The most hated Christian doctrine – John MacArthur
Sermon HIGHLIGHTS [bracketed statements, emboldening and underscoring are mine]. Highlights are of the initial 36 minutes of the 58-minute sermon.
- MacArthur began with noting some points from a recent survey of evangelicals “The state of theology” which can be seen at Ligonier ministries
- Participants were defined as ‘evangelicals’ is they believed in the Bible, Jesus, the gospel, and if they felt a responsibility to witness the gospel to other people
- Survey indicated that many have no idea of what they believe
- Their responses were in stark contrast to Puritans and other responsible believers
- Questions included: Everyone is born innocent, agree or disagree; 65% agreed. The Bible is not literally true, 55% agreed; God accepts worship from all religions, 56% agreed; Jesus was a good teacher, but He was not God, 43% agreed.
- Those responses are so far from biblical understanding that it is shocking
- How did we get to the place where an evangelical doesn’t know what they need to understand to be saved or even to be a true evangelical?
- This is the legacy of Christian leadership, like people like priest, the prophet Hosea said
- Jesus said that people do not rise above their teachers
- The evangelical church has busied itself the past 30 years finding ways to not offend non-Christians
- Their goal has been to design approaches to non-believers that don’t cause hostility / rejection
- The result is an evangelical movement void of truth
- Why? Because the gospel is so offensive that the good-news is hated by non-believers
- John 15:18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
- ‘World,’ above, means the religious Jewish people who followed the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Creator God [and religious people today]
- Jesus is God incarnate, but they never recognized Him, but rejected Him
- “Before it hated you” – John 7:7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
- In John 17, that changed: John 17:14 I have given them [disciples] your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
- What changed? The world did not hate the disciples until they learned the message of Jesus and began to teach it
- Why all the hate; Jesus was the most kind, loving human to ever walk on earth and the God-Man?
- John 7:7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
- The most hated Christian doctrine is the doctrine of total depravity
- That doctrine declares that the whole human race is sinful
- But fallen man has to find a way to tolerate himself in this fallen state; he will create an image of himself that escapes condemnation; he will spin a web of delusions about himself; that he is good, noble…anything but that his deeds are evil
- Jesus indicated that the religion of the Jewish people was but another form of their wickedness
- John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
- John 5:18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
- In John chapter 8 they picked up stones to stone Him; chapter 11, they plotted to kill Him, eventually they arrested, beat and crucified Him
- Jesus suffered hostility from the beginning to the end of His ministry:
- Hebrews 12:3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
- Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
- John 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
- THIS IS A PROFOUND DIAGNOSIS OF THE HUMAN CONDITION
- They were programmed to believe lies
- John 8:47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
- The Jews concluded, John 8:48 The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
- That statement was indicative of their spiritual condition
- THEREFORE, if you think you can develop any strategy to overcome natural human resistance, you’re a fool
- Jesus had no strategy that bypassed that reality: that natural condition wherein man is sinful, blind, dead, ignorant, and under satanic control.
- They couldn’t have been more hostile than to say, “You’re from hell!”
- They said that while Jesus offered them eternal life, salvation from God’s coming wrathful judgment
- But His offer was predicated upon their recognition that they were the children of satan and were captive to sin
- That is why they killed Him and martyred the apostles
- So, when you witness the gospel, there may be a tendency to avoid talking about the true condition of a non-believer
- Courage is required to sustain the hostility; you should expect hostility [knowing these things about yourself should help you have empathy]
- John 5:39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
- Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. [Jesus on the road to Emmaus]
- The true gospel, the true offer of life, will offend and generate hostility, hatred; because it is the truth, they cannot accept it
- John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
- Unbelievers have an aversion to the truth; particularly regarding their own wretchedness. They are unwilling and unable
- Simple definition of depravity: People, on their own, are unwilling and unable to come to Christ; also, they are hostile to His message
- That is why it is so hard to enter the kingdom of God, BECAUSE IT REQUIRES A REASSESSMENT OF YOURSELF, which the self-protecting sinner has no capacity to accomplish
- [The Holy Spirit works such things as poverty of spirit and mourning for sin, into the believer – the beatitudes are Christ’s description of the true kingdom citizen]
- So, for the unbeliever to hear the words, that he is a sinner and is headed for judgment in hell are unacceptable and unbelievable to him
- So, to bypass all the hostility…, contemporary evangelicalism bypasses it by telling unbelievers that Jesus wants them to be happy and successful; that He wants them to bring their list of things they want , and to speak those into existence; that He will satisfy all their carnal desires
- That they are born innocent; that they don’t have to believe He is the Son of God; that they don’t even have to be Christians to be saved…
- They also say that the Bible has a lot of truth in it, not that it is the truth; thus, they are free to reject what suits them
- The unbeliever’s default position is to believe lies, such that the truth sounds demonic
- To tell them they are under God’s judgment, headed for hell because of their depraved nature, dismantles their house of cards built for their self-protection [That very thing happened to the apostle Paul in Acts 9, he talks about it in Philippians 3]
- Not only is the doctrine of depravity the most hated Christian doctrine, but it is the most distinctive doctrine – no other religion has this doctrine
- All other religions are some form of works righteousness, works salvation – indicating the belief that there is some good in them that can earn favor with God or cooperate with God in salvation
- False forms of Christianity also believe such things [I’ve been a Christian for about 18 years and I may be near the end of discovering such things about myself – that is one of the works of the Holy Spirit, to show us our own depravity and that Christ alone is the only good person to have ever walked on the earth]
- Salvation is not by works, lest any man should boast, it is by grace
- 2Corinthians 4:4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
- The Old Testament Jews had a sentimental notion of who God was, a partially-informed notion.
- They created a God according to their own conception; a God who would approve of their righteousness
- Religion is not a step towards God, it is the final blasphemy; the final stage of the sinner’s depravity:
- So many people find their way into religion as the final act via which they can think themselves to be good people, so some of their guilt might be relieved
- Man is never more sinful than when he is in a false religion or he has invented a false Christ, or false gospel
- Isaiah 64:5 …Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved? 6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
- So, in witnessing the gospel, you are talking to people who hate that place from which evangelism must begin, the recognition of sinfulness, unwillingness, inability to hear the truth; to understand the truth; to embrace the truth; to love the truth and come to Christ
- They would 1000 times rather find a way into a false religion
- Knowing one’s own depravity and the demonic nature of all false religion is the beginning place of evangelism
The following links accompanied this sermon at Grace Community Church YouTube website:
For details about this sermon and for related resources, click here:
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-l…
To receive John MacArthur’s monthly letter, as well as offers for resources by mail, click here: https://www.gty.org/home/newtogty