In the first of two video shorts below, you will hear MacArthur state what is required for a professing Christian to live in accordance with scripture; in the second video short, you will hear what most people think it means to worship God, or to be a Christian.
Please think about the differences and use that data to evaluate your own Christian walk. If you do that, please keep the beatitudes in mind. Christ described His true kingdom citizens as those who would understand that they are spiritually bankrupt in themselves and mourn their personal sinfulness and failures; but they sought His righteousness….
This second short speaks about ‘religion’ and emphasizes that it is not biblical worship. It seems that one who worships rightly can fall into the state described by MacArthur, but that he would be lifted back out of it by the Spirit as he continued in the means of grace – Bible reading, prayer, hearing biblical preaching….
But what he said describes the entire Christian experience for many that have been identified in this blog as following false teachers (SEE CATEGORIES: Prosperity Preaching; Mysticism; Beth Moore; Brian McLaren, for example, for such people who do not follow the Bible or seek out biblical churches).
I want to add one statement to further explain why he calls religion the final blasphemy: when a professing Christian does not read the Bible to get his / her ideas about God; to discover how God has described Himself and has prescribed that He is to be worshiped, then that person kind of wings it and ends up thinking about God in accordance of what he has heard about Him in society, etc.
In our church culture, about 90% or more of professing Christians and pastors describe God in ways that you will not find in the Bible. I have posted on many.
Even denominations like the Southern Baptists have preachers that are saying very unbiblical things about God and worship. You dare not go to church not knowing the Bible these days, or you could very likely be on of those Christians to whom Christ said:
Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
After scheduling this post, I discovered the following short wherein MacArthur is preaching on the text, Do you love Me…. Is supplements the others above:
The above two ‘shorts’ came from the YouTube site, Solus Christus. His site contains mostly video shorts. All are of the following preachers: MacArthur; Sproul; Baucham and Washer.
Link to video short page: https://www.youtube.com/@SolusChristus/shorts