I thought I would devote this blog entry to a description of the preaching of John MacArthur. I had the chance to hear him preach five sermons while in Los Angeles at the Shepherd's Conference. I hope to add a few entries about some of the seminars I attended and some of the other speakers at the conference.
The highlight of our trip to California has been attending the Shepherd’s Conference at Grace Community Church. There is a sense in which I feel like I have come home, even though I have never been here.
The first time I ever heard of John MacArthur was somewhere around 1982 or 1983 when I was in college. A friend of mine named Felix Martinez gave me a tape by MacArthur on love – what it means to love. Just to give you an idea of how big an impact that made on me, I can still remember the main theme of the message, 22 years later. Most folks can’t remember my messages 22 minutes later. But, I remember MacArthur spoke of the love of God – God so loved that He gave. For God, love is not a feeling where He looks down on us and has all these warm fuzzy feelings toward us. No, love is an action – a self-sacrificial giving of oneself for the benefit of another. MacArthur went on to apply this to his pastoring. He said that as a pastor, he loved all of the people in the church, but he didn’t demonstrate this love by getting all gushy toward everyone and giving everyone a big hug every time he saw them. He demonstrated his love to his congregation by giving of himself for their benefit. The greatest benefit a pastor can give to his church is to feed them on the Word of God. The best way he could show love to his people was to spend hours upon hours studying the Word of God in order to feed his sheep. This was love.
So, the fact that I can still remember the gist of that message 22 years later (and as far as I know, I only heard the tape once) is a testimony to the impact of MacArthur on my life. I can also remember ridding somewhere in Gainesville with a roommate of mine – Steve Price, and us listening to a tape by MacArthur on Christian growth. He said something in that tape (again, about 20 years or so ago) that has shaped the way I have thought about Christian growth since then. He said that Christian growth is all about making our practice match our position. Positionally, when we come to Christ, we are seen as righteous and perfect because of His righteousness which has been credited to us. Now, Christian growth is all about making our practice match our position.
Over the last ten or so years I haven’t listened to MacArthur as much, although I have still liked him and read many of his books. To this day, his book The Gospel According to Jesus, is still the watershed book in my life. It completely changed my understanding of the gospel, evangelism and what it means to follow Christ in general. But, as I say, I haven’t listened to MacArthur as much in the last several years as I would like to have. Still, I have been hearing about his Shepherd’s Conference for years and always thought I would like to attend. In His providence, God has allowed me to attend (and allowed me to bring along my wife Lynette as an added bonus) this year, using the kindness of our Church – Glen Burnie Evangelical Presbyterian – in allowing us to go, and using the kindness of our mother’s to take care of the kids while we went.
In two of his messages this year, MacArthur’s emphasis was on the nature of true repentance. He preached two messages on Luke 3:1-17 using John the Baptist as a model for preaching. In these messages he clearly pointed out the text’s emphasis on repentance as being at the heart of the message. Here are a few sound bites from the message:
- John’s message of repentance seems odd to us today because it was a powerful, direct and clear message of repentance.
- This message seems odd to us today because we live in a (church) world where unbelievers have become the chief church consultants of our day. We place greater emphasis on pleasing unbelievers than on convicting them of their sin.
- People have always been prone to a superficial, shallow and temporary repentance, and this is fatal. Shallow repentance is more aided and abetted by preachers today than it has ever been.
- John the Baptist was bizarre in the eyes of his culture. He was utterly and totally disconnected from his culture. By divine design John was uninfluenced by the society around him. He stands as a strong rebuke to the church growth movement of today. He didn’t know the culture, but he knew his message.
- Our message has to be to the culture, not from the culture.
Here are the elements of true repentance:
1. Reflection on personal sin – we need to come to grips with our own wretchedness. The motive of the sinner is always to justify himself, but it is our task to maximize the sinner’s sense of guilt (personal comment – how un-politically correct is that, and how un-correct does that sound in our self-image obsessed churches?).
2. Recognition of divine wrath – Jesus said more about hell than heaven, and so should we.
3. Rejecting religious ritual – not trying to atone for sin by doing religious things.
4. Renouncing religious heritage – salvation is not inherited, sin is.
5. Reveal spiritual transformation – true repentance evidences itself in a hatred and loathing of oneself. There is no true repentance if there is no fruit. The fruit is righteous attitudes and actions. When preaching we must bring the person to a place where all of their options outside of Christ are gone.
6. Receiving the true Messiah – no matter how sorry someone is for sin, there is no salvation without embracing the true Messiah.
As I reflected on this message I can see that I have been one of those preachers who has aided and abetted shallow repentance. Too often I have offered the hope of the gospel to those who were under no sense of their guilt and condemnation before God. And, I have to admit that I have been influenced more by modern Christianity than by the Bible. A mad quest for relevance doesn’t lend itself to preaching for deep repentance.
MacArthur did another message on II Corinthians 11:1-6 which was still good, but it didn’t impact me like the two on repentance. This was a message on loyalty – we are to be loyal to God, loyal to Christ, and loyal to the gospel.
This time I noticed something about MacArthur's preaching that I knew, but it really hit home as to its significance. His preaching is entirely biblically saturated. When he makes a point, he illustrates it from another part of the Scripture. As such, there is a sense in which his preaching is slow, plodding and methodical. This explains some of the visceral reactions against him - most of us today can't follow a long, slow, plodding argument. His preaching requires something of you - you must listen actively. It reminds me of C. S. Lewis's description of good literature. Lewis said that the best literature is that which requires something from you. It requires effort on your part in order to understand it.
This is the antithesis of modern evangelicalism - one of the worst things that can be said of a preacher is that he is over someone's head. Frankly, I don't see that MacArthur and those like him are over anyone's heads, it's just that there sermons require listeners to be able to think in something more than a sound bite and be able to follow a logical argument.
In all of this I don't mean to sound too hagiographic - I do think MacArthur is one of the better preachers of our day, but this does not mean he is without flaws. However, flaws and all, he is on the right track in his strict fidelity to Scripture and he serves as an example and model for young preachers like myself.
"As such, there is a sense in which his preaching is slow, plodding and methodical. This explains some of the visceral reactions against him - most of us today can't follow a long, slow, plodding argument."
I read this post with great interest, having been involved in a college fellowship group with heavily cross-pollinated with Grace Community Church and attended Grace for three years in my post college years.
Left his church disilussioned about 10 years ago. As to my story, since this is your site, I will not bore you with it.
So you are saying because his teaching requires so much thinking on your part, those who respond with "visceral reactions" are non thinkers? Sounds like a backhanded insult, but I hope to see elaboration on that (if you get to read this comment).
I had a chance to visit the Grace as well as TMS websites. One thing that stands out to me is that almost all of the ministry staff and faculty members, save the older ones, are exclusively from The Master's Seminary. The older ones of course couldn't be from TMS since the seminary has been around only since 1986.
This fits well with MacArthur's ministry practice. Nothing outside of his empire is to be trusted, which I believe amounts to spiritual paranoiah. I am not sure if it is just a "flaw" to gloss over by saying he is not without flaws.
Posted by: David Cho | July 27, 2005 at 05:24 PM
I apologize for the tone of my comment. I don't think you meant to be insulting with the statement.
I look forward to reading more of your postings.
Posted by: David Cho | July 27, 2005 at 05:51 PM
Check out the truth about Macarthur's church here:
http://watch.pair.com/macarthur.html
Posted by: charles | March 29, 2009 at 08:18 PM