John MacArthur | “The Message of Reconciliation”

00:00:00.000 | [laughter]

00:00:07.200 | This is a great joy for me to be here because I have been so profoundly blessed by the impact

00:00:15.640 | that over the last couple of years the Lord has brought on our STEM environment here in

00:00:24.400 | the academic world.

00:00:26.400 | And I understand because of our complete submission to the Word of God that we are in a unique

00:00:34.360 | place to bring together an understanding of the universe from the very mouth of the Creator.

00:00:41.280 | And the dynamics of that are just beyond what the world could ever even imagine.

00:00:47.920 | I think I got a little dose of that in the video today and some of the things you saw

00:00:52.020 | with regard to the development of the zygote and the embryo and the wondrous work of God.

00:00:59.800 | So I'm not a scientist and I don't intend to be, but I have studied on the fringes of

00:01:07.120 | science as part of understanding Scripture.

00:01:10.640 | I did a series on Genesis.

00:01:13.360 | I went through the first eleven chapters of Genesis and this was my deepest foray into

00:01:20.640 | science trying to tackle the issue of creation.

00:01:25.280 | And it came out in a book, The Battle for the Beginning.

00:01:31.040 | Some of you may have heard of it or seen it around if you want, they're available.

00:01:37.680 | You can read through that approach to Genesis that comes from solely a biblical understanding.

00:01:48.980 | And I keep hearing from, I think it was Andy Stanley recently who said when science and

00:01:54.560 | the Bible collide, science is always right.

00:01:59.820 | Which is a strange thing for a pastor to say and like abandoning your field.

00:02:07.820 | But that's what he said and we have found just the opposite to be true.

00:02:12.220 | But I'm not here to talk about that.

00:02:14.820 | I'm here to just say thank you for coming to the Master's University, I hope you had

00:02:20.400 | a good time.

00:02:21.400 | I hope the folks have provided what you need to build some relationships, make some new

00:02:28.060 | friendships and feel like you have partners in the battle that you fight out there in

00:02:34.300 | the midst of the university environment.

00:02:36.820 | So we want to be your encouragers and I was just telling Ty Denne, we need to do this

00:02:42.620 | as often as we can to continually encourage you.

00:02:47.080 | We're prepared to just keep doing it.

00:02:50.440 | But I do want to talk to you a little bit about the positive side of your ministry.

00:02:55.600 | We can't just play defense.

00:02:57.440 | We may be in a tough environment, but you can't just hunker down and play defense because

00:03:03.060 | that's not what the commission is, right?

00:03:06.540 | Wherever you are, you've got to go on the offense.

00:03:09.580 | You've got to represent the King and the kingdom.

00:03:13.380 | And I understand you have to do it with some wisdom and judiciousness and some discernment.

00:03:18.980 | And I'm sure the Spirit of God will give you that.

00:03:22.180 | But what I think is most important for us, if we are going to do what the Lord has commissioned

00:03:28.000 | us to do, even in a very difficult environment, no matter how challenging and hostile that

00:03:33.840 | environment is, we have to be crystal clear about what the message is.

00:03:42.200 | There are so many vagaries within the framework of "evangelical Christianity."

00:03:48.280 | And over the last couple of years, we've had this Christian deconstruction movement, #Exvangelicals,

00:03:57.300 | which means there are some people coming into evangelicalism, some people going out of evangelicalism,

00:04:03.720 | and everybody at every point seems to have a different definition of what it is.

00:04:09.640 | If you listen to Christian radio or watch Christian television or go to your Christian

00:04:13.760 | bookstore, there seems to be no end to the optional ways that you could understand what's

00:04:20.020 | essential in Christianity.

00:04:22.440 | But you need more than that.

00:04:23.480 | You don't need to be lost on that issue.

00:04:25.240 | You don't need to be unclear on that.

00:04:26.840 | You need to be crystal clear on the heart and soul of the gospel.

00:04:34.280 | That's what's on my heart to share with you today.

00:04:40.260 | And it comes out of a text in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, "I am hopelessly bound to the Word

00:04:45.900 | of God and to the texts of the Word of God."

00:04:50.320 | And this one is really a very, very clear summation of the gospel and of our calling.

00:05:01.120 | It's 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

00:05:06.080 | And I think maybe a good place to start is in verse 17.

00:05:10.320 | I'll read it to you, and then we'll talk about it.

00:05:15.080 | Starting from verse 17 to 21, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.

00:05:25.240 | The old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

00:05:30.860 | Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the

00:05:39.700 | ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself,

00:05:50.480 | not counting their trespasses against them.

00:05:54.260 | And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

00:05:59.600 | Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making an appeal through us.

00:06:09.460 | We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

00:06:14.760 | He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness

00:06:23.440 | of God in him."

00:06:27.800 | The word that appears most frequently in those verses is a form of the word reconcile.

00:06:35.040 | That's really the heart of this.

00:06:37.280 | The commission that we have been given by God is here called the word of reconciliation

00:06:43.700 | or the message of reconciliation, namely, that God is reconciling sinners to himself

00:06:54.620 | through Christ.

00:06:57.560 | This is the word of reconciliation, and this is the ministry of reconciliation.

00:07:03.600 | So I think just to define our great commission in terms other than the familiar great commission,

00:07:10.040 | say of Matthew 28, is to understand that we have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

00:07:17.200 | And it comes down to the fact that we proclaim the message that God desires to be reconciled

00:07:26.380 | to sinners.

00:07:29.200 | That is the heart of the Christian calling, the ministry of reconciliation and the word

00:07:36.160 | of reconciliation or the message or the teaching of reconciliation.

00:07:40.400 | Now we all understand alienation, and I think we're all familiar with the fact that the

00:07:46.080 | Bible is crystal clear that we come into this world alienated from the life of God.

00:07:51.400 | Those are the very words of the Apostle Paul in the book of Ephesians.

00:07:56.240 | Everybody is alienated from God, alienated from the life of God.

00:08:01.040 | We are enemies of God, and God is our enemy.

00:08:05.820 | Even while we were enemies, Romans tells us, God sought to reconcile us.

00:08:13.200 | So we have to start with the realization that the whole human race is at enmity with God,

00:08:19.280 | hostile toward God, and God is hostile toward them to the degree that He has prepared not

00:08:28.720 | just temporal judgments, and there are many of those on sin, but everlasting judgment

00:08:37.760 | on sinners.

00:08:39.600 | So reconciliation is the issue.

00:08:42.400 | I have had conversations a number of times through the years on airplanes with people

00:08:47.280 | who ask me what I do, and one of the common ways I answer that question is to say, I tell

00:08:54.880 | sinners they can be reconciled to God.

00:08:58.640 | Are you interested?

00:09:03.440 | It's amazing the result of that question.

00:09:06.080 | I remember flying across the country.

00:09:07.960 | There was a long-haired rock musician next to me, and when I asked that question, he

00:09:12.360 | got up and left, and it was a five-hour flight, and I never saw him again.

00:09:15.520 | So there is that reality.

00:09:19.080 | No, I'm not interested.

00:09:21.360 | I'm not interested.

00:09:23.680 | But this is substantially the foundation of the gospel.

00:09:29.140 | You as a sinner can be reconciled to God.

00:09:35.200 | And most people have the sense that God is good and holy.

00:09:40.600 | I mean, that's kind of what's in the groundwater of our civilization, and that they are not.

00:09:48.960 | And so they understand, even if it's a rather primitive understanding, the reality of reconciliation.

00:09:55.000 | They also live with disappointment, lack of fulfillment, guilt, fear, anxiety, all those

00:10:03.640 | things that are really not bound up only in the issues of life, but in the existential

00:10:09.140 | reality that you don't know what's coming after this, but you could be, frankly, in

00:10:13.800 | a lot of trouble.

00:10:18.240 | So the message of reconciliation is the good news.

00:10:22.800 | And to understand that is to be able to offer the sinner something positive, the most positive

00:10:29.480 | message that the sinner could ever hear.

00:10:33.080 | So I want to talk a little bit about this idea of reconciliation.

00:10:38.040 | And in the same passage that I just read, you saw that the Apostle Paul designates all

00:10:45.360 | of us as ambassadors.

00:10:48.960 | That's in verse 20, ambassadors.

00:10:54.720 | That means that we literally have been signed as representatives of a foreign kingdom to

00:11:02.480 | be in an alien environment with a message of reconciliation.

00:11:07.620 | That's why we're here.

00:11:09.540 | I often say that.

00:11:12.000 | The only reason the Lord didn't take us to heaven when we were saved is because He wanted

00:11:16.600 | to use us to reconcile sinners.

00:11:20.900 | If we were saved for fellowship, we ought to go to heaven where fellowship is perfect,

00:11:26.560 | because down here it's sometimes difficult.

00:11:30.280 | If we were saved for righteousness, we ought to go to heaven where righteousness really

00:11:34.940 | exists because down here it's pretty difficult.

00:11:38.920 | The only reason to leave us here and suffer the weaknesses of those kind of elements is

00:11:45.360 | because we are the instruments that God uses as ambassadors in an alien environment to

00:11:51.840 | tell people that they can be reconciled to God.

00:11:57.260 | And that's the message.

00:11:59.200 | Now what does that look like?

00:12:01.220 | So I want to break this passage down for just a few minutes.

00:12:06.280 | Just some simple aspects of it.

00:12:09.560 | And here's the starting point.

00:12:11.640 | And I think this is a very important starting point.

00:12:15.720 | Reconciliation is by the will of God.

00:12:19.760 | Reconciliation is by the will of God.

00:12:21.540 | If you go back to verse 18, all these things are from God.

00:12:29.940 | What things?

00:12:31.440 | The things mentioned in verse 17, all the new things that come in regeneration, all

00:12:38.200 | the new things that come when you're a new creature, all the new things that come through

00:12:42.960 | salvation, they all are from God.

00:12:49.100 | And I think it has to be established in our minds firmly that when we go to preaching

00:12:55.120 | and proclaiming and giving testimony to the ministry of reconciliation, the good news

00:13:00.440 | of reconciliation, God is on our side.

00:13:06.220 | God is by nature a reconciler.

00:13:09.920 | Repeatedly, particularly in the pastoral epistles of 1st and 2nd Timothy, we read God our Savior,

00:13:18.200 | God our Savior, God our Savior, God our Savior.

00:13:22.120 | Now this sets God apart from every other religious and ethnic system in the world.

00:13:28.760 | No other religion has a God who is by nature a Savior.

00:13:33.040 | They are gods to be feared.

00:13:35.880 | For example, in Islam, there is no salvation.

00:13:39.200 | There is no path of reconciliation.

00:13:42.160 | There's only alienation and a wistful hope that somehow it might turn out better than

00:13:48.120 | you think.

00:13:50.520 | But our God is by nature a saving God.

00:13:53.240 | People ask the question, "Why did God destroy so many people in the Old Testament?

00:13:59.420 | Why did God want the Canaanites killed?

00:14:01.200 | Why did God drown the whole world?"

00:14:04.120 | Seems as though God is by nature wrathful, vengeful, angry, hostile, judgmental.

00:14:11.540 | But the fact of the matter is the big question is not why did God judge, but why didn't God

00:14:19.460 | judge everybody instantaneously?

00:14:24.700 | That's why the Apostle Paul says that God is the Savior of all men, especially, little

00:14:33.660 | Greek adverb, melista, especially those who believe.

00:14:39.520 | God is not just the Savior of those who believe.

00:14:41.700 | He's the Savior of those who believe in an eternal sense, but His saving desire is on

00:14:47.840 | display even to the rest of humanity all the time.

00:14:52.040 | How is that so?

00:14:53.540 | Well, because the Bible says the wages of sin is what?

00:14:56.920 | Death.

00:14:57.920 | You go to Genesis, the day you die.

00:15:01.400 | And how long did Adam live?

00:15:03.560 | 900 plus years.

00:15:05.440 | What does that say?

00:15:08.240 | God didn't kill Adam when he took a bite.

00:15:12.160 | The very fact that sinners live, survive, enjoy what theologians call, I guess, common

00:15:20.160 | grace.

00:15:23.240 | They can enjoy love and beauty and adventure and everything that life offers them is because

00:15:31.740 | God puts on display His nature as a Savior by not giving sinners what they deserve when

00:15:38.740 | they deserve it.

00:15:41.640 | In that sense, He's the Savior of all men.

00:15:45.540 | Sinners need to be reminded not that God is this terrifying judge with no compassion,

00:15:53.940 | but rather on the other hand, He is slow to anger, slow to anger, and full of mercy and

00:16:04.020 | full of forbearance.

00:16:06.860 | And sinners take massive advantage of that without ever recognizing it.

00:16:14.060 | The forbearance of God is to lead to repentance.

00:16:19.020 | So the good news is this, you don't have to convince God to save sinners.

00:16:24.660 | You just have to convince sinners to come to Him.

00:16:29.300 | You know, if you're in Roman Catholic environment, there is a dominating idea there that does

00:16:38.520 | a terrible injustice to God, and it's this.

00:16:42.740 | God Himself is very hard, kind of tough, busy, occupied with things that God has on His plate,

00:16:53.820 | you might say.

00:16:56.340 | So God probably isn't going to be disturbed by you.

00:17:00.060 | He's not going to want to have to deal with your issues.

00:17:03.960 | So you don't want to go directly to God, and He's pretty harsh anyway.

00:17:08.420 | You might want to go to Christ, but the problem is Christ might be a little too occupied for

00:17:14.380 | you as well, and He might lack a measure of compassion.

00:17:19.500 | So if you really want to get to God, you go to Mary.

00:17:26.740 | That's what's behind the whole system of Mary in the Catholic religion, that Mary plays

00:17:35.060 | on the sympathies of Jesus to make Him more compassionate and more long-suffering and

00:17:43.300 | more willing to forgive.

00:17:44.780 | I mean, it's a line as simple as this, "Jesus can't refuse His mother," which funnels everybody

00:17:56.220 | through Mary, who, by the way, hears no one's prayers and never has.

00:18:05.020 | But it strikes a blow against the very compassion of Christ and the compassion of God.

00:18:14.140 | Reconciliation is by the will of God.

00:18:15.860 | He had to design the means, right?

00:18:19.380 | He's the one offended.

00:18:21.820 | If there is to be reconciliation, we can't design it.

00:18:26.500 | The offended one has to design it.

00:18:30.300 | And God our Savior, who will have all men to come to the knowledge of the truth, has

00:18:34.900 | designed a means of reconciliation.

00:18:38.340 | So the good news is when you go out as an ambassador of Christ to speak about reconciliation,

00:18:45.220 | you have the full force of heaven on your side as God, through you, is speaking.

00:18:52.100 | He actually says that, "God speaking through us, be reconciled to me."

00:19:01.780 | I would hate to think about having a job like convincing sinners of reconciliation if I

00:19:08.380 | also had to turn and convince God and get Him to ease up, but that is already a given.

00:19:20.460 | That is already a given.

00:19:22.500 | And He demonstrated it, obviously, in that He sent His Son to be the sacrifice.

00:19:29.800 | We'll see more of that in a moment.

00:19:33.020 | So reconciliation is by the will of God.

00:19:38.460 | You're doing God's work.

00:19:41.620 | You're preaching God's message.

00:19:44.500 | And He literally is speaking through you.

00:19:48.940 | It's in verse 20, where it's God making an appeal through us.

00:19:57.100 | We beg you.

00:19:58.460 | When we beg sinners to be reconciled, that is God begging sinners through us, a marvelous

00:20:08.260 | reality.

00:20:09.260 | And again, only in Christianity do you have a God who is by nature a Savior.

00:20:21.100 | So reconciliation is by the will of God.

00:20:25.020 | Secondly, it is by the act of forgiveness.

00:20:31.060 | It is by the act of forgiveness.

00:20:34.900 | In order to be reconciled to God, verse 10 says, "God stops counting your trespasses

00:20:46.420 | against you."

00:20:49.980 | This is amazing.

00:20:52.180 | A holy God who has every right to punish sin, and every sin ultimately is punished, forgives

00:21:00.140 | you.

00:21:04.220 | The forgiveness of sin, what we're talking about in the gospel is forgiveness.

00:21:09.860 | We're not talking about a happy marriage.

00:21:11.500 | We're not talking about a better life.

00:21:12.940 | We're not talking about prosperity.

00:21:14.900 | We're not talking about some kind of soul satisfaction.

00:21:17.980 | We're not talking about purpose, purpose-filled life or whatever.

00:21:21.940 | We're talking about forgiveness.

00:21:26.180 | And the only way you can ever be reconciled to God would be to be forgiven.

00:21:29.540 | I mean, that should make sense because it works that way pretty much in the human realm,

00:21:34.500 | doesn't it?

00:21:36.860 | When you have been violated, when you have been assaulted, when you have been mistreated,

00:21:43.100 | if there's ever to be a restoration of a relationship, it's going to come through the path of forgiveness.

00:21:47.740 | And reconciliation is by the act of forgiveness.

00:21:56.140 | You find that back in Psalm 32, Psalm 51 as David pours out his heart pleading for forgiveness.

00:22:04.980 | You find it in the New Testament where Jesus forgives sins.

00:22:11.240 | You find it in the epistles where the Apostle Paul says that Christ came for the forgiveness

00:22:16.740 | of sin.

00:22:19.660 | This is the essential reality that makes reconciliation possible.

00:22:28.960 | So I remember talking to a Muslim one night and I was reading a Bible.

00:22:36.580 | I was flying to Texas to do a men's conference and I was looking at my New Testament and

00:22:46.340 | this Muslim guy was sitting next to me.

00:22:49.140 | He kept looking over and glancing over and glancing over and finally he said, "Excuse

00:22:54.220 | me, sir, is that a Bible?

00:22:56.700 | Is that a Bible?"

00:22:58.860 | And I said, "It is a Bible."

00:23:03.700 | And he said, "Well, what is the religion of America?

00:23:12.820 | Is it from the Bible?"

00:23:16.020 | I said, "Well, mostly."

00:23:22.900 | But I said, "Let me tell you what the message of the Bible is by asking you a question."

00:23:29.100 | I said, "You're a Muslim?"

00:23:32.940 | "Yes," he said.

00:23:33.940 | I said, "Do Muslims have sins?

00:23:39.820 | Do you have sins?"

00:23:41.180 | "We have sins.

00:23:43.620 | We have so many sins I don't even know all the sins."

00:23:47.620 | So I said, "Do you do them?"

00:23:50.060 | "I do them all the time."

00:23:51.780 | In fact, I'll never forget this line, he said, "I'm flying to El Paso to do some sins."

00:24:00.500 | I said, "Oh, I wasn't sure I needed all that information.

00:24:04.940 | You're flying to El Paso to do some sins?"

00:24:09.380 | He said, "Yes, I met a woman there when I immigrated through the naturalization gate

00:24:16.300 | in El Paso and we're planning to do some sins."

00:24:22.500 | So now I was in pretty deep.

00:24:28.060 | And I said, "So what's Allah going to do about you doing sins?

00:24:35.500 | What does Allah think?"

00:24:38.200 | And he said, "It's very bad.

00:24:41.180 | It's very, very bad.

00:24:43.900 | I could go to hell.

00:24:45.980 | I could go to hell."

00:24:48.580 | So you could go to hell and you're doing those sins anyway.

00:24:54.500 | "Yes, I can't help it."

00:25:01.780 | I said, "Well, do you have some hope you can escape hell?"

00:25:06.780 | And this is the second line that I'll never forget.

00:25:09.700 | He said, "I hope the God will forgive me."

00:25:19.820 | And I said to him, "Well, I know him personally and he won't."

00:25:27.600 | And he looked at me like, "You're in the middle seat on Southwest and you know God?"

00:25:32.660 | Well, he didn't even understand that kind of a statement.

00:25:38.600 | You know, if you knew God, you'd have your own jet.

00:25:45.360 | You wouldn't be in the middle seat on Southwest, no.

00:25:50.660 | I said, "Yeah, I do know God and I know him personally and he won't forgive you unless...unless."

00:26:01.960 | And I poured out the gospel to him.

00:26:07.660 | And I could tell him with confidence that God will forgive your sins if you come to

00:26:18.780 | Christ.

00:26:20.980 | I can tell him that.

00:26:23.200 | That's what Jesus meant when he said to Peter, "You have the keys to the kingdom."

00:26:27.600 | He didn't mean you can open the kingdom yourself by any means.

00:26:32.400 | He meant you have the keys, the gospel.

00:26:37.440 | You have the keys to the kingdom.

00:26:39.040 | It's the gospel that unlocks the kingdom.

00:26:42.480 | It's the gospel that opens the narrow gate to the narrow way.

00:26:48.600 | So I told him there was complete forgiveness in Christ.

00:26:51.100 | He couldn't believe that he could know there was full forgiveness.

00:26:57.560 | I don't know what his response was.

00:26:58.820 | I got his address, sent him a lot of material, never heard back.

00:27:03.880 | But it's always a wonderful thing to be able to say to the sinner, "All you have to do

00:27:09.960 | is come to God through Christ and he'll forgive all your sins, past, present, and future."

00:27:18.440 | So reconciliation is by the will of God, by the act of forgiveness.

00:27:23.960 | And then there's a third aspect here.

00:27:25.880 | It is by the obedience of faith.

00:27:30.280 | It is by the obedience of faith.

00:27:34.000 | We beg you, be reconciled to God through Christ.

00:27:40.760 | Put your trust in Christ.

00:27:43.760 | He is the only way.

00:27:47.640 | There's no salvation in any other.

00:27:54.160 | There's a picture of spiritual warfare in 2 Corinthians 10 that I've always found fascinating.

00:28:01.040 | It kind of describes the spiritual battle in proclaiming the gospel, 2 Corinthians 10,

00:28:11.160 | 3.

00:28:12.160 | The Bible says we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

00:28:17.840 | And what that means is walking in the flesh, he doesn't mean carnality.

00:28:21.600 | He means we're human.

00:28:23.200 | Okay, so we're human, but we can't fight the spiritual war with human weapons.

00:28:29.520 | In the next verse, "The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful

00:28:36.960 | for the destruction of fortresses."

00:28:40.280 | If you're going to lead someone out of the kingdom of darkness, if you're going to smash

00:28:46.960 | that fortress, you have to have something more powerful than human ingenuity.

00:28:55.080 | We need something divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

00:28:59.920 | And what are those fortresses?

00:29:01.080 | Verse 5 explains, "Destroying logismos," speculations, ideas, theories, ideologies.

00:29:10.800 | Every thing, lofty thing, high thing raised up against the knowledge of God and taking

00:29:17.080 | every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

00:29:20.720 | Literally, in order to reach this person and bring about the obedience of faith, we have

00:29:27.920 | to crush their present ideologies.

00:29:34.040 | We have to destroy their speculations, theories, philosophies, psychologies, religions, worldviews.

00:29:45.780 | And they are further defined as every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.

00:29:52.040 | Any ungodly idea.

00:29:57.680 | So in this ministry of reconciliation, you're going to run into the realization that you're

00:30:02.840 | going to need to lead someone to the obedience of faith in Christ, and that simply means

00:30:08.360 | to obey what the Scripture says about Christ and what Christ Himself says, which means

00:30:13.760 | that He's going to have to abandon His current ideology.

00:30:22.440 | The word for fortress is the word for tomb, the word for prison, and the word for fortress.

00:30:30.560 | People's ideological fortresses become their tombs, for sure.

00:30:37.960 | So this is where your ability to proclaim the gospel, to give them the truth about Christ,

00:30:46.140 | show them the Word of God concerning Christ, the Spirit of God can use that to shatter

00:30:53.800 | their fortifications.

00:30:58.720 | And the fortifications are defined in a very simple way.

00:31:05.480 | They're defined as anything raised up against the knowledge of God.

00:31:11.440 | Any ungodly idea has to be smashed, has to be abandoned in favor of obedience to Christ.

00:31:24.380 | So this is complete shift.

00:31:27.920 | It's not adding Jesus to your life, it's the destruction of your life and the replacement

00:31:35.440 | with Christ.

00:31:36.440 | That's why Jesus said, "If any man comes after Me, let him deny himself."

00:31:44.760 | You abandon, you don't add Jesus, you abandon sinful ideologies, ungodly ideas.

00:31:56.320 | This is where your ability to articulate the Scripture, some knowledge of textual proofs

00:32:04.040 | for the truth of the gospel, even some good tools of apologetics can be of help to you.

00:32:13.480 | Because it's not just saying something like, "Jesus will make your life happier," and playing

00:32:19.620 | to emotion.

00:32:21.800 | That's going to be a superficial move, the move of a moment with no lasting influence.

00:32:28.700 | If they're going to come to Christ, they have to abandon the previous fortifications.

00:32:38.600 | They have to leave them behind.

00:32:42.880 | And that's why Jesus said it's hard to believe.

00:32:46.000 | It's hard to believe.

00:32:48.160 | The disciples said to Him in Luke 13, "Are there only a few who will be saved?"

00:32:55.760 | Jesus said, "A few will find the narrow way."

00:33:01.220 | It's hard.

00:33:02.740 | It's hard to hate your father, your mother, your sister, and John says in John 12, your

00:33:08.280 | own life.

00:33:11.020 | Literally to hate your own life.

00:33:13.960 | Whatever structure your life has, whatever ideological structure, whatever set of beliefs

00:33:20.840 | hold you intact for time and eternity.

00:33:28.140 | If they're not the godly ones, they have to be crushed.

00:33:33.100 | So evangelism is not something that is simple.

00:33:39.220 | It's not enough to say, "Pray this prayer and you're in."

00:33:44.980 | There has to be a destruction.

00:33:47.800 | And that can only happen when you bring the truth.

00:33:50.860 | So there's only one, the sword, there's only one weapon to destroy error, and what's that?

00:34:00.660 | Truth, truth, truth.

00:34:04.780 | So you bring the truth concerning Christ against the lies.

00:34:16.980 | So what are we seeing then?

00:34:19.760 | Reconciliation is by the will of God, by the act of forgiveness, and by the obedience of

00:34:24.920 | faith.

00:34:26.960 | Faith is the knowledge of a reality that allows me to entrust my life.

00:34:37.560 | You have to learn Christ and unlearn everything else.

00:34:48.080 | So this is the ministry of reconciliation.

00:34:52.920 | There's one other very important term just to kind of wrap it up.

00:35:00.240 | Reconciliation is by the will of God, by the act of forgiveness, by the obedience of faith,

00:35:07.300 | and finally by the work of substitution, by the work of substitution.

00:35:14.740 | And for that you come to the final verse, verse 21, 15 Greek words that sum up all of

00:35:23.300 | Christianity, really.

00:35:26.380 | He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness

00:35:32.220 | of God in Him.

00:35:34.700 | This is beyond any other reality, the essential reality.

00:35:42.500 | If you understand that verse, you understand the gospel.

00:35:48.340 | Because the big question is, as Paul articulates in Romans, how can God be just and the justifier

00:35:54.980 | of sinners?

00:35:56.740 | How can He do that?

00:35:57.740 | If you put yourself in a court setting and a judge comes in and a criminal is brought

00:36:03.860 | into the court and a criminal said, "Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty."

00:36:08.700 | And the judge said, "Okay, I've heard your confession, I affirm you're guilty, but I'm

00:36:21.620 | going to forgive you and let you go."

00:36:26.340 | There would be an outrage in the court, right?

00:36:28.460 | Because a judge has one responsibility, to uphold the law, right?

00:36:34.300 | You can't do that.

00:36:35.460 | That's not justice.

00:36:39.180 | So God could be accused of being an unjust judge if you just go to Him and say, "Okay,

00:36:47.220 | forgive me, forgive me because I ask," and God said, "Okay, you're forgiven and that's

00:36:53.540 | it," then God would be a justifier but would not be just.

00:37:01.220 | So how does God maintain His justice and also be the justifier of sinners?

00:37:09.780 | And the answer is in that verse, "He made Him," meaning Christ, "He, God the Father,

00:37:19.180 | made Him who knew no sin," who is that?

00:37:23.060 | Christ, the only person who ever lived in the world that knew no sin, "He made Him to

00:37:29.460 | be sin on our behalf."

00:37:32.820 | This is the great doctrine of substitutionary atonement.

00:37:41.160 | He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.

00:37:46.900 | What does that mean?

00:37:47.900 | Well, you hear some wacky preachers say, "Well, on the cross Jesus became a sinner."

00:37:54.260 | No, He didn't.

00:37:57.300 | He's holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.

00:38:01.780 | And He validates that on the cross because at the pinnacle of His suffering on the cross,

00:38:06.660 | He says, "My God, my God, why have you," what?

00:38:09.580 | "Forsaken me?" and if He was a sinner, there would be no reason to ask that question.

00:38:18.340 | He's not a sinner.

00:38:20.560 | What does it mean that God made Him to be sin on our behalf?

00:38:24.140 | It simply means this, that God punished Him for the sins of all who would ever believe.

00:38:32.220 | This is substitutionary atonement.

00:38:34.820 | God literally punished His Son for the sins of all who would ever believe through all

00:38:40.620 | of human history before, during, and after He lived on this earth.

00:38:47.260 | Peter puts it this way, "He bore in His body our sins on the cross."

00:38:51.940 | Isaiah puts it this way, "He was wounded for," what?

00:38:55.620 | "Our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, chastened for our shalom."

00:39:05.100 | This is the great truth.

00:39:07.460 | All sin is punished because God is just, and it's either punished in the sinner who committed

00:39:13.620 | it or punished in the substitute who took the sinner's place.

00:39:20.780 | This is an incredible truth.

00:39:23.620 | Let me phrase it another way.

00:39:27.380 | God treated Jesus on the cross as if He lived your life.

00:39:36.500 | Can you grab that one as a sinner?

00:39:40.340 | He treated Christ on the cross as if He lived your life, and He unleashed the horrors of

00:39:47.420 | judgment, and the darkness lasted three hours, and for three hours Christ bore the full punishment

00:39:57.180 | for all the sins of all the people who would ever believe through all of human history.

00:40:05.060 | Sinners in hell will forever be in hell, and the punishment will never be complete.

00:40:10.820 | Christ completed the punishment in three hours for everyone who ever believed in human history.

00:40:15.260 | How is that possible?

00:40:16.260 | And the only answer is because He's an infinite person.

00:40:20.660 | He had an infinite capacity for everything, including punishment.

00:40:30.380 | So God treats Jesus as if He lived your life.

00:40:34.820 | You know, when I say that to a sinner, it's a pretty shocking thing.

00:40:39.820 | But that's not all, because the second half of the verse says so that He might become,

00:40:46.820 | so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

00:40:49.980 | What does that mean?

00:40:52.460 | He treats Jesus as if He lived our life, so He can treat us as if we lived His.

00:41:00.860 | Amazing.

00:41:04.340 | That's what Isaiah 66 is talking about when it talks about being covered with robes of

00:41:08.340 | righteousness.

00:41:10.380 | God looks at Christ and sees you and is satisfied with the punishment.

00:41:18.060 | God looks at you and sees Christ.

00:41:23.700 | This is the monumental doctrine of imputed righteousness that goes along with the doctrine

00:41:32.580 | of imputed sin.

00:41:38.320 | That's a great exchange.

00:41:44.820 | So when you think about the ministry of reconciliation, it all comes down to God being just and the

00:41:51.340 | justifier of sinners, which means He must punish sin, and He did it in His Son so that

00:41:58.940 | He could forgive us.

00:41:59.940 | And when He forgave us, He really forgave us.

00:42:06.340 | He permanently forgave us because the punishment was paid in full by Christ.

00:42:13.380 | And when He sees us, He sees His Son.

00:42:18.600 | That's why the Bible talks to us about believers being joint heirs with Christ.

00:42:26.380 | This is the good news that sinners need to hear.

00:42:31.300 | And of course, it's why our salvation is forever, because Christ bore the full punishment, no

00:42:37.540 | double jeopardy.

00:42:42.120 | And it's why true believers never defect, because we literally are covered by the righteousness

00:42:49.100 | of Christ.

00:42:52.060 | People who defect, John says, never were of us, 1 John 2:19.

00:43:02.020 | So this incredible ministry of reconciliation, this message of reconciliation is the heart

00:43:12.620 | and soul of our calling as ambassadors in this alien world.

00:43:18.980 | And whatever your circumstance, you know, in my case, you could say, I have it easy.

00:43:24.660 | I'm talking to people who love me.

00:43:27.160 | In your case, you might be talking to people who hate everything you're saying.

00:43:31.620 | And Jesus said that, John 7, 7, He said, "They hate me because I tell them their deeds are

00:43:35.980 | evil."

00:43:40.060 | It's that issue of sin that generates the hostility.

00:43:43.260 | I mean, just imagine standing up in a media environment today and being honest about homosexuality,

00:43:54.460 | LGBTQ, child mutilation.

00:44:00.140 | I don't know how long you'd survive.

00:44:05.340 | There's more to the message than that.

00:44:09.420 | The message has to start with the reconciliation to God.

00:44:13.260 | And at that point, the Holy Spirit has to do the convicting of the sinner's heart, right?

00:44:19.860 | So my prayer for all of you is that the Lord will use you in ways that maybe you don't

00:44:27.700 | even expect to be His ambassador and tell sinners they can be reconciled to God.

00:44:35.460 | And when it's something they want, then they give you the right to tell them how it can

00:44:41.820 | happen, right?

00:44:44.220 | Father, thank You for Your Word.

00:44:46.700 | Thank You for Your glorious gospel.

00:44:49.260 | Thank You for saving us.

00:44:51.180 | Thank You for these dear folks.

00:44:52.500 | Lord, I pray that You will do exceedingly abundantly above all they can ask or think

00:44:57.380 | through their lives.

00:44:59.740 | Use them in the environment they're in to do Your eternal work for Your glory.

00:45:06.060 | Fill their hearts with joy in the privilege, we pray in Christ's name, amen.

00:45:11.420 | Amen.

00:45:12.420 | Would you like to take a couple of questions?

00:45:16.460 | Sure.

00:45:17.460 | Ty Denne wondered if I'd take some questions.

00:45:19.460 | I'd be glad to.

00:45:20.820 | Maybe you need to catch your breath.

00:45:22.420 | You didn't expect that.

00:45:25.220 | Yeah.

00:45:27.540 | About anything.

00:45:30.220 | Okay.

00:45:32.220 | Yes, sir.

00:45:37.220 | Thank you, Pastor, for the message.

00:45:48.220 | Yeah.

00:46:06.280 | You have no role in the doctrine of election.

00:46:08.780 | Neither do I. Neither does anybody else.

00:46:11.780 | Spurgeon said when somebody complained, "Why are you preaching the gospel to everybody

00:46:16.380 | if some are elect?"

00:46:17.380 | And he said, "Because nobody has 'ye' stamped on their back."

00:46:20.020 | So, my responsibility is to preach the gospel to every creature.

00:46:26.500 | How God harmonizes.

00:46:27.660 | Let me help you with that.

00:46:29.260 | Because people say, "If God chooses, then how can the sinner have accountability?"

00:46:35.860 | I mean, that's a dilemma that ought to encourage you.

00:46:40.860 | Because if you understood the mind of God, you'd be God, and if you were God, then God

00:46:44.980 | would be like you, and we'd be in a lot of trouble.

00:46:48.220 | So you want a transcendent God.

00:46:51.660 | But a way to explain it is this.

00:46:53.180 | If I ask you, for example, "Who wrote the book of Romans?"

00:46:58.300 | That's a simple question that you would hesitate to answer, right?

00:47:03.720 | You want to say Paul, but you know you can't.

00:47:06.860 | You want to say the Holy Spirit, but you can't say that either.

00:47:10.100 | Why?

00:47:11.100 | Because every word is inspired by the Spirit of God, and yet every one comes out of the

00:47:15.940 | vocabulary and mind and heart of Paul.

00:47:20.140 | Another way to look at it is if I ask you, "Who lives your Christian life?"

00:47:29.500 | Who lives your Christian life?

00:47:31.060 | Do you live it?

00:47:32.780 | Yes.

00:47:34.100 | That's the point.

00:47:41.180 | Because you have the exact same apparent paradox.

00:47:45.980 | Anything that brings the divine into the human contact in the realm of redemption leaves

00:47:53.120 | you with that same apparent paradox.

00:47:57.420 | Paul says it this way, "I am crucified with Christ.

00:48:01.220 | Nevertheless, I live," and then he says, "Yet not I."

00:48:07.580 | Because even he doesn't get it.

00:48:09.140 | "But Christ who lives in me.

00:48:12.240 | Everything good in me, I give Him credit.

00:48:14.440 | Everything bad in me, I take responsibility."

00:48:17.740 | So this is in every doctrine there is.

00:48:24.620 | If I say, if you're saved, do you believe in eternal security?

00:48:32.060 | You're secure.

00:48:33.060 | Yes, because Jesus said, "All that the Father gives to me will come to me and I'll lose

00:48:38.580 | none of them, but raise Him at the last day."

00:48:42.380 | But we also read that we have to persevere in the faith.

00:48:47.540 | So you have both of those things side by side, and that's plenty of evidence that this is

00:48:53.380 | a transcendent reality that extends beyond our scope.

00:49:00.340 | I'm just glad to say this.

00:49:03.020 | God can use me, but He doesn't need me.

00:49:10.300 | He can use me, and I can have the joy of that and the eternal reward of that, but the saving

00:49:19.580 | He does.

00:49:20.700 | And this is everywhere.

00:49:22.580 | Everybody, everybody who reads the New Testament understands predestination.

00:49:28.980 | Everybody who reads the Old Testament, well, what is God calling Abraham out of the whole

00:49:33.700 | world of humanity and identifying a people from the loins of Abraham and not everybody

00:49:40.140 | else?

00:49:41.140 | Israel, my elect, Christ, my elect, the church, my elect.

00:49:48.020 | At the same time we see that unfolding all through Scripture, we also see human responsibility.

00:49:57.300 | How God harmonizes that is for Him to figure out.

00:50:00.980 | Yes?

00:50:01.980 | >> I have a question regarding the university, not even specifically my area, because I saw

00:50:17.540 | for example, the university has incorporated psychology, which I believe most of them come

00:50:22.900 | from pagan books.

00:50:23.900 | >> Yeah.

00:50:24.900 | >> And actually the university program is not only one university, it's multiple, and

00:50:25.900 | many of them inside are even Christians.

00:50:26.900 | So how do I...

00:50:27.900 | What's your suggestion or different counseling for people, students who already chose that

00:50:34.900 | area even as Christians, is the first question.

00:50:38.900 | The second question is in China, for example, the whole education system is really imposing

00:50:44.780 | or even the theory to students.

00:50:45.780 | You have to get A or even 100% of that to get into university, get better education.

00:50:46.780 | So how do you, by the way, give some counseling advice to people in such program?

00:50:47.780 | >> Yeah, no, I appreciate the question, but I would just remind you that one of the strongest

00:51:09.380 | churches in the world is the Underground Church in China.

00:51:13.780 | We have students who have come here from China.

00:51:16.860 | We have students in the Master Seminary from China who are products of the Underground

00:51:21.460 | Church because the Lord can save His people wherever they are.

00:51:26.740 | Whatever the ideology is, the Spirit of God can break through.

00:51:32.420 | And that's happened in China.

00:51:34.260 | And I saw the same thing in the former Soviet Union.

00:51:37.540 | Jeff was saying it was 60 times in the Soviet Union.

00:51:41.220 | I wasn't there that many times, but I went a lot for conferences, and I met the Underground

00:51:47.660 | Church and the Aboveground Church, the Registered Church.

00:51:51.100 | And while communism was doing everything it could to stamp out Christianity, the church

00:51:55.620 | was flourishing and growing.

00:51:58.320 | So it's a matter of taking the opportunity to proclaim the truth, and it's the work of

00:52:05.340 | the Holy Spirit to break down the fortresses.

00:52:11.340 | But you need to have an answer to every man who asks you the hope, so that there's a reasonable

00:52:15.740 | biblical answer for what's wrong with that ideology.

00:52:23.020 | But it doesn't matter what the ideology is.

00:52:25.400 | You could say in America there's freedom.

00:52:28.500 | The church in America, in my experience, is far weaker than the Underground Church I saw

00:52:34.540 | in Russia.

00:52:35.540 | That's not actually—sorry.

00:52:36.540 | That's not my real question.

00:52:37.540 | I'm not really concerned about their faiths.

00:52:38.540 | I think they're really like after fire, they're more pure.

00:52:39.540 | But really, do you suggest them, like, practically speaking, get out of that discipline of psychology,

00:52:40.540 | or how do you practically—?

00:52:41.540 | Well, look, there are some things in psychology that are helpful.

00:52:42.540 | The study of human behavior, educational psychology, there are things about human behavior that

00:53:11.180 | can be cataloged and understood.

00:53:14.860 | But when you try to define the deepest issues of a human being with something like psychology,

00:53:22.860 | you're never going to get there.

00:53:24.420 | You're never going to get there.

00:53:25.860 | And that's why, to be honest with you, the whole counseling movement has disappeared.

00:53:31.180 | No psychologist or psychiatrist that I know anything about does any counseling anymore.

00:53:37.460 | They just give you drugs.

00:53:41.420 | I mean, they can't deal with anything.

00:53:48.300 | But that's not to say that there aren't psychological reasons how people learn or

00:53:53.820 | how people are made more effective in any kind of skill.

00:53:57.980 | Sure, there are elements of human behavior that have been studied and need to be studied

00:54:03.860 | and can be helpful in understanding how to navigate in the world and all the relationships

00:54:08.800 | that we have.

00:54:09.800 | But when it comes to sin and righteousness and judgment, psychology offers nothing.

00:54:16.380 | Yes, sir?

00:54:17.660 | You've written quite a bit in your life, in the past.

00:54:24.260 | Yeah.

00:54:25.260 | When is it that something triggers you and you say, "I need to expound on this and

00:54:38.900 | get this out to the public"?

00:54:39.900 | Well, it can happen a lot of ways.

00:54:40.900 | It almost all starts from my preaching.

00:54:44.940 | When I preach something or through a subject or a passage, and I feel that this is speaking

00:54:54.940 | directly to not just something that's always around, but maybe a more dramatic moment in

00:55:04.460 | the life of the church or the life of the nation or the world, I might say, "You know,

00:55:09.420 | this needs to go into print."

00:55:14.540 | Sometimes it's just in the flow of things like commentaries and study Bible and all

00:55:19.940 | that.

00:55:20.940 | Yeah.

00:55:21.940 | Right now, I'm working on a book called "The War on Children."

00:55:26.980 | So that's obvious, right?

00:55:29.260 | I mean, somebody's got...

00:55:31.540 | And the challenging thing with the book on "The War on Children" is if you try to describe

00:55:38.740 | how bad it is, no matter what you say, you're one week behind something worse.

00:55:47.020 | So you can't chase the tale of that.

00:55:50.860 | But yeah, it can be an issue like that.

00:55:54.900 | That is a very dramatic issue that needs to be addressed because people need help.

00:55:59.500 | And I really do write for people who want an answer from the Word of God.

00:56:07.100 | Sometimes the people around me, elders, pastors that I work with say, "This is a subject you

00:56:15.220 | need to work on."

00:56:16.860 | So it can come from a lot of angles.

00:56:20.900 | But it's got to be something that is in my heart because I have enough things to do that

00:56:26.100 | I won't get it done if I'm not highly motivated.

00:56:30.820 | Pastor John, thank you so much for being here with us today.

00:56:38.500 | My pleasure.

00:56:39.500 | Thank you.

00:56:40.500 | If you could stay here for a little bit because I want to ask you to close us in prayer.

00:56:48.860 | But it sounds like we have your permission to hold the Mathema Symposium next year again.

00:56:55.100 | For whatever good my permission is, you have it.

00:56:58.460 | Well, thank you.

00:56:59.460 | We appreciate it.

00:57:00.460 | And I want to thank you all for coming.

00:57:01.660 | And I know some of you traveled very, very far from Northern California and even as far

00:57:06.340 | as the East Coast to be here with us this weekend.

00:57:08.860 | So we really appreciate it.

00:57:11.080 | If you're going to be in town all weekend, we actually have in the bulletin a list of

00:57:15.180 | local churches if you're going to be around tomorrow, including Grace Community Church

00:57:19.820 | where Pastor John will be speaking again in the morning.

00:57:23.820 | There's also in the back a list of ways to stay in touch.

00:57:27.580 | So a year is a long time to see you all again.

00:57:30.820 | But we have a mailing list.

00:57:32.100 | There's a QR code so you can sign up for that.

00:57:34.620 | If you're interested in contributing an article for the Mathema Journal, we spoke about that

00:57:38.540 | yesterday.

00:57:39.540 | Please, we would love to get in contact with you.

00:57:42.340 | There's a website there.

00:57:44.740 | Oh, and it turns out, we do have several open positions in the Science and Engineering Department

00:57:52.660 | here.

00:57:53.660 | So if you have ever thought about, or maybe after this weekend, interested in joining

00:57:57.540 | the TMU faculty, or you have no friends or colleagues, please feel free to point them

00:58:03.060 | to that.

00:58:04.420 | Last thing, really quickly, this fall, we have another event that may be of interest

00:58:08.980 | called the Theotech Conference.

00:58:11.420 | That's theology and technology.

00:58:13.900 | And Dr. E., can you remind us really quick of just what the topic is, and maybe what

00:58:19.060 | day it's on.

00:58:21.060 | Theotech, 2023, October 28th.

00:58:26.900 | This year's theme is intelligence, creation, evidence.

00:58:34.780 | What is intelligence?

00:58:39.180 | How is it created?

00:58:42.100 | Where is the evidence?

00:58:44.380 | Be there.

00:58:46.220 | Okay.

00:58:47.380 | Thank you, Dr. E.

00:58:50.980 | And I want to thank our speakers for coming, Tara, and Jeff, and Abner, and Pastor John

00:58:55.140 | and Mark for being here with us this weekend, and for all of you.

00:58:58.620 | So thank you.

00:58:59.620 | And Pastor John.

00:59:00.620 | And we need to say thanks to Tye Denae, she's here.

00:59:10.460 | Special gift to us.

00:59:11.460 | Would you mind praying for us and our guests today?

00:59:14.420 | I'm glad to.

00:59:15.420 | Father, we are so grateful for the truth.

00:59:18.980 | What can we say?

00:59:20.660 | The truth is everything.

00:59:21.980 | It's absolutely everything.

00:59:24.820 | And it settles our hearts for time and eternity.

00:59:29.380 | Thank you for the joy and the peace, the contentment, the wonder, the anticipation, and the hope

00:59:37.140 | that comes from knowing the truth.

00:59:40.060 | We thank you for every individual who is here, and we pray that there will be opportunity.

00:59:47.820 | Just immediately we ask, Lord, for them to put into usefulness and practice some of the

00:59:52.580 | things that they have learned or refined in the time here.

00:59:58.620 | Make this a useful, helpful opportunity that will allow them to be more effective in everything

01:00:06.380 | that they do, and particularly in the ministry of reconciliation to which you have called

01:00:13.380 | us all.

01:00:15.040 | And may they see fruit for their efforts and their labors.

01:00:19.380 | For your glory we pray in Christ's name, amen.

01:00:22.500 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

John MacArthur | “The Message of Reconciliation” | Math3ma Symposium 2023

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