baseball trades today

what in the world makes us so embarrassedabout the gospel? “for i determined to know nothing among youexcept jesus christ, and him crucified” (1 cor. 2:2). well this is really your time tonight andwe have jesse over here, and curt over there to kind of give you a little bit of guidance.as i said this morning, the idea is not to stump me, that would be pretty easy. the ideais maybe help you a little bit to understand some things, to bring the word of god to bearupon them. it’s not limited to bible interpretation, how do i interpret a certain verse here andthere. i brought my macarthur study bible so i have all the answers here. in case...somebodysaid to me this morning, you know, there’s a statement in john 17 such and such and suchand such, what do you think that means? i

said i don’t know, but i’ll go home andread my notes in the study bible and i’ll tell you tonight. i don’t remember everythingi wrote in there, you understand that. and going over it and over it and over it as oftenas i do, i still need to be refreshed. so it’s a good companion for me to have along. i spent this afternoon, just as a footnotewhile somebody comes up to ask a question because that would be a good way to start....ispent the afternoon reading through the latest volume of commentary material, and this isthe second volume in the gospel of john, i finished it a few months ago, it was an agonizingprocess to get it down because i preached the gospel of john i think the first yeari was here.

and so basically when i write a commentary,i write it off of the original sermons that i preached, they’re typed up, they cometo me quadrupled spaced and i use that as the basis and then i fill in between all thelines and add and change things. it was a very painful exercise because...now that wasthe second volume, i had already done the first volume, but in both cases it was doneso long ago and in the first year i was here, i really thought i was deep. but when i lookedat what i preached back then, from this vantage point, i wondered why these even allowed meto continue to preach here. so i had to do a lot of extra work. i thinkthe two volumes come out to about 800 pages on john and i found probably about a hundredpages worth in what i preached in 96 messages

on the gospel of john many years ago. butfor me, it is a profound catharsis to pour all that truth back through me and to go intothe book and search it out and develop it and write and rewrite and edit and add anddelete and enrich and do all of those kinds of things. what an immense privilege. so even though i’m not preaching it to you,i’m full up to my ears with the truth of the gospel of john. and what a marvelous,marvelous epistle it is. i think, and i always felt like this would be the worst of all thecommentaries because it was coming off of material i preached at the beginning of myministry and it wasn’t as well informed, and i thought it would end up being the worst.but i think at this point it may be my favorite

two volumes in the whole series because ofthe astounding wonder of jesus christ who is the theme of these two. so i was studying the gospel of john and itwas as fresh to me as if i never had preached it. and even though i preached it many yearsago, i’ve preached the contents of it again and again through the years. and yet everytime i go back to it, it’s a special joy. so i’m like you, in a sense, some peoplemight give me more credit for a good memory than i deserve and i need sometimes to readmy own commentaries to find out what i believe about things. and i have my study bible handy.so we’ll see whether i need it or not. now maybe that’s enough people for the timebeing, so that people don’t wind up standing

there for a very long time. why don’t webegin over here, just give me your name so i know who i’m talking to, then you canask your question. phil: hi, john, my name is phil holland andi’ve been with you for 31 years and still... john: thank you for your ministry. phil: and i just have one quick question thati’ve...it’s been on my mind for quite some time. both my wife and i live in burbank,we have a lot of people from the watchtower society come to our door. john: right.phil: and i have such a great compassion for these people that i actually invite them inso we can talk and i can get a chance to share

the gospel. and my question was, out of, ofcourse, john’s second epistle in verse 10, “if anyone comes to you and does not bringthis teaching, do not receive him into your house and do not give him a greeting,” andthen john goes on and on. how would you respond to that? and.... john: well we have to respond...good question,phil,....we have to respond to that in its context, okay? in the period of the new testamentand after and before, there were itinerant teachers. basically people travel around andtaught and preached. they were dependent upon the care and the reception of people in thetowns and villages where they went to receive them into their homes to give them lodging,to give them food. that’s the context here.

what john is saying is, when an itinerantteacher comes to your town who is not faithful to the gospel, do not provide for him a home,a place of reception. that’s the context here. it does not mean that you should nothave a conversation with somebody with the objective of communicating the gospel to them. in fact, jude tells us that we need to snatchpeople like brans from the burning without getting our own garments burned or we needto reach down for people who are corrupted without staining our own garments. so, youremember perhaps the best illustration of this, of course, on the positive side wouldbe jesus sending out the 70 in the new testament and saying, “wherever you go where peoplereceive you into their home, you know, give

peace to that home. where they spurn you,you know, shake the dust off your feet and go somewhere else,” that’s a picture ofthe itinerant preacher moving around the countryside going from village to village, that’s howthey plied their trade. it still goes on to some degree in parts of the world today. butit would be the idea of a welcoming reception. if in the jewish kind of social world, havinga meal with someone was tantamount with acceptance of that someone. that is exactly the way theyviewed that because that’s why the leaders of israel condemned jesus, they said he eatswith sinner. and the pharisees, you remember, wouldn’t eat with anybody but a pharisee.so the idea of opening your home, receiving somebody in, having a meal, giving them hospitality,caring for them, meeting their needs which

is aiding and abetting their enterprises isexactly what it’s talking about there, i don’t think that it is specifically referringto the fact that we should not have a conversation with these people geared to communicatingthe truth to them. i think we should. now having said that, you have to be very,very careful that if you’re going to engage yourself with a jehovah’s witness, or witha mormon, or with any other person that comes along denying the truth, that you take theposition of the offensive. it’s very easy for them to twist and manipulate a new believerwho can get tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine. so someoneas mature as yourself, i would say they have no idea what they just stepped in to, andthat’s a good thing. so keep it up, phil.

okay...okay. ?????? good evening, john. i just want totell you i love you. john: thank you...thank you. i’ll take thatany time. thank you. ????? in regards to particular redemptionor some would call it limited atonement... john: sure.????? i love your teaching on that the last year and a half or so, i appreciate it. in2 peter chapter 2 verse 1 it says, “but false prophets also arose among the people,just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructiveheresies even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.”can you tell me how that verse reconciles

with the doctrine of particular redemption?you know, the fact that christ didn’t die for people who will never be saved...accordingto... john: well apart from the rather extensivenote in the study bible, there is a very extensive note there on that because it’s a very importantissue...and i think...what i’ve said here, and i will read it because i think it’simportant. the terms which peter used here are more analogical than theological, speakingof a human master over a household, the master bought slaves and the slaves owned the masterallegiance as their sovereign. where god in deuteronomy has said to have bought israelthough they rejected him. doctrinally this analogy can be viewed as responsibility forsubmission to god which the false teachers

had refused. we’re not talking about boughtin a redemptive sense. we’re not talking about bought in a ransom sense. we’re nottalking about bought in a salvific sense. we’re talking about being bought analogically.and in this sense, every human being that comes into the world has an obligation togod. and as i see it, that’s the best way to understand that. if you take...what he’sasking, of course, is if you take a limited atonement view, that is that christ actuallyprovided a real atonement for all those who would believe and for no one else, then youcannot say about an apostate that the lord bought them. so that’s the question. buthere it does say that and i feel the best response to that is that this is analogical.that is to say, every human being has an obligation

to god as sovereign master. and to fail tofulfill that obligation, look at the human responsibility side, brings about swift destruction.it clearly says they deny the master...they deny the master. and that’s where you drawthe analogy part of it. they are guilty of rejecting their responsibility to the sovereignwho is over all men. and consequently they exist in a position of disobedience and rebellionfor which they are culpable. okay? good question. david: hi, my name is david...and i was runninginto a cult member and i said, the hare krishnas, and i said, “how often do you folks gettogether and share meals and their fellowship together?” and they said basically almostevery day with meals. and then i look at hebrews 3:12 and 3:13 it says, “see to it, brothers,that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving

heart that turns away from the living godand encourage one another daily for as long as it is called today so that none of ourhearts get hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” and i look at our pattern and i lookat cult’s pattern, even the cult down the street, and we have a tendency to not meetas much as they do. can you shed some light on why we have our pattern and how it wasestablished? john: well sure, and i can go as far as ican go. let me say this. i spend an awful lot of time with christians. i married one.so far i’ve raised four, they married four and i’ve got fourteen more coming along.my whole life is surrounded by the people of god, every day of my life, wherever i go,i’m in fellowship. it is a very rare day

in my life, even if i go away somewhere inthe world, or somewhere in the country that i’m not in fellowship with god’s people.what you’re dealing with, with hare krishna, is communal living which is a kind of socialism,it’s a kind of communism. it’s the same thing with the buddhist temple down the street.we have in recent months, as rick was talking about, i guess it was back in december, gonedown there and talked with them and spent...essentially rick gave them the gospel, i don’t knowif you knew that. majesty...was it? one of the singing groups at the master’s collegewent down because they were interested in finding out what christian christmas musicwas like, so we put on a concert. rick went and preached the gospels to the monks insidethe temple. and they were saying they wanted

to come to the concert but there were certainlimitations upon what they could do. they had to wear their orange robes. they kindof work in a collective kind of environment. and if they came here, they would have tocome in that garb and they were under authority. and it’s turned out they didn’t come. but that’s a very different thing. it’sa very circumscribed communal socialistic living where people who...it’s like buddhistpriests and these people, they give up all their freedoms, they give up all their ownership.they step into that kind of communal environment. that is not to say christians aren’t responsibleto spend more time with each other. but i don’t think there’s a biblical mandateabout that. i think the family is the unit

in christianity that is the primary unit.that is where...and you can go all the way back to deuteronomy chapter 6 where parentsare told to lead their children to talk about god every day when they stand up, walk inthe way, rise up, lie down. the family is god’s unit by which righteousness is passedfrom one generation to the next. we saw an illustration of that tonight in baptism. so we are not a communal society. in the bookof acts, early in the book of acts that was not communism, it wasn’t everybody sellingeverything they possessed and taking the money and pooling it and doling it out equally toeverybody, such as in the communist or socialist structure. it was merely families, individualswilling to make sacrifices to give money to

the elders that could be disseminated to thepeople who had need. that was all discretionary. in fact, in ananias and sapphira’s casewhere they sold a piece of land, it wasn’t that they didn’t give it all to the lord.it was that they said they gave it all to the lord and they lied. and you remember,peter said to them, “you didn’t have to sell it and you didn’t have to give it all.but the lord’s not going to tolerate your lies.” so there’s no biblical justificationfor communal living, for any kind of socialism, any kind of communism. i mean, that’s...that’sa lot of answers to the question, but i appreciate it, david. but i am saying this, where believersknow someone has a need, they need to open their hearts and open their homes and embracethose people and meet those needs, right?

how can you say you love god if you see yourbrother in need and close up your compassion to him? okay?and you know what? one of the reasons we have a sunday night service is because we wantto be together more than just on a sunday morning. most churches don’t even have that.and during the week, i would be interested to know how many of you people sitting heretonight meet at least one other time other than on sunday with other believers duringa given week, put your hands up. there we go...there we go. grab one of those handsand they’ll take you to their next meeting. david: do you think food would facilitatefellowship a little better, like rolls or something?

john: yeah, david, let me put it this way.there is no fellowship without food. (laughter) it never happens. i don’t know...i don’tknow how coffee got into the kingdom of god, but it’s certainly there...as we know whenwe have to spray wash the church patio every monday from the coffee. okay. jessica: hi, my name is jessica, i attendthe master’s college... john: hi, jessica. jessica: i was greatly encouraged by the truthin life conference. john: good...good. jessica: and i had a question regarding that.i know that god’s word is god-breathed and

infallible and i believe that he is faithfulin preserving his word throughout the translations which is why i was concerned when you werespeaking about the word doulos and its faults in the translations. so i was just wonderingthat our english translations are not fully reliable unless we look back at the originallanguage. and are there other places that are mis-translated? john: this is a very good question. some monthsago i talked about doulos, the word slave, which the english translators inevitably havetranslated servant or bondservant which is kind of an invented word. and i talked abouthow much we have lost because the word is slave and it should be translated slave andthat’s a paradigm that really helps us understand

what it means to be a christian, kurios, doulos,lord, slave...there’s no such thing as a lord who doesn’t have slaves, no such thingas a slave that doesn’t have a lord or a master. and i laid that out. and one of thesad realities of new testament translation is that the word which means slave is so oftentranslated servant. a servant is somebody who works for a wage. a slave is somebodywho is owned. that’s a big difference. the idea of slavery is a paradigm which makessense out of the new testament. so her question is, why would god permit thisword in the english versions? is he not protecting his word?the answer to your question is, he is protecting his word because we know without questionwhat the original is. we know it without question.

everybody has always known it. we haven’tlost the word of god at all, we know exactly what it is. the text is pure. it is doulos.in fact, none of the doulos passages that i know of, and there are almost a hundredand fifth of them in the new testament, are disputed. they’re all clearly doulos. now your second question is, are there otherthings that are obscured? i’ve never come across anything like this before. that’swhat’s been so remarkable about it. and by the way, we have a new assistant baseballcoach at the college and after i spoke on this the other night, christ bando, you mayknow the name, he played in the major leagues for ten or eleven years, a wonderful, wonderfulchristian man, his wife and his sons, part

of our college family now, christ came upto me after i did that and he had a fresh new greek translation of the new testamentby jay adams. you know who jay adams is? and he had been faithful to translate doulos slaveall the way through. so maybe this is making a resurgence. there are definitely some historicalthings that find their way, and i don’t know of anything anywhere close to the breadthof this. it’s the only one i know of. but the text has not been corrupted. and i don’tknow everything about every other language in the world and how they deal with that word,but god has protected his word. occasionally translators are unfaithful to that. but weknow what the original says. and anybody..that’s why i’ll say this,jessica, that’s why it’s so important

for people who teach the scripture to dealwith the original languages. even english sometimes misses the nuance. if you use theword “servant” for example in english, that would translate at least six and maybeseven greek words that all have a different nuance. that’s the value of digging in tothe original languages. jessica: thank you. john: good question...thank you. see how insightfulthe master’s college students are. great question. barton: hello, sir, my name is bro(??) barton.i praise god every day for your faithfulness over the years.

john: thank you. barton: i just had a practical question. i’veheard before, a couple of times, about the way you apologize to people, so this is justa practical wisdom question for me to grow from. i just would like to know do you’vegot like a policy...i’ve heard just as an example, dick mayhue said that he had a ladywrite you and say that she had appreciated your ministry but she was going to stop supportingit because she had found out that you were stealing all your material from her pastor. john: yeah. barton: and you wrote her back and apologized.

john: yeah. that’s one of my favorite letters.this lady...this lady wrote me from the midwest and she said, “i’ve been listening toyou for years and i have now figured out, you’re using all my pastor’s materialand you never give him credit.” i don’t know how she figured out i even knew who herpastor was. but i just wrote her and said, “ma’am,” i didn’t want to say theobvious, i didn’t want her to lose confidence in her pastor, so i just wrote and said. youknow, “if i’ve ever done that, i ask your forgiveness. i’m just grateful you havea good, faithful pastor,” something like that. yeah, first of all, i can’t keep up withall my critics. so i learned along time ago

not to try to defend myself. just to writeback some kind of a letter that says thank you for the criticism, thank you for pointingthese things out. if there’s been anything that i’ve done that offended you, i’msorry for that. pray for me. and just go on. i just don’t think you...i never want tobe backed into a position of being defensive. because if the truth were known...look, i’mnot perfect, i know that. and if you happen to pick the wrong thing to criticize me for,you could just as well have picked the right thing to criticize me for. so who am i todefend myself? i will defend the people around me. if people come to me to criticize thepeople i work with, they’re going to find me an unwilling hearer. i don’t take people’scriticism of the people that serve the lord

with me or in the circle of faithfulness.i don’t take that very well. i will defend them. i will always defend them until i havereason not to. but when it comes to myself, i...you know, it’s kind of like the oldtestament, “let your praise be in another man’s lips.” i’m not going to spendmy whole life trying to defend myself. i’ve got to tell you a funny story. is melinda...areyou here? where are you, melinda? yeah, my daughter, melinda. some years ago she wentto work at grace to you. now she thought...she comes to grace church, she thought everybodyliked her father. you know, because nobody stands up here and criticizes me or protests,it’s pretty...pretty loyal group here, that’s why you’re here. and she thought everybodyliked my father.

well she came to work at grace to you andthey put her in the responsibility of...was it?...taking e-mail off the computer, or whateverit was, you were getting messages coming on the computer, all this anti-john macarthurpropaganda was coming like a flood and she had the job of taking all this stuff off thecomputer. and there were all kinds of websites that were sort of anti-john macarthur websitesand all this. she just didn’t get it. well she didn’t say anything. she just startedfiring back at these people. (laughter) stuff like this, “how dare you, you don’t knowmy father. i know my father and he does not do that.” (applause) so finally, as it all began to mount, that’slike pouring gas on a fire, you know, you

do that. it came even hotter. and finallyshe told me about it and i said, “stop doing that. that’s what they want. are you kidding?you’ve just fed the monster. they’ve got john macarthur’s daughter reacting to them.that’s what they’re after.” so i just don’t think...i don’t thinkthere’s any virtue in that. you just keep teaching the word. you know, i’ve said thismany, many times, time and truth go hand in hand. given enough time, the truth about aperson will be told. and you just keep doing what you do, do it faithfully, do the bestyou can do. don’t defend yourself. just encourage people if they criticize you, thankthem and say, “pray for me.” and just move on and let god be your defender. andlet time and truth be your defender. i mean,

that’s a better way, as far as i’m concerned.okay? good question. amy: hi, dr. macarthur, my name is amy. john: hi, amy. amy: i want to thank you so much for yourministry. you’ve impacted so many people, including myself and my family. my questionis, what is the relationship...how does the bible define the relationship between christand the holy spirit, especially during his ministry on earth? john: good question. the best way to understand that is this, thatwhen christ emptied himself as it says in

philippians 2, and took upon him the formof a servant, he yielded up his own personal will. he said over and over, as we have notedmany times, “i only do what the father shows me to do. i only do what the father tellsme to do. i only do what the father does. i only do it when he says to do it.” andit comes to the crux in the garden when he says, “not my will, but yours be done,”which means he is completely submitted to the father’s will. so he goes through life,not that his will is in disagreement with it, but he yields up his own prerogativesto do the will of the father. the self-emptying, however, is more than that.it is more than just a willingness to do the father’s will in the father’s time. itis a yielding up of prerogatives within his

own power. for example, he said if i wantedto i could call a legion of angels. right? but i won’t. he yielded to the father’swill and he yielded to the spirit’s power so that if you, and this comes out in matthewchapter 12, if you said of jesus he does what he does by the power of satan, that’s whatthe leaders said, he says you have blasphemed the holy spirit. which is to say what he doeshe does by the spirit. you see an illustration of that, several illustrationsof that, early on in the gospel of luke. you can remember the holy spirit leads jesus intotemptation. the holy spirit empowers him as he goes into galilee, empowers him to preach,empowers to do miracles so that he in his self-emptying does the will of the fatherin the power of the spirit. so to assign what

he does to the devil is to blaspheme the spiritwho is really the one doing it. this comes into clear focus, if you understand from thevery beginning, that he was conceived in the womb of mary by the holy spirit. he was athis baptism being baptized by john the recipient of the holy spirit in a symbolic way whenthe spirit came like a dove and settled upon him. this was a demonstration of now thathe’s going to launch into his ministry, it’s going to be empowered by the holy spirit.so that’s the way to understand that. now jesus said in that last night in thatupper room with the disciples, he said, “when the holy spirit comes, he will speak of me.”so the ministry of the holy spirit now is to point us to christ. in his humiliation,christ pointed to the holy spirit as the source

of his power. in his exaltation, in his savingwork, the holy spirit comes to point us to christ. okay? good question, amy. amy: thank you. chris: hi, pastor john, my name is chris. john: hi, chris. chris: i know that you’ve spent a largeportion of your ministry and even your life to training men for the ministry. i thinkthe building right to my left is a testament of that. so i have a two-part question foryou. first of all, what would you say to a youngman who was aspiring to be in full-time ministry,

who strongly desired it but wasn’t quitesure that he was called by god? and secondly, what are some major pit falls that same youngman should be looking out for. john: sure, i think i know who that youngman is. (laughter) that’s wonderful, chris. look, you’re in the same place everybody’sin. i never had an epiphany, an angel never showed up. i never heard a voice out of heaven.when i looked at my own life and said, “what do i want to do?” there were no supernaturalevents. there were no supernatural events. all i could look at was a desire. and i thinkthat fits perfectly the new testament pattern. first timothy 3, “if a man desires the officeof an overseer, or pastor, he desires a noble work.” the assumption there is that thisis the normal way that god indicates the calling

through desire...through desire. and as thatdesire flourishes and strengthens, it becomes a singular desire. all i can tell you is there were times inmy life when i thought i would be a preacher. then there were times in my life when i hopedi would be a preacher. then there were times in the progression of that when i knew i wouldbe a preacher. then there were times when i knew i couldn’t be anything other thana preacher or a pastor. and i think it’s that desire that growsand develops. and what grew it in me was not so much the nature of ministry itself, butmy undying passion for the book. when i went to college, i’m not going to give you awhole lot of useless information about my

past, but my whole life i got notes that ihad to take home about how bad i did in school. and “johnny could do better” notes, youknow? my mother was always saying to me, “we know you can do better...” and i was alwaystrying to convince her, “no, no, this is it, i’m maxed out (laughter). i’m givingit my best shot, that’s all i can do.” “no, you can do better...you can do better.”and the teachers would say johnny could do better. the point is, i was no scholar. i was no academic.that was true all the way through high school. and in college, i didn’t let my books getin the way of my education either. i went through college from one event to anotherevent, student life, athletics, every sport...i

played every sport in my college days. i wasinvolved in all kinds of activities. as i got toward the end of my college years,i think it was my junior-senior year, the word of god took on a whole new depth forme. and what it came down to was this need to know what the bible meant. that’s whatdrives me, by the way. it’s not you that drive me, it’s this that drives me. i reallybecame a preacher of the word of god because i didn’t want to do anything in my wholelife but that because i wanted to know it and i wanted to share its glorious truthswith others. and so, it just kept developing in my heart.and i remember when i went to seminary, remember now, i had convinced my mom that i had maxedout with, you know, cees and bees, and i went

to seminary and i remember the first timei showed her my first semester report card. she just...”i knew you hadn’t been tellingme the truth all these years.” i went through seminary and i did so well and i graduatedwith honors and all of that. and there was one driving reason, i was doing what i reallyloved and the passion was there. the other components of that, the desire,the growing explosive desire in your heart that eliminates anything else, the next thingthat comes along was confirmation from the people who were saying, “you want to teach?let’s hear you teach.” and that’s fine as far as it goes. but if you say i’m calledto teach and everybody says, “oh no you’re not,” maybe you ought to think about that.but where there’s affirmation of your giftedness

and where there’s confirmation by the leadershipof the church that your character and your giftedness fits this, so you have the layingon of hands like in the case of timothy. but all the way along, sure there’s a certainsense of “is this what i really what i ought to do.” why, because there’s this naggingunworthiness, there’s this reality that how am i going to survive? how am i goingto be faithful? you just take it a day at a time. i will tell you, it is the greatest joy, continuesto be the greatest joy of my life. but it continues also to be more important than itever has been in the past, it’s a growing joy that i have. so there’s a certain sensein which it’s a desire, a flourishing, developing

desire. eventually you can’t do anythingbut that because that begins to completely capture your heart. then you have to lookat your giftedness, response, affirmation from spiritual leaders around you, set asideyour fallenness because the only kind of people the lord can use are broken vessels, becausethat’s all there are. okay? and when it comes to that, and i tell youngguys this all the time, all ministry, all ministry comes back to this book, all of it...allof it is informed by this book. so when you want to get trained, get the tools to understandthis book. and then when you’ve gotten that foundation, you can go take whatever fieldyou want, whether you want to teach, whether you want to be in a university, what do youwant to teach in a seminary, pastor a church,

or be a missionary. but the end of the day,all ministry is a dissemination of divine truth, right? and that’s what you want tomake sure you grasp. if you’re young enough, if you still havea little bit of doubt about whether this is what you ought to do, and i can honestly sayi had no idea when i went to seminary what i was going to do, i just was driven to diginto the word of god and i loved it. i don’t think i even knew till i finally got to mythird year where i would go. but i think you can start there and if the lord continuesto make that desire flourish that you’re going to find that you’re in the right spot.my guess is, if that’s already a passion for you, that’s the work of the lord inyour heart. okay? good.

mark: hi, pastor macarthur, my name is marknielson, how are you? john: good, thank you, mark. mark: my question is, in romans 11:26, paulsays, “all israel will be saved,” who does he mean exactly as far as we can tellfrom the scriptures as who all israel is? john: it’s pretty clear if you put thattogether with the whole picture eschatologically. all israel will be national israel in thefuture...in the future. all israel will be saved at some point. right now, individualjews here, there, but as a people they have not come back to their messiah. in the future,god will sovereignly save the nation. that will be essentially the jews collectivelyas a people will believe in messiah, zechariah

says, they will look on him whom they’vepierced, mourn for him as an only son, a fountain of cleansing will be opened and they’llbe washed from their sins and they’ll receive the kingdom god promised to them in the oldtestament. that is after, according to isaiah, two thirds of the rebels...two thirds of israelrebellious purged in judgment during the time of the tribulation. so in the period timeof the tribulation, there’s going to be a salvation of national israel. it encompassestwelve thousand from every tribe. they don’t know their tribes now, god does know them.constitutes 144 thousand jews, then they become evangelists to the world. the revival seemsto start to take effect, the salvation of israel in the city of jerusalem, revelation11, at the end of the chapter where the population

of jerusalem begins for the first time afterthe two witnesses to glorify god. so that’s talking about a future generation of jewsat the end of the age that the lord will redeem as a constituted people and give to them thekingdom which was promised in the old testament. mark: does that literally mean any jew whowould be alive at that time? john: right. mark: okay, great. thank you. brian: hi, john. john: hi. brian: my name is brian.

john: hi, brian brian: how you doing? let’s see, i considerthis a privilege being able to ask you...you don’t know how many times in my own personalstudies i’ve always thought...boy, if i could only ask mac about this thing.” youknow. and so now what i’ve been graveling with lately and it’s kind of a trivial thing.in leviticus 11, i guess god didn’t give me the gift of speaking in public, just asa side note.... john: you’re doing great. brian: in leviticus 11, god gave to aaronand moses the commandment about cleanliness, unclean animals in hygiene and such. and therewas food that was forbidden, to kind of go

along with the food and fellowship thing.a lot of that food that was talked about then is part of our cuisine now. how do we addressthat? john: sure, that’s good, very good question. the critical thing for god dealing with israelwas this, they were to be repository, the national repository of divine truth, okay?they were the...they were the sole monotheists in a polytheistic animistic world, okay? theywere the true worshipers of the true god. they were an island in a sea of polytheism,animism, whatever kind of false religion...multiple gods. how was god going to protect them and insulatethem? the food and fellowship thing comes

into play. they couldn’t dress like theother nations. they couldn’t eat like the other nations. and basically all social contact,as it still does, is built around the dining environment. so what god was doing was isolatingthem. they had cooking laws. they had certain animalsthey could not eat. there were ways they had to prepare the food. they couldn’t mix milkand meat, that’s still part of being kosher today. but all of that had no real purposeother than isolation, just a way to separate them. this was part of their cleanliness sothat they just couldn’t go over to anybody’s place and interact with them and thereforebe influenced. god was designing a peculiar people.

another way to view it on the big pictureside was no matter how the other nations did it, the jews did it different. no matter howthey dressed, the jews dressed differently. no matter what they ate, the jews ate differently.no matter how they prepared the food, the jews did it differently. they had all kindsof laws with regard to sabbath, ceremony, worship, all that isolated them. the designof god was to isolate the community for its own holiness, separation...separation.at the same time, they were challenged to proclaim the truth but with in inability tointeract with the other cultures to protect them from evil influence. and god was protectingthe people to protect their future so that the messiah would come from abraham throughthe line of david that that would still be

in existence. so that was part of the insulationand protection. once the messiah came, all that part of thelaw goes away. and that happens immediately in the book of acts. peter has a vision, rememberthat in acts 10? he sees a sheet an din the sheet are all kinds of animals, clean andunclean. and the lord says to him, “rise, peter, kill and eat.” all that’s gone...nomore. and his response is, “wait a minute, i’venever eaten anything unclean.” and the voice comes back and says, “don’t dare callunclean what god has cleansed.” that whole part of the old testament law, that ceremonialpart is gone. that’s why in colossians paul says, “don’t let anybody hold you to anew moon, a festival, or any kind of food.”

and he goes on to talk about it a lot thatwe’re no longer under old testament dietary laws. so they’re gone. so you can feel freeto eat anything. there were some issues in the past that insome of the elements of their diet were designed to protect them from diseases. there’s awonderful book written about 35 years ago, it first came out called none of these diseasesby mcmillan, a medical doctor. he showed how some of those laws in the old testament, evencircumcision was a way to prevent certain diseases as god protects his people in a veryunique way. but in the new testament, all of that element of the law is set aside andwhat remains is the moral and theological elements of the law, okay?

brian: thank you. ????? i have a question about if you’vegiven god authority over your life and you’ve been praying for something and doing everythingin your power to make it happen, and it’s not. at what point can you say, “okay, thisis not god’s will,” or at what point do you continue trying? john: that’s a good question and i thinkthe answer to that is you never really want to say this is not god’s will if what youare seeking and praying for is for his glory. that’s the question. i don’t know whatthis specific thing is you’re thinking of but when you’re...for example, let’s takeyou’re praying for somebody to come to salvation.

you...you don’t ever want to get to thepoint where you say, “well, i’ve been praying for i don’t know, a half an hourhere, and or i’ve been praying for 30 days or i’ve been praying for two years,” youdon’t ever want to assume that it’s not god’s will to save someone. that’s presumptuous. you can assume, however, that it’s not yetgod’s time. i think the thing that has to cover your prayer at all times is, “god,if this is your will, do this,” and you pray and you keep praying and you keep prayingand sometimes you pray for a long time, many years, decades. since you don’t know god’swill, you can’t say it is god’s will, nor could you say, “oh well, it’s nothis will.”

i had a very prominent preacher say to me,somebody you would all know, say to me, “i have a child that’s not elect.” i said, “what? what do you mean you havea child that’s not elect?” “i have a child that’s not elect.” i said, “well why would you say that?” “well, because this child has not come tochrist and it’s been a long time. and the direction of the life of this child is opposite.” i was very surprised by that. by the way,that particular child is now in christ and serving alongside that father. so i teasedhim a little bit about his inside knowledge

of who’s elect and who’s not. you justdon’t want to get to the point where you decide that god’s going to act in your timeor you’re going to think it’s not his will. so, depending on what it is. if you’re prayingfor god’s will in a certain situation, keep praying, god hears you just because you’refaithful, that’s called importunity, you know, like the guy who knocks and knocks andknocks and knocks and if somebody is going to do what you want just because you keepbanging and he’s irritated, what will god do for you when you keep asking and he lovesyou? so don’t give up. okay. yes, sir. andrew: well, dr. macarthur, my name is andrew.

john: hi, andrew. andrew: is the new testament lord’s daysunday in any way a replacement for the jewish sabbath? and to what degree then should sabbathprinciples and also specific laws apply to how i spend sundays? john: very good question. first answer...no.the lord’s day is not a replacement of the sabbath, no. secondly, there are no old testamentsabbath laws that apply to sunday. now if you want a fuller explanation, whichi think you probably do, this was the whole subject of a message that i gave and i willpoint you to that message. genesis 2:2, “ by the seventh day, god completed his work whichhe had done and he rested on the seventh day

from all his work which he had done.” andthen verse 3, “then god blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he restedfrom all his work which god had created and made.” when i was teaching on those two verses, wheni went through genesis, some of you remember, i gave a great amount of effort and time tothat very question. so what i want you to do is call grace to you on the phone, 1-800-55-grace.and when the lovely gal answers the phone, you say, “john macarthur told me to call,that you’re going to send me free cds on genesis 2 and 3.” okay? will you do that?and they will send those. okay? all right, andrew.

andrew: i also want a copy. (laughter) john:: you want a copy? my advice to you issee what you can get away with. now you understand that if 35 people call grace to you tomorrowand give that speech, nobody’s getting anything. okay. christian: my name is christian ???? my questionis about grace evangelism, i’ve taken that long ago. and in that it forces you to preachjesus christ to be god. now do you really have to preach jesus christ to be god whenyou’re preaching the gospel on the street or someone...to someone actually? becausewhen i look at the scripture, they do when they teach the gospel, they would say themessiah, actually, you know, died and resurrected.

they don’t actually and directly say themessiah or jesus christ is god. john: well, sure. ultimately you have to definewho they’re believing in. who is the savior? who is god’s chosen one? and therefore you’regoing to have to define who he is. that may not be the first thing you say, but at somepoint you must preach christ. and if you’re going to preach christ, then you have to makeit clear who jesus christ is. it is meaningless to someone to respond to a christ who in theirmind is not the christ who is the true christ. you have to explain this is the god/man. thatmay not be the first thing you explain. you may start with the lord jesus christ is themessiah of israel, the sacrifice for sin on the cross. but sooner or later in every discussion,they must believe that he is god. obviously

if you start in romans 10:9 and 10, “believein your heart that god raised him from the dead, confess with your mouth jesus as lord,”the question is going to come up. what does lord mean? and you’re going to go not onlymaster but divine sovereign master, god himself. so yes, in every presentation of the gospelit must be affirmed that jesus is god incarnate. now let me just show you why this is so important.did any of you happen...december 23 or something, joel olsteen was on, and they asked him aboutromney and they asked him about whether he accepted romney as a true christian. and,of course, he said yes, yes, he believes in jesus, he believes in the same jesus i do.i accept him as a christian brother. he kept saying, “i think...i think...” and thenat the end of all that he said, “nah, i

never thought about it.” i think i think,but i never thought about it. that’s a perfect illustration of that kind of stuff. i thinkhe is. he talks about jesus. he talks about the same jesus i talk about. he loves thesame jesus. i love... see, that’s what mormons want you to think.that’s what jehovah’s witnesses want you to think. that’s what muslims would likeyou to think. they believe jesus is a prophet, a true prophet. so it is essential that wedefine christ accurately. we did a little gospel tract at grace to youcalled “who is jesus christ?” because that’s the prevailing question. okay? toya: hi, pastor john, my name is toya.john: hi, toya.

toya: i have a question regarding sacrificeof yourself. recently...well we’ve gone through some major issues with our daughter.and they’re really started to escalate. but in the midst of it, i feel such a compulsionto want to do something for other people, take care of my family but also do somethingfor other people as well. and i have been a lot of responsibility taking care of mydaughter at home and everything, but in the midst of it, really wanting to serve. i don’tmind losing sleep a little bit to serve, to sacrifice. but i also know that i need sleepso that i can be well. but it’s hurting me that i can’t serve because it’s sucha joy and being able to give. and the desire has even increased. how do i look at it? doi sacrifice sleep to study more? or if i can’t

sacrifice and do my priorities, but to dofor others, you know, sacrificing myself and trust that the lord’s going to give me thestrength. how do i do that? john: just listening to you, toya, i wouldassume that you’re probably doing exactly the right things. your heart is coming through.you’re struggling for that balance, but...and i wouldn’t question your commitment at anylevel, and you don’t need to question your own. but let me just say this to you. your priorityis your daughter. now, this is only for a season, okay? this isn’t your whole life.this isn’t your whole future. this is for now. and there are times in all of our liveswhen there is someone for whom we have the

most immediate priority responsibility, right?and in those times, and in those seasons, we give ourselves wholly to them. god knowsthat. the lord understands that. that’s your priority. that’s where your focus andyour energy needs to go. in endeavoring to reach beyond that, you maycheat that person because you’re not getting your rest, you’re not getting your sleep,you’re not maybe having time in the word. so this is for now. this is for this season.and i’m convinced the lord would have you to give the maximum attention and focus. andto get as much energy into that commitment to your daughter as you can, you’re goingto need to be wise about how you take care of yourself. believe me, the lord will coverthe basis for you as you cover the priority

situation. and you’ll find that balance.the very fact that you asked the question tells me where your heart is and that thespirit of god will direct you in that balance. and i think what i’m probably hearing isan unnecessary feeling of guilt. you don’t need to feel that way. the lord will takecare of the needs of the folks around you while you fulfill the priority of the onethat the lord actually gave you. okay? toya: also, i would include her, it wouldbe a teaching thing to her, too. like i cook...i like to cook for people, and she’d be rightthere with me and we’ll do it together and teaching her about sacrifice and doing forothers. john: then do it.

toya: okay. john: look, you’re going to find that balancecause your heart is right. you’re going to find that balance, just keep in mind whatyour priority is. if you can do both at the same time...win/win. toya: okay, thank you. john: okay, toya. all right, we’re goingto have to take a couple more and that’s going to be it. so.. chris: just a quick question. john: quick question.

chris: hi, :pastor john, my name is chris????, simple question, i don’t know if there’s a simple answer. i’ve already looked intoscripture and the different views on it, i just simply wanted your understanding aboutsheol and particularly regarding the immediate destination of old testament saints...afterthey die. john: what happened to old testament saintswhen they died? their bodies went to the grave and their spirits either went into the presenceof god or out of the presence of god. there’s no neutral holding tank...as some people havethought. i think, you know, david said, “i will awake in his likeness.” so i thinkthe old testament saints understood that they would be in the presence of the lord. so oldtestament saints who died, their spirits either

went out of the presence of the lord or intothe presence of the lord. their bodies remain in the grave until the return of christ, daniel12. at that time they receive their glorified bodies at the end of the tribulation whenchrist returns to set up his kingdom. okay? good. yes. erica: hello, pastor john, my name is ericabut i have two questions that are related on behalf of kathy kemp. i’ll read thoseto you. john: hi, kathy. kathy: hi, john. erica: she says, “how are you?”

john: great erica: the questions are, when we die, dowe wake up in god’s presence? and will we know each other in heaven? john: when you die, you will immediately gointo the presence of the lord. “absence from the body, present with the lord,” right?2 corinthians 5, or philippians, “far better to depart and be with christ.” it’s instantaneous.it’s instantaneous. there’s no delay. there’s no waiting. it’s not waking upbecause you never really go to sleep. it’s absent from the body, present with the lord.as soon as your spirit leaves here, your spirit never goes to sleep, your spirit never dies.your body may go to sleep, your spirit will

enter into the presence of the lord immediately.and then at the rapture of the church, you will receive a glorified body and there areno wheel chairs in heaven...none of them. (applause). okay? but there’s no soul sleep,waiting place, no limbo, you go from the presence here to the presence of the lord. you’llsee the lord jesus face to face. when you get to heaven, you will know as you are known,you will have instant knowledge of the lord, instant knowledge of everybody else that isthere. i wrote a book on heaven. you can go to thebookstore afterwards and get a copy of that book, it has a whole section on that. okay?will you do that, erica, for her? kathy: how are we going to know each other?

erica: how are we going to know each other?should she just read the book? john: well, you could probably gain a lotby reading the book, or i can just give you the answer and you can forget the book. eitherone. because you’re going to have perfect knowledge. you’re not going to need...wewon’t have...to put it another way, not only will there not be wheel chairs, therewill not be name tags. you will know because you will have perfected knowledge, okay? kathy: i think you rock. erica: she thinks you rock. (laughter) john: thank you, i think you roll. (laughter)together we’re a perfect combination. okay.

really quick. chuck: how you doing, pastor? my name is chuckjohnson, we go back all the way to the days of harley and i just want to ask you a question,i keep forgetting to ask you. but it’s in regard to actors in the entertainment business.and a lot of churches have high esteem for actors and they sit in a lot of front placesin churches. in regards to them taking on roles that we would probably consider ungodlyand they use language and they are married and they kiss other women and they drink,but they aside say that it’s just work alone. just what’s your take on... john: hey, i think you’re a christian twenty-fourhours a day wherever you are. i don’t care

if you’re in a movie or not in a movie,you don’t sin. you don’t sin in private, and you certainly there’s no virtue in sinningin public and saying it’s only a role i play. i know what you’re talking about and i knowsome of those churches where those people are high profile. i just think there’s aterrible lack of integrity and consistency in a christian testimony...i don’t see howa christian can do that. i just...i don’t think you can use the excuse that i’m onlyacting because what you’re doing is selling sin. that’s what movies do. i think it’stouch for actors. you know, there are many very good competent actors who find it verydifficult to take roles because they are unwilling

to compromise. i think that’s the rightplace to go, use your talent where you can use it, use it when it’s honest, legitimate,doesn’t compromise your testimony, wouldn’t bring reproach on christ. and if there aren’tvery many of those things, you’ve got to find another way, the lord will take careof you. but i don’t think there’s any justification for someone who claims to bea christian, acknowledging christ, to play a role that is ungodly, that is sinful, thatwould bring dishonor on the lord and that would advocate and promote sin. it’s justnot right for a christian. chuck: thank you, pastor. john: okay, our time is gone. i think i’vekept you too long now. are you in a real panic

mood over here? okay. this will have to bethe last question, i think, jesse. harry: yeah, this is a quick one. my nameis harry. john: hi, harry. harry: matthew chapter 16 where peter said...orjesus said to peter, “blessed are you, simon barjona, for flesh and blood did not revealthis to you.” where he said, “thou art the christ, the son of the living god.”then jesus said this, “i also say to you,” is that a claim to deity. i also...when godthe father revealed to him that thou art the christ and then he says, “i also say toyou. john: yeah, what you’re saying is, by christputting what he says on an equal level with

what god says, this is making himself equalwith god. that’s a good observation, yeah...yeah. good, harry. keep looking at the word, keepdigging, that’s wonderful. and that’s enough for tonight. and nobody asked me whoto vote for. thank you very much. rick is going to come and lead us in a closing prayer. thank you. rick: i'm glad he said, "close in prayer," and not, "continue on the q and a." well, why don't we stand and be dismissed? if there are any outstanding questions, especially with regard to your own life or your soul, our prayer room is open to my right through those double doors. we would love to be able to assist you in any way. john, thank you for your kindness and patience. let's pray together.

father, it's been a full day, full day of worship, of music, of interaction, of truth, of sunday school, of fellowship groups, of sermons, of food and fellowship. pray that we extend all the way to bedtime with great thoughts of you, that the things we've learned today will take us through the week, creating a worldview that helps us to see all through your word and helps all to see us as representatives of your son. in jesus' name, amen.