of it. So obedience
brings you the fullness of joy that comes in the fullness of
that relationship, and disobedience takes that joy away. That's why
David says, restore to me not my salvation, but the joy of
my salvation. Thank you. Over here. This question is for Dr. MacArthur.
Can you tell me, do you believe that God is still sending us
prophets today? And if yes, how do we recognize
them? And if no, why not? And where
in the Bible would we find that? I do not believe that God is
giving direct revelation today. I believe that Ephesians 2.20
says, the church was built on the foundation of the apostles
and the prophets. You put the foundation down, and then you
go from there. You don't put the foundation down on the twentieth
floor again. So I think the gift, the New Testament gift, the unique
gift of the prophet was to speak divine revelation not so much
on a Scriptural level as on some pragmatic level in the life of
the church. And I think that the apostles ceased. I think
that they were unique. They were, obviously the Twelve
were unique, they who saw the risen Christ. There were even,
I think, church apostles who had a unique responsibility of
leadership. But I think the apostles and prophets were foundational.
It was one of those temporary revelatory gifts that God gave
in the time before the Scripture was written, and now we have
the Scripture which is the faith once for all delivered to the
saints, and it is complete, intact. There are no further revelations
at all from God. It doesn't mean He doesn't lead
us, it doesn't mean the Spirit doesn't direct us, but there are no more verbal
revelations coming from God. If you say there are, then you
have the dilemma that I read about in a book I read some years
ago that said when somebody stands up in your church and gives a
prophecy, you know they either got it from God or they didn't.
Well, that's not helpful. Is there a red light on their
head that goes on when it's from God? That is not helpful. And I think clearly in all the
epistles of the New Testament, the church is not waiting for
some prophecy. They're under the direction of the Holy Spirit
through the Word. So I do not think… I know there are some
people who don't believe in cessation at that point, and they think
there are prophets today, but they've had to redefine the gift,
and they've had to say this, these prophets that still exist
can be wrong. often are wrong and shouldn't
be judged by the biblical standard of a prophet was, if you're wrong,
you stone him. Right? That's what they say. SPROUL
JR.: : And they shrink away if you say, do you mean you're an
agent of revelation that your teachings should be included
in the next edition of the New Testament? Most of them are saying,
I'm a prophet, but no, I'm not going to go that far. MACARTHUR,
JR.: : We take out the concordance and put words from Tom. SPROUL
JR.: : Right. I would add to that if you do
run into people who seriously claim to be prophets or apostles
in the biblical sense that you run for your life. And I would also say grab your
wallet. Well, this comment is on Dr. Duncan's lecture about the rampant
materialism and atheism we're seeing in today's top scientists. I'm a big fan of Soren Kierkegaard,
and I think he answered that question some 160 years ago.
Technically speaking, he put it, every science lies either
in a logical imminence or in an imminence within a transcendence
that it is unable to explain. More popularly put, He said,
let mathematicians and astronomers save themselves if they can with
infinitely disappearing minute magnitudes, but in life itself
this does not help a man to obtain his examination papers and much
less to explain Spirit. SPROUL JR.: : Amen. SPROUL JR.:
: A lot of good things in Kierkegaard, but watch it. Truth is not subjectivity. That's a disastrous concept that
he passed off to the world. I don't know that he really meant
it the way many contemporaries interpreted it, because I've
always been a large fan of Kierkegaard myself, but maybe just be careful,
okay? Over here. Dr. MacArthur, I followed
you very well when you were talking about the sovereignty of the
Lord and that He has willed evil to exist, but I completely lost
you when you started talking about the wrath of God. Who is He mad at? What is He
mad at? Unless He's given some choices, why would He be mad? Well, God is not mad in the sense
that we think of, you know, some days you're happy and some days
you're mad. God is angry all the time. All the time. At His creation?
He is angry all the time at sin. He is angry every hour of every
day at sin, because all of God's attributes are always fully operational
at all times. He's also loving all the time,
gracious all the time, merciful all the time, etc., etc. So you
don't want to think of God as sort of getting ticked off on
a certain day and drowning some country. There is a steady reality to
the wrath of God. God is angry and necessarily
angry. God is angry and necessarily
angry over everything that violates His holiness, and He has to be
You know, we had a talk about this. Sinclair Ferguson and I
were at the Banner of Truth Conference in England, Ian Murray's thing,
and the question came up about why would Jesus say when He went
to the garden, Father, let this cup pass from Me. And Sinclair
said if He didn't say that, He wouldn't have been consistent
with His holy nature, because He was about to become an object
of God's wrath, a sin-bearing substitute. This repulsed everything
in Him. It was expected that He would
say that because it was so contrary. For us, it's contrary to our
nature to do what's right, to do righteously. For Him, it was
contrary to His nature to sin. God is all the time angry with
sin because it violates His holiness, because it pollutes His universe,
and He will judge every sinner. But at the same time, all His
other attributes are working at the same time. So it's not
that when we get mad, everything else disappears. Is that what
you mean? I'm truly trying to understand
you. Isn't what just to say that he's
all the time angry at sin question his sovereignty? Because a sovereign
Lord, how would He allow a situation to go contrary to His will, to
make Him angry and wrathful? Because anger for Him is not
a sin. Anger for Him is a manifestation
of His holiness. It's a manifestation of His righteousness,
and He has every right and every desire to put His full glory
on display. Do you understand that there's
such a thing as righteous anger? Would you be angry if somebody
came in and molested your child? Would you be angry if someone
murdered a member of your family? That is a righteous indignation.
God's anger is always righteous anger. It is never sinful anger,
and it is consistent with his righteousness to have that anger. Thank you. Can I just add one thing there,
just to put a second on his view? God ordains evil does not mean
that evil is good. We can't call good evil and evil
good. That's not what John is doing.
He's saying that nothing can come to pass except through the
sovereign will of God, and that in a certain sense God wills
whatsoever comes to pass, including the fall. And He wills that for
His own glory because His willing that there be evil is not because
He thinks evil is good, but He thinks it's good that there is
evil. because even in the presence of evil, He manifests His righteousness,
He manifests His holiness, and when He wills evil to come into
being, He wills at the same time His own wrath against it. So
there's no real contradiction there, but go ahead, right here.
Pastor John, regarding suffering and our health. Suffering and
what? Suffering and our personal health.
If someone is chronically ill for many years and then they
get a diagnosis that they have a terminal illness which could
be cured possibly, Can they choose not to be treated and just go
home and be with the Lord? Would that be wrong morally,
or how would you speak to that? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. For a believer, going to heaven
is gain. Yeah, gain. For me to live is
Christ, to die is gain. Far better to depart and be with
Christ. No, that's a choice. It comes up a lot in pastoral
ministry. Heaven is far better, and sometimes the pain and the
inevitability of things, it's not uncommon for people to decide
not to take, you know, heroic kinds of things. I think there's
a natural instinct built into us to survive and to live. And
I think most people who are Christian people who have a great hope
of heaven battle because of the people that are around them that
love them and to whom they're helpful and needful and all of
that. But no, I don't think, particularly
for Christians, that you are required in any sense to exhaust
every I would be more prone to do that with a non-believer just
to extend the opportunity for the gospel. Thank you. Over here. I have a question
for Dr. MacArthur. I have a friend of mine and I
that came to the conference today. We are part of a men's Bible
study that meets every Thursday night, and last night at our
Bible study one of the elderly gentlemen said that a couple
of years ago he was speaking to a young man, and the young
man told him he simply couldn't believe in God. And he said the reason
he couldn't believe in God is because he was sexually abused
as a young child. And he just couldn't understand how a loving
and all-powerful God could allow that to happen to him. So I was
just wondering how you would respond to a young man for whom evil
is so personal and so painful. MOHLER Yeah, well, I think I
would… First of all, I would say you have a very personal
view of the universe. If you think that the reality
of whether there's a God or not depends on what happened to you,
I mean, that's… you have overestimated your importance in deciding major
questions. That is a really myopic approach
to it, but on a practical level, on a pastoral level, you would
say to a person like that, everybody lives with evil. We all live
in a fallen world. You're not the only person who
had something evil happen to you, but far more important than
the evil that happened to you is the evil that's in you. them
directly to a recognition. If He won't move from what was
done to me to what I am, I would tend to think that that
is simply an excuse, that, you know, pulling that up is merely
an excuse for him not to believe because he doesn't want what
the gospel offers, he doesn't want the Christian life. But
I think inevitably when you deal with people like that who are
blaming the evil that is outside of them, they need to deal with
the evil that is inside of them. and the violation of the law
of God in their heart and move them to Scripture and to the
gospel from there. Thank you. I think you're next over here.
No, I am. I am. I couldn't resist that.
The devil made me do it. All right, it's your turn. I'm glad I'm in the house of
the Lord here. Dr. MacArthur, you said that
God willed evil into existence. Please explain the difference
between willing and creating. Well, there's a huge difference. Explain. How about this? I can will a
lot of things, but I can't create anything. So it's a completely different
concept. God creates and He wills to allow
things that He does not create. And it's not an object, it is
a reality. And you have to go back to that
sort of metaphysical idea that It is the violation or rebellion
against what God created that He willed to permit, but He didn't
lead the rebellion. He didn't lead the violation.
I understand these questions ultimately resolve in our confidence
in Scripture, and it's as far as we can go. I mean, if you
just keep pressing this thing, you're going to find yourself
under the bed saying the Greek alphabet. You know, eventually you rest
in the fact that, look, I've got a pea brain, and I'm a finite
creature, and I will never capture in between my ears the infinite
mind of God. So I'm content to take the revelation
of Scripture and rest in that. I either believe God willed evil
or He didn't. If He willed it, He's in control
of it. If He didn't, it's in control
of Him. If I have a God who is subject to the power of evil,
then I don't have the God of Scripture, and I don't have a
God that I can trust for the future. Mine's for Dr. MacArthur, and
I enjoyed what you said. It's just,
I was wondering what you would say to someone who is in a tragedy
like right now, like just lost their child and is a non-believer,
even if they are a believer. Like, what do you say? Because
what you're saying is harsh. I mean, it's truth, but what
do you say to someone who's like in it now? Can I jump in, John? Yeah, please. One of my favorite
illustrations. I've already said more than I
know. I saw a program on 700 Club, okay? Pat Robertson was
interviewing a young woman who had two children between the
ages of one and three. In separate incidents, both of
her children were tragically killed. And she was weeping and
sobbing as she said, allow this to happen. It was unthinkable.
And Pat Robertson was trying as hard as he could to comfort
her. And he would say, you can't blame this on God. And God had
nothing to do with this. This is the fallen world. This is the devil. Everything
but God. I started actually talking out
loud to the television. I was sitting there, I was saying,
oh, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, please don't tell this woman
that God had nothing to do with that, because you've just taken
away from her any hope of ever finding the redeeming purpose
in this out of her. Biblically, it is God. Who giveth,
it is God who takes away. John recited passage after passage. He brings prosperity. He brings
calamity. That's not harsh. What we have
to tell people is that your only hope in the midst of your pain,
in the midst of your suffering, is that it is not an accident.
but that the supreme wisdom of a loving and transcendently holy
God is behind this. And you can't possibly know today
why, but this is His world, and it's the, who else would you
like to have in charge of it beside the Creator God? I mean,
I don't think that's harsh. It may be difficult. But I don't
think it's mean-spirited. I don't think it's harsh. I think
it's the truth that we have to speak to people to give them
any hope at all in the middle of this. Well, that's exactly
what I'm saying. If God didn't have anything to
do it, not that well, but... If God didn't have anything to
do with it, then nobody's in charge of the universe and nothing
makes sense. If God did have something to do with it, if He
had everything to do with it, if it fit within His plan, then
everything is in His control and everything has meaning and
points back to Him and to His glory. And you can begin to,
as time goes on, you know, very Christian people see things like
that in retrospect, and they can give you a litany of things
they can see that God did in response to what appeared to
be a tragedy at that particular time as they look back as time
goes on. So it's better to know that God is in control. There's
hope, and every issue becomes redeemed or redeemable in that
situation. All right, we have John Duncan. We're going to have another Q&A
tomorrow, right? All right, let me just tell you
we have time for two more. One here, one there. And the rest
of you can sit down and wait for tomorrow. So you're up. I
have some family, friends, but then I've read in the press the
growing acceptance of an accommodation of Eastern thought and particular
interest in so many Americans that believe in, more or less,
reincarnation. Could you address how to apologize
as a Christian and lead them correctly? SPROUL JR.: : Who
are you asking that? AUDIENCE MEMBER 2 Anyone? SPROUL
JR.: : Me? You've been awful. First of all,
people have this thing of reincarnation because they hope to come back
a second time and so on. But in the theories of reincarnation
that abound all the way back to the pre-Socratic days with
the mathematician Pythagoras and the transmigration of the
soul, you have this concept that in the next incarnation, you
have no conscious recollection of a previous incarnation. So, what is in the world is the
point. If I have no continuity of personal existence and awareness
between who I am now and who I was the last time around, and
who I'm going to be the next time, it's a meaningless thing. I really don't see… I mean, it's
just like it's wish projection. I've never been able to put a
whole lot of stock in it. WEBB Well, I mean, it's even
worse for Eastern thought, because in Eastern thought reincarnation
is not your goal. Extermination is your goal. Nirvana
is your goal where there's nothing. Reincarnation is a curse. It's
like karma coming back on you. And so, you know, when you live
a bad life and you come back as a housefly. So, we've… Americans
have Disney-fied the very depressing view of reincarnation that exists
in the Eastern religions. So… R.C. Sproul, Jr. And you
have the wonderful privilege of asking the ultimate question
for this Q&A. I'll try to be worthy. Dr. Sproul,
in light of the troubling times in which we live, and my brain
is now leaving me, in light of the troubling times in which
we now live, there's been a lot of teaching that's come along
lately encouraging Christians to try to redeem and preserve
their culture. And my question is, what is the Christian's responsibility
to his culture? SPROUL JR.: : Real quick, I would
say a lot of people who are Christians are praying for revival all the
time, and what I see for revival is revival means a renewed life
where you get lots of conversions and this quantum leap in the
number of people who come to Christ. That's a wonderful thing.
That's the goal of evangelism. But okay, but then what happens
after the people are converted? I've always been very much committed
to a new Reformation. And what a Reformation is, is
the change of the forms of a given structure. And we need new forms
in the culture because the old forms are decaying. They're dying. They're corrupt. But Reformation,
I believe, begins in the church when those who have been revived,
when those who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit grow from
infancy, spiritual infancy, to adulthood, and they begin to
manifest and exercise the godly life in their mature adulthood. If that happens in sufficient
numbers, the structures change. That's what happens historically,
because the Christian faith has implications for economics, for
political thought, for education, for aesthetics, for every sphere
of human life, which is what culture is involved with. You
don't need to capture the political structures of a nation to reform
the culture. That's the last thing I'm concerned
about. I'm concerned about being salt and light, manifesting the
power of the gospel in every corner of the culture.