Shepherds Conference Q & A with John MacArthur and John Piper
00:00:00.000 | I want to welcome you to our Q&A session with the Pastors Johns.
00:00:06.000 | How do you pluralize that?
00:00:09.580 | Pastor Johns.
00:00:10.580 | That's good enough.
00:00:13.320 | Pastors Johns.
00:00:16.400 | There's something wonderful about this opportunity.
00:00:18.160 | Both of these men are known for their deep well of biblical and theological knowledge.
00:00:23.960 | Their years and years of pastoral faithfulness have prepared them for moments like these.
00:00:30.420 | They both have a burden to answer people's questions.
00:00:33.560 | Dr. MacArthur, you have had hundreds of sessions with your local church where you'll just open
00:00:40.480 | up the microphone on Sunday night and ask and answer people's questions.
00:00:45.520 | And they'll line up.
00:00:46.520 | And it was, I think, two weeks ago you answered questions for two hours, extemporaneous, just
00:00:52.000 | what was on people's hearts.
00:00:54.080 | Pastor John, Piper, also, Dr. MacArthur, Dr. Piper, just to fix this problem, Dr. Piper,
00:01:02.640 | you have a podcast called Ask Pastor John.
00:01:08.240 | Do you listen to that?
00:01:10.560 | It's incredibly helpful as the dear Tony Reinke asks you so many questions.
00:01:18.020 | And I want to tell the guys right away that that podcast has produced a book of 750 Bible
00:01:27.600 | answers to life's most important questions.
00:01:31.200 | So Ask Pastor John, it's totally sold out in the book tent already.
00:01:35.720 | So it just disappeared quickly.
00:01:38.040 | You can get it online.
00:01:39.580 | So I recommend that to you men.
00:01:41.720 | And obviously, Dr. MacArthur's years and years of answers to Bible questions are at gty.org.
00:01:47.960 | And I think that's where I'd like to start is why is it so important for the pastor to
00:01:55.000 | be accessible, to ask and answer questions, to be there for people's needs?
00:02:01.400 | And why has that become such an important part of your ministries?
00:02:05.760 | Dr. MacArthur, start with you.
00:02:10.240 | Well, because you don't want to spend your whole ministry telling people what they don't
00:02:15.840 | want to know.
00:02:18.880 | Sometimes we do.
00:02:19.880 | Yeah.
00:02:20.880 | Yes.
00:02:21.880 | But I said you don't want to spend your whole ministry.
00:02:26.160 | You want to spend some of your ministry telling them what they don't want to know.
00:02:33.460 | But you also want to spend a lot of your ministry telling them what they desperately want to
00:02:38.400 | know.
00:02:39.400 | The cries of their heart, the dilemmas that they face.
00:02:43.800 | And particularly in a pastoral role where there's trust.
00:02:49.020 | So you don't have to sort of give an apologia for every answer you give, because you've
00:02:57.800 | built in trust by feeding them the Word of God.
00:03:01.600 | I think Paul set me on that course when he dialogued D'Alego, talked back and forth with
00:03:10.360 | the people he ministered to to answer their compelling questions.
00:03:15.000 | And for him, it would have been more difficult because all they would have had at most would
00:03:19.080 | be the Old Testament.
00:03:21.320 | For us, we can direct them to the New Testament.
00:03:23.280 | But this has always been a vital part of our ministry.
00:03:26.600 | And I think what I hear from deconstruction people, the ex-evangelical hashtag people,
00:03:34.680 | is that they went to a church, but they never got their questions answered.
00:03:40.680 | There's no reason for that.
00:03:43.520 | We have the answers.
00:03:45.200 | AUSTIN: So it's about the contemporaneity of those questions.
00:03:50.040 | It's what's on people's hearts.
00:03:51.800 | It's also about the sufficiency of Scripture.
00:03:54.320 | What's the burden behind your desire to answer people's questions, Dr. Piper?
00:03:58.720 | DR.
00:03:59.720 | PIPER Yeah.
00:04:00.720 | Well, at my stage in life, when I don't have a local church anymore that I oversee as the
00:04:07.480 | pastor, look at the book, which is the other little thing I do online, has kind of replaced
00:04:15.160 | my preaching role, and Ask Pastor John has replaced my counseling role.
00:04:21.240 | So I get to do all my pastoral work online.
00:04:24.800 | That's one way to look at it.
00:04:26.400 | The other is the pulpit John MacArthur and John Piper, I think, is not exactly the same
00:04:35.600 | as the Q&A John Piper, John MacArthur, or the conversational John MacArthur.
00:04:42.040 | At least that's what people tell me about you, and I think that's what I've found.
00:04:45.600 | They say you're a bulldog in the pulpit.
00:04:49.320 | And then they say you're the kindest, gentlest, most gracious person in conversation.
00:04:55.960 | And I've seen both of those.
00:04:57.480 | I have no idea whether I'm viewed as a bulldog or a kind person, but I think I am viewed
00:05:02.280 | as a different person.
00:05:03.880 | So I think that your flock needs to know you both ways.
00:05:10.240 | It is not a bad thing to be a prophetic authority in the pulpit that scares the heebie-jeebies
00:05:16.640 | out of people.
00:05:19.520 | And it's not a bad thing to be a lowly servant, quiet listener who gets your arms around people
00:05:28.200 | out of the pulpit.
00:05:29.200 | JOHN MACARTHUR Yeah, you preach with boldness, and you give an answer with meekness and fear.
00:05:33.840 | Yeah.
00:05:34.840 | [END PLAYBACK]
00:05:36.000 | So we've highlighted before in Q&As with the two of you how different you both are.
00:05:43.300 | Different personalities wired in different ways, and I think that's something that we
00:05:48.600 | thank God for in the way He makes people different.
00:05:51.880 | But there's something that has been noticed at this conference, and it's that you two
00:05:55.920 | have an unusual bond.
00:05:58.260 | People are taking pictures of you two greeting and hugging each other and talking together
00:06:04.600 | and posting them online and just talking about how encouraged they are by the bond and friendship
00:06:10.000 | that the two of you share.
00:06:12.120 | I really want this Q&A to be helpful to these pastors that are watching and listening to
00:06:16.760 | this.
00:06:17.920 | And I think that there's something that you could teach us about why relationships with
00:06:24.180 | another pastor are so important.
00:06:27.640 | What is it about friendship that will enhance a man's pastoral ministry?
00:06:32.120 | And we've heard a little bit about that in this conference, but speak experientially
00:06:35.340 | to these brothers and help them think about the pastor and friendship.
00:06:40.040 | I've heard people say that your best friends are going to have to be outside the church,
00:06:51.420 | not your own church, not your own staff, not your own elders, deacons.
00:06:57.600 | I did not find that true, and I don't think it's a healthy thing to talk that way.
00:07:03.400 | I, for 33 years, considered my staff my best friends, and the elders were absolutely trustworthy
00:07:14.880 | with my life.
00:07:15.880 | So if Noel and I were having problems, I didn't try to hide it from anybody on the staff.
00:07:24.560 | They were my closest friends.
00:07:28.440 | They are still today the ones that I still have around me.
00:07:33.920 | So that's the first thing I'd say, is don't feel like, "Oh, you can't have a good friend
00:07:39.280 | inside the church because you can't really be honest with them," but baloney.
00:07:43.880 | You really ought to be honest with the people closest to you and work with you.
00:07:51.700 | We need to know each other through and through.
00:07:54.960 | For whatever reason, Jesus had his Peter, James, and John, and he had his 12, and he
00:07:59.760 | had his 70, and so there are these concentric circles of intimacy, it seems, that mattered
00:08:06.680 | to him.
00:08:07.680 | They certainly mattered to me.
00:08:08.800 | To this day, I meet with two guys every other week, and they know me like nobody else knows
00:08:15.480 | me, and I think that keeps me accountable.
00:08:18.320 | That's a big deal today, accountability, but it never feels quite that way if you're with
00:08:23.140 | really good friends.
00:08:25.840 | So that matters, that they know me, they can speak into my life, and those friends need
00:08:31.400 | to be not "yes men."
00:08:35.840 | They need to be fearless around you and speak into your life without feeling like they're
00:08:41.680 | going to be squashed because you have more authority than they do.
00:08:46.140 | So I think that makes a huge difference, whether you're accountable, whether your heart is
00:08:49.600 | open, and whether they can bear your burdens that you share with them, can pray for you
00:08:55.520 | at the deepest levels where very few other people are praying for you because they don't
00:08:59.600 | know what you're dealing with.
00:09:01.200 | Dr. MacArthur, what would you add about friendship?
00:09:04.440 | Well, let me talk about John.
00:09:10.040 | I was asked, "Why would you have John Piper at the conference?"
00:09:13.680 | And my immediate answer was because, one, I love him; two, he is as formidable a lover
00:09:26.520 | of Christ as there exists in the world today; three, because he feeds me.
00:09:36.360 | I don't get a lot of time with John, but I did get 1,000 pages plus of Providence delivered
00:09:46.720 | to me, delivered to me through your mind and your heart and your faces on every page because
00:09:54.200 | I know you, and I'm reading, but I'm hearing you, and I know you well enough to know what
00:10:02.600 | went on for you to be able to produce such a massive, massive work.
00:10:08.060 | I don't know that there's more than a handful of people who have had that kind of biblical
00:10:15.520 | effect on me of modern people.
00:10:17.920 | I mean, you probably read more old authors than you do current authors like I do.
00:10:24.840 | But for a current author, you've delivered your soul to me in so many ways.
00:10:28.680 | I remember we were at the SING conference one year - you might not remember this - and
00:10:33.320 | you were speaking at the early session, whether it was 7, 45, or 8 in the morning.
00:10:37.680 | I was in the green room when you showed up, and you said, "What are you doing here?"
00:10:41.520 | Do you remember that?
00:10:42.520 | JOHN PIPER No.
00:10:43.520 | But I'm eager to hear.
00:10:44.520 | R.C.
00:10:45.520 | SPROUL And I said, "What do you mean, 'What am I
00:10:46.520 | doing here?'"
00:10:47.520 | You're speaking.
00:10:48.520 | You said, "You came to hear me speak?"
00:10:49.520 | I said, "Of course."
00:10:50.520 | I mean, you're processing - you flew from California last night.
00:11:01.840 | You got in late.
00:11:02.840 | It's 7 in the morning, which is 4 or 5 in the morning.
00:11:07.440 | I wait for the Lord to use you to bring me what I need for my heart and soul.
00:11:15.920 | So anytime I can do that, I'm going to be there.
00:11:21.160 | JOHN PIPER Be of your kind.
00:11:27.360 | C.S.
00:11:28.360 | Lewis made the distinctions about the four kinds of loves, and Eros - lovers are looking
00:11:36.280 | at each other in the face, and they're telling each other how delicious they are.
00:11:40.680 | R.C.
00:11:41.680 | SPROUL No, it's not that kind of love, John.
00:11:48.200 | (Laughter and applause.)
00:11:52.120 | JOHN PIPER Don't interrupt; I'm getting there.
00:11:59.280 | And philos is friendship, and you're not facing each other.
00:12:04.120 | You're facing a passionate goal, right, shoulder-to-shoulder, and you're not doing
00:12:11.440 | a lot of intimate talk.
00:12:13.240 | I started with the intimacy piece of those guys know me through and through.
00:12:17.400 | But what makes it friendship is the shoulder-to-shoulder pulling in a worthy, great cause you're willing
00:12:25.020 | to die for.
00:12:26.020 | And when you smell in another person that you're pulling in the same reins, in the same
00:12:32.160 | yoke, then you feel like, "We could die together.
00:12:35.440 | This would be good.
00:12:36.440 | This would be good."
00:12:37.440 | (Laughter and applause.)
00:12:38.440 | So that's the kind of friendship you want.
00:12:41.360 | You want a shoulder-to-shoulder, common goal, common vision.
00:12:46.320 | And this might be a good place to say, "I don't believe it's a good goal to have a theologically
00:12:53.400 | diverse staff."
00:12:54.400 | I mean, I've heard pastors say, like, "Oh, we don't need to agree on all the theological
00:12:59.120 | things on the staff."
00:13:00.320 | I say, "Baloney, you've got to lead your people together.
00:13:05.480 | You've got to lead."
00:13:06.480 | So when you're shoulder-to-shoulder, you know what the other person is thinking, you know
00:13:10.760 | what the other person is feeling, and oh, the camaraderie that brings you.
00:13:15.120 | So when the church gets into a crisis, oh my goodness, how glorious is it to have a
00:13:21.280 | few close friends that you absolutely know they're going to be standing by you through
00:13:25.560 | the crisis.
00:13:26.560 | LARSON: Yeah, that's a great answer.
00:13:29.040 | JOHN: That's why J.C. Ryle said that friendship is that beautiful thing, gift from God, that
00:13:34.600 | doubles our joys and halves our sorrows.
00:13:38.560 | And that's what you men are sharing with us.
00:13:41.120 | And that's why pastors need Christ-honoring, Christ-centered, Christ-pursuing friendships.
00:13:47.960 | So let's dig deeper into that and talk about...
00:13:50.560 | LARSON: Can I say one more thing?
00:13:53.560 | You got me going on this.
00:13:55.660 | If you're really bound together deeply, theologically deeply, spiritually deeply, you don't have
00:14:02.360 | to spend a lot of time together.
00:14:04.920 | I mean, I've got a few friends, I see them once a year or so.
00:14:08.240 | I see him less often than that probably.
00:14:11.880 | And when you get together, you just pick up where you were.
00:14:14.880 | That's the way it was with those people.
00:14:16.520 | For years, I've related to some people that way.
00:14:18.760 | It's like a once-a-year friendship, but it feels deeper than some people you see every
00:14:22.960 | week because the shoulder-to-shoulder common convictions and ground and goal is so deep.
00:14:30.280 | So don't feel like you can't have significant friendships with people that you knew in college
00:14:36.200 | or you knew in seminary, but you keep up with them at a distance.
00:14:41.320 | JOHN: You know, I had that kind of relationship with R.C.
00:14:44.760 | I mean, we were on opposite coasts, and we spent some time together, maybe once or twice
00:14:52.100 | a year, Steve.
00:14:54.000 | And yet there was this shoulder-to-shoulder attitude that we knew if we ever were in a
00:14:59.000 | severe battle, we needed to be together, and that's where we were at ECT.
00:15:04.880 | And that kind of defined that relationship.
00:15:09.040 | And people said, "How could you have such a friendship when you had different theological
00:15:13.880 | views on certain things?"
00:15:15.800 | And again, it's right back to exactly what John said.
00:15:19.200 | R.C. would always say, "When I'm in a foxhole, I'm going to call you."
00:15:23.480 | That's good.
00:15:24.480 | Let's talk about the flip side of this, or maybe the deepest and darkest part of friendship,
00:15:33.720 | which is when a friend fails us.
00:15:36.720 | And we've all had that experience of betrayal, a friend that drifts into error, or a friend
00:15:42.480 | that drifts into sin.
00:15:44.940 | Maybe you could help the pastors here process what was a common experience for the Apostle
00:15:49.440 | Paul, for the Lord Jesus, when friends fail you.
00:15:54.360 | When that happens, how do you continue to pour yourself into the lives of people?
00:16:02.040 | How do you ensure that you don't become self-protective, but you continue to invest and pour in and
00:16:07.880 | love your friends, even when friends fail?
00:16:12.000 | Talk a little bit about that experience and ministry.
00:16:14.760 | Pastor John MacArthur.
00:16:16.200 | Well, I guess for me, it goes back to our Lord in Judas, or it goes back to Paul and
00:16:25.320 | Demas.
00:16:26.320 | The best of the best of the best of the best are going to be betrayed, and the more you
00:16:34.920 | invest in someone, the more potential they have to devastate you.
00:16:39.760 | So you can be gun-shy.
00:16:42.560 | My dad told me when I was just starting out in ministry something that you referred to
00:16:47.640 | a minute ago, "Don't make close friends with the people you serve with because you'll find
00:16:53.880 | yourself being so terribly disappointed."
00:16:57.440 | I usually took my dad's advice; I never took that advice because it was overpowered for
00:17:04.280 | me by the experience of Christ, and not just with Judas, but even with Peter.
00:17:09.440 | If he was disappointed with Judas, who was a devil, how much more disappointed was he
00:17:18.160 | with Peter, who was a true believer?
00:17:22.940 | So who am I to expect loyalty from everybody all the time?
00:17:29.840 | We know what Paul endured, whether it was John Mark or Demas or whatever, and who knows
00:17:35.020 | all the other stories, all in Asia have forsaken me.
00:17:38.480 | How can you come to the end of your ministry and say, "Everybody has forsaken me"?
00:17:45.240 | How is that even possible, and you're the Apostle Paul, and you're the reason that anybody
00:17:50.040 | is even a Christian?
00:17:54.520 | But you have to understand that that goes with the territory.
00:18:00.740 | That's part of it, and you can't - I mean, you do some inventory on your own heart - could
00:18:06.520 | have done something different, but for me, the Lord has always balanced that with many
00:18:12.320 | more who are faithful over the long haul, and I focus on that and rest in the fact that
00:18:17.640 | if it was true of the Apostle Paul and of our Lord, I should probably expect a whole
00:18:23.520 | lot more disloyalty than I get.
00:18:26.120 | You know, there's an interesting connection that I didn't see until about three years
00:18:32.360 | ago in the Demas text.
00:18:37.200 | In verse 7, I think it's, "I've fought the good fight, I've finished the course, I've
00:18:41.320 | kept the faith, henceforth there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the
00:18:46.120 | Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me, and not only to me, but to all who have loved
00:18:52.040 | His appearing."
00:18:53.040 | And two verses later, Demas disappeared in love for the world.
00:18:58.280 | And so I think one answer to the question of how you survive Demas is by loving the
00:19:04.400 | second coming, which generalized means something like this, "This world is one conveyor belt
00:19:11.520 | of disappointments."
00:19:12.760 | I mean, every day has a disappointment in it.
00:19:18.960 | Some situation didn't go the way you want, somebody lets you down.
00:19:22.880 | Life is disappointment, and some of them are awful.
00:19:25.960 | Demas probably broke his heart.
00:19:28.120 | But he so loved Christ, and he so loved the second coming, and he knew that everything's
00:19:33.680 | going to be worked out, it's all going to be okay.
00:19:37.400 | So I think having a heavenly mindset, which is the way Jesus told us to deal with slander
00:19:44.480 | in Matthew 5, right?
00:19:46.040 | When they say, "All kinds of evil against you falsely, rejoice and be glad," why?
00:19:53.080 | Great is your reward in heaven.
00:19:54.960 | But how do you even function in the midst of slander unless you love heaven, unless
00:20:00.680 | you believe in the future, the world to come?
00:20:04.880 | So that's one piece.
00:20:07.480 | Another piece I'd say about betrayal is don't become embittered, lean into reconciliation
00:20:15.200 | possibilities.
00:20:16.520 | It might seem absolutely impossible that this relationship could be fixed.
00:20:21.400 | It's just not going to happen.
00:20:22.600 | It's just so ugly.
00:20:24.240 | Don't believe that.
00:20:25.440 | God does miracles.
00:20:27.140 | So the worst betrayal I ever experienced was 1993, seven-year adultery, man I'd worked
00:20:36.280 | with for 10 years, devastated the church, 230 people left in those days.
00:20:42.080 | I think we had about an attendance of 1,200 in those days, 230 people walk because they
00:20:46.240 | didn't like church discipline, and I had dinner with that man 10 years later, and we wept,
00:20:54.960 | and we held each other, and I attended his funeral, and I hugged his wife, and we made
00:20:59.940 | it okay.
00:21:01.600 | It was okay.
00:21:03.120 | We're going to be in heaven together, and that's possible, guys, really possible.
00:21:08.360 | And your job is to believe that and not to be the one who's just sneering and saying,
00:21:13.560 | "You just get out of my life, and you stay out of my life because of what you wrecked
00:21:17.360 | in this church or what you wrecked in my relationship."
00:21:20.880 | So believe the miracle is possible that reconciliation could happen.
00:21:27.080 | Building on that, I think you also have to look at that person as an instrument through
00:21:37.240 | which the Lord is perfecting you.
00:21:39.920 | That's right.
00:21:42.460 | Those are the best times for your spiritual benefit.
00:21:48.000 | They tear down your pride, and self-confidence, and sense of privilege, and expected rights.
00:21:56.960 | And if you will look at the person that hurt you the most as the instrument that God used,
00:22:03.840 | then you'll understand what Paul was talking about when he wrote to the Corinthians about
00:22:07.240 | the thorn in the flesh, and the Lord said, "I'm not going to remove it because when you're
00:22:11.600 | the weakest, you're the strongest."
00:22:14.960 | And I think we never are going to be too weak to be effective.
00:22:27.040 | That 2 Corinthians reality of chapter 12 really runs through that whole book, doesn't it?
00:22:36.520 | That pastoral suffering is for the sake of their people.
00:22:40.720 | It's just all through the book.
00:22:42.680 | It just starts off in chapter 1.
00:22:44.640 | "May you be comforted with the comfort with which you have been comforted by God."
00:22:50.080 | So if you wonder why you're going through the hell you're going through right now, it's
00:22:53.400 | for the sake of your people.
00:22:56.320 | God wants to do something in your shepherd heart that will make you a more wise, compassionate,
00:23:04.440 | loving, insightful, caring shepherd.
00:23:10.800 | AUSTIN: You both have battled for truth, various difficult doctrinal controversies, battle
00:23:20.620 | for truth in ethical matters like the ones you're addressing where someone drifts into
00:23:25.640 | error.
00:23:26.920 | I think you model both of you being warriors for the truth, and this conference is about
00:23:33.400 | truth, triumphing truth.
00:23:36.640 | How do we think about battling for truth and maintaining that full awareness of grace?
00:23:47.440 | Another way to say it is how do we differentiate in our battling for truth between contending
00:23:52.840 | and being contentious?
00:23:55.080 | How do we be bulldogs and followers of the Lamb?
00:23:58.880 | Yeah, that's good.
00:24:00.960 | You should be a preacher.
00:24:09.120 | Sound like H.B.
00:24:10.120 | Charles.
00:24:11.120 | What do you think?
00:24:17.160 | Yeah, I'll give you some more time.
00:24:25.960 | So I love John Owen, and I love Machen, and so I did this little book years ago on contending
00:24:35.760 | for our all, we called it.
00:24:38.440 | R.C.
00:24:39.440 | Sproul wrote something for it, or forward, or blurb, or something, but he liked it.
00:24:45.080 | And that made me feel really good.
00:24:47.600 | But here's the one quote that made all the difference for me, and it's been a goal.
00:24:52.880 | I don't know that I've achieved it, but Owen said that we should commune with the Lord
00:25:01.720 | in the doctrine for which we contend, commune with the Lord in the doctrine for which we
00:25:09.840 | contend.
00:25:10.840 | Now, here's what that means to me.
00:25:13.080 | So I'm fighting for justification, say, with N.T.
00:25:16.120 | Wright, or I'm fighting with Calvinism against Roger Olson, or whatever, and I've had, I
00:25:25.840 | know these guys, I've communicated with them.
00:25:27.920 | It's not like throwing hate bombs over the fence.
00:25:33.240 | My desire is that I would be authentic with them, and real with them, and that I would
00:25:44.840 | not be contentious.
00:25:47.080 | But when it's justification or the sovereignty of God, as I go into battle, whether it's
00:25:53.280 | over lunch or in a book, I'm saying, "Lord, I don't want this to be a game.
00:25:59.520 | I don't want us to have a little tiff here.
00:26:01.960 | I don't want to play word games, or doctrine games, or proposition games.
00:26:06.920 | I want to know the sweetness of justification.
00:26:10.960 | I want to know the preciousness of the sovereignty of God."
00:26:14.720 | That's the only reason I want to defend this.
00:26:17.120 | I don't want to win anything.
00:26:18.560 | I'm not out to get strokes or be famous.
00:26:20.720 | I want to enjoy you.
00:26:22.920 | I think that's what Owen meant.
00:26:24.160 | I want to enjoy God in the doctrine for which I contend.
00:26:29.760 | I think that changes the spirit from contentiousness to a humble, holy, courageous contending.
00:26:38.880 | That's one factor.
00:26:39.880 | No, I think that's true.
00:26:45.740 | That will prevent you from being angry or being hostile, because if you love that truth,
00:26:55.280 | that basically takes over your heart.
00:26:58.840 | So that is the first thing, that this is a truth you love, not a club with which you
00:27:03.120 | want to beat people.
00:27:05.240 | The second thing is this is a person that you love or that you care about.
00:27:10.500 | So your attitude is going to be the combination of how you feel about the truth and how you
00:27:14.640 | feel about the person.
00:27:16.800 | If you lose it on either side, if you're trying to win an argument, you're going to be cantankerous.
00:27:22.880 | Or if you're indifferent to the person, you're going to become frustrated with dealing with
00:27:27.560 | the person, and you're going to lose the tenderness and persuasiveness that the Spirit of God
00:27:32.240 | would want you to have while you're trying to convince them.
00:27:36.280 | That's very helpful.
00:27:39.800 | I would add, joy, along with love, has a huge effect, because you can lose your joy like
00:27:53.240 | that in an argument.
00:27:55.520 | Anger becomes - anger is an omnivorous emotion.
00:28:00.600 | It eats everything.
00:28:03.160 | It eats compassion, it eats joy, it eats everything.
00:28:07.720 | If you get taken over by anger, and joy is a great antidote.
00:28:15.200 | In your local church, there'll be little controversies.
00:28:18.080 | We're kind of talking big controversies here, public controversies, but in your church you'll
00:28:21.960 | have controversies.
00:28:23.000 | People don't like what you just said or believed.
00:28:25.880 | So I had a guy one time who did not like my eschatology.
00:28:28.760 | I won't even tell you which side anybody's on here.
00:28:32.960 | But I preached on a Sunday evening, went public kind of, and I said, "I can't imagine anybody
00:28:39.520 | wanting to do that."
00:28:40.520 | He said, he was at the back of the row, he said, "I don't believe that!"
00:28:44.040 | Right out loud in the service.
00:28:47.240 | Now here's another illustration of somebody you get really reconciled with.
00:28:51.200 | And I said to him, along with the other people sitting like this in the back row, "I'm going
00:28:56.280 | to out-rejoice you and out-live you."
00:29:06.960 | And I did.
00:29:13.080 | But that particular man, that particular man, that was, I was brand new, like three years
00:29:19.840 | into my 33-year ministry, and we became precious friends.
00:29:25.820 | We never agreed.
00:29:27.680 | Precious friends.
00:29:29.920 | And when he moved away to Iowa later, he called me after about six years and said his wife
00:29:36.920 | had died and would I do the funeral.
00:29:40.040 | So don't think that the people who stand up and shout out in your service, "I agree with
00:29:44.840 | you, Pastor."
00:29:45.840 | Don't think they won't do a 180 and love you like crazy before you're done.
00:29:51.160 | Because what was under that, and it's one of the reasons we like each other so much,
00:29:54.380 | is he loved the Bible.
00:29:57.620 | He loved the Bible.
00:29:59.340 | He thought I was unbiblical.
00:30:00.660 | But then after two or three years, he said, "Hyper's not unbiblical.
00:30:09.620 | He's totally under this book, and we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one."
00:30:17.260 | So, to think about your ministries and how they will be thought of in the future is beyond
00:30:23.700 | our capability as people with our limited understanding of how God works and how providence
00:30:30.980 | unfolds.
00:30:31.980 | But I think it's not speculation to say that though you've written hundreds of books between
00:30:37.700 | the two of you, tens of thousands of pages and millions of words, many, many years from
00:30:43.820 | now, you both will be known for one book first and foremost that you wrote.
00:30:53.420 | I think you'll be known for Desiring God, and you will be known for Gospel According
00:30:57.880 | to Jesus.
00:30:59.660 | Those are formative, definitive, huge impact books that reflect the heartbeat of your ministries
00:31:09.020 | and the emphasis of your lives.
00:31:12.420 | I would like you to just consider why those books, especially I'm interested in, Dr. Piper,
00:31:20.300 | you telling me why is that the case for Dr. MacArthur?
00:31:24.780 | And Dr. MacArthur, why do you think that's the case for John Piper?
00:31:27.180 | DR.
00:31:28.180 | PIPER No, that's not what I expected.
00:31:29.180 | You didn't put that in the notes.
00:31:37.540 | That's going to be fun.
00:31:38.540 | Let's go for it.
00:31:46.780 | I can give maybe a sort of sophomoric answer to the question regarding John Piper.
00:31:59.060 | And I think why that book meant so much to him was his life was revolutionized permanently
00:32:05.420 | by Jonathan Edwards.
00:32:08.500 | I don't know a John Piper without Jonathan Edwards.
00:32:13.380 | I mean, this is what comes across to me, and obviously I'm on the outside looking in, but
00:32:23.260 | you can't shake this.
00:32:24.980 | I mean, last night you were saying what you said 50 years ago.
00:32:30.700 | You can't shake it.
00:32:32.540 | Somebody said, "What did you think?"
00:32:33.540 | And I said, "It was the best of the best of the best of John Piper."
00:32:38.340 | Because it runs so deep.
00:32:39.900 | It's in every fiber of his being, and everything in the Bible leads him to that, that pleasure.
00:32:49.980 | And I think God used Jonathan Edwards.
00:32:54.260 | I mean, that's all I can say, because the first thing you said last night is, "I'm an
00:32:59.260 | Edwardian," by your own confession.
00:33:03.140 | That is - that's amazing with all the opportunities there are for us to be influenced by people.
00:33:10.440 | What was the Lord doing when He dropped Jonathan Edwards in you in an irretrievable act you
00:33:17.660 | could never undo?
00:33:19.180 | I mean, you took Jonathan Edwards, I think, even beyond where Jonathan Edwards thought
00:33:26.480 | he could go.
00:33:30.440 | So yeah, I mean, the awakening, the awakening to those truths define him.
00:33:42.340 | In my case -
00:33:43.340 | No, let's make others say that.
00:33:46.660 | Well, I was just going to say, in my case, and probably all of our cases - this is a
00:33:54.120 | final comment - it took us longer to get on the bandwagon than it did you.
00:34:02.500 | Even when you started it early on saying this Christian hedonism, I mean, you were double
00:34:09.520 | clutching because you knew this sounded weird.
00:34:13.620 | But I mean, right here, you won us over, John, through these years.
00:34:27.620 | Thank you.
00:34:28.620 | Was that somewhat true?
00:34:31.880 | Everything you just said was true.
00:34:33.300 | The last part, "I'll wait and see," kind of like.
00:34:36.180 | Well, I can't speak for everybody, but I'm in.
00:34:39.900 | I hope it's true.
00:34:42.180 | God will wait and see.
00:34:46.460 | He's already answered my half of the question by preaching the sermon you preached two nights
00:34:51.540 | ago.
00:34:53.820 | This is your theme from 40 years ago with gospel according to Jesus, and where's obedience
00:35:02.860 | in the church today?
00:35:04.340 | And so here's my interpretation of why that took hold of him, gripped him, held him, preaching
00:35:09.540 | the same sermon now that he wrote in the book there.
00:35:13.140 | And I wrote a review of that book.
00:35:14.900 | I couldn't put that book down.
00:35:15.900 | I was so excited with it because of what I was fighting in those days, a kind of easy
00:35:21.700 | believism that we both consider then rampant and just as rampant today - lots of unbelievers
00:35:29.180 | in the church.
00:35:30.820 | And so what John saw was that in the radical words of Jesus, "If you don't love me more
00:35:37.420 | than you love mother, father, son, or daughter, you're not worthy of me," period.
00:35:40.740 | I mean, that's just totally crazy, radical, right?
00:35:44.060 | You just won't be a Christian if you don't love me, and obedience flows from love.
00:35:48.700 | Why do you call me "Lord, Lord" and don't do what I say?
00:35:50.900 | Lots of people are going to hear the word at the end, and they'll be shocked.
00:35:54.580 | And he saw all these radical words, and he looked out at the evangelical church, and
00:36:01.700 | he thought, "Do they read the same Bible I read?
00:36:05.980 | Do they hear the same gospel?"
00:36:07.500 | So basically, that book argued that James 2 should be in the Bible, that it's not an
00:36:18.900 | epistle of straw.
00:36:20.540 | If your faith does not transform you into a person who loves other people and produces
00:36:27.580 | good works, it isn't saving faith.
00:36:30.700 | And therefore, churches need to be confronted with the carnality as dangerous to their souls.
00:36:38.460 | And that's what I was dealing with.
00:36:39.940 | I felt like I've never considered myself to be a very effective evangelist, although I
00:36:46.500 | thrill with every story of anybody that gets saved, which I heard yesterday from one of
00:36:52.260 | you brothers who's in this room right now.
00:36:54.540 | Thank you for that encouragement.
00:36:56.460 | But I've always felt myself talking to the church that doesn't look saved, churches that
00:37:02.860 | don't look saved.
00:37:04.900 | Their Christianity is so lukewarm, which Jesus is going to spit out of his mouth, that I've
00:37:10.180 | wanted to do a Christian hedonist kind of revival.
00:37:14.600 | And you know, the relationship between the two books is this, when you publish that,
00:37:19.180 | and then I later publish a book, "Future Grace and What is Saving Faith," I said, "All I'm
00:37:24.540 | doing is trying to complete what MacArthur is saying."
00:37:30.140 | MacArthur is saying, "You must obey in order to have saving faith."
00:37:33.820 | And I'm saying, "You know why that is, folks?
00:37:36.780 | Because saving faith is being satisfied in Jesus, and that changes everything.
00:37:40.700 | That's all it is.
00:37:41.700 | I mean, it's just like two gloves, two hand and glove fitting together."
00:37:46.480 | It's good.
00:37:51.480 | It's good.
00:37:55.800 | Let's continue to talk about preaching, but more specifically about the act of preaching.
00:38:01.600 | And I want you to think about encouraging these brothers in there that the grind that
00:38:09.120 | is preaching, the continual, ever-present, burdensome joy, it's been called, of preaching
00:38:17.880 | the Word of God to the people of God.
00:38:20.280 | How has your view of preaching changed since you were a young preacher?
00:38:27.440 | How do you think about preaching now?
00:38:30.240 | And maybe the question is, why do you still believe?
00:38:36.560 | And where did this commitment come from in expository preaching?
00:38:40.240 | After all these years and all these thousands of sermons, how has your view of preaching
00:38:46.400 | changed?
00:38:47.400 | Why do you still believe in expository preaching?
00:38:50.000 | Dr. MacArthur?
00:38:52.640 | Well, that's a simple question because it's the approach by which you maximize the content
00:39:03.960 | of the Bible.
00:39:06.080 | If every word of God is pure, if there is - and there is - a milk aspect of truth, as
00:39:15.120 | Paul talks about, and a meat aspect of truth, that means you start somewhere and you keep
00:39:20.720 | going deeper.
00:39:23.760 | I would say now I probably love expository preaching more than I ever have, and I find
00:39:33.360 | it inexhaustible.
00:39:34.360 | By the time I get to Sunday, I could be dangerous so I couldn't preach.
00:39:41.360 | Do you understand that, John?
00:39:44.240 | I would like to see you be dangerous.
00:39:47.120 | Because I'm going to bend your ear.
00:39:49.640 | I might say to my wife, "You might want to go away on Monday if I didn't - because you're
00:39:54.800 | going to get a sermon."
00:39:59.640 | It's the inexhaustibility of Scripture, the depth, and breadth, and height, and length,
00:40:08.000 | the inexhaustible reality of Scripture reveals itself to me every single week.
00:40:17.760 | Every single week.
00:40:18.760 | I've never felt like I've - I feel like somebody on the shore of the Pacific Ocean with a bucket
00:40:25.280 | full of water, and you ask me, "Is that the ocean?"
00:40:28.760 | No.
00:40:29.760 | It's just one little tiny part.
00:40:32.600 | So I could preach, I don't know, endless lifetimes and never exhaust the truth of Scripture.
00:40:44.160 | So at the same time, expository preaching not only covers everything, but it goes in
00:40:51.920 | depth.
00:40:54.200 | It has to, because you can't get away with not explaining something.
00:40:59.240 | So I love expository preaching.
00:41:03.400 | One other thing that comes to mind when I think about this a lot is I'm never trying
00:41:07.240 | to figure out what I'm going to say on Sunday, because I'm progressing through a book and
00:41:12.760 | everything is building on everything else.
00:41:15.940 | I wouldn't know another way to preach, really.
00:41:22.240 | The short way of saying that is you believe in expository preaching because God wrote
00:41:26.600 | a book.
00:41:27.600 | I mean, just let it sink in.
00:41:31.200 | God gave us a book.
00:41:36.380 | God gave us a book.
00:41:38.440 | What would you do?
00:41:39.440 | What else would you do but tell people what's in the book?
00:41:43.440 | You don't know anything.
00:41:46.640 | God knows everything.
00:41:48.660 | He's totally smart.
00:41:53.580 | So I mean, just let it sink in, brothers.
00:41:58.040 | If you believe this, this is the Word of the Creator of the universe, why would you waste
00:42:06.700 | your time talking about anything else?
00:42:09.540 | So that's what he just said.
00:42:21.620 | So the other part of the question, so that's great.
00:42:25.740 | The other part of the question about change, you know, you're asking two guys who probably
00:42:32.460 | more than any other two people on the planet haven't changed anything.
00:42:37.400 | We don't change.
00:42:39.860 | People ask me, you know, "What have you changed since your theology formed?"
00:42:45.060 | I said, "Yikes, I can't think of anything."
00:42:50.140 | But with regard to preaching, I would say I think if I had to do over again, those 33
00:42:59.700 | years in the pulpit, I would try to be more intentional about combining careful, local,
00:43:11.140 | immediate, expository explanation of texts with doctrinal formation of the church.
00:43:18.340 | I don't think I did that the way I would do it now.
00:43:22.460 | I want to do more of this.
00:43:24.860 | That's dangerous to say because I know some of you maybe come out of confessional traditions
00:43:29.140 | where you start with system and you have to work to be expositionally faithful, and others
00:43:34.820 | of you start with expositional, immediate faithfulness, and you have to work to get
00:43:39.080 | to system and doctrine.
00:43:40.860 | And somewhere in the middle, I want to be because I think churches can listen to us,
00:43:47.720 | do exposition, and never form a framework of theology of their own without some help.
00:43:54.760 | So that's one change I'd probably make is that I would take...I don't mean necessarily
00:44:01.160 | preach theme sermons, like a whole series on predestination or a whole series on regeneration,
00:44:09.920 | but that would be great.
00:44:11.560 | I would do that.
00:44:12.560 | But rather, as you're going through texts and you bump into a word that's just laden
00:44:17.840 | with doctrinal content, and you don't have to go into that, or you can, I probably would
00:44:23.240 | go into it more now than I would have back in the day.
00:44:27.800 | That's one difference.
00:44:30.460 | Another is that I...the actual delivery has changed in that I feel much more free to go
00:44:40.880 | off-script, right, all the time.
00:44:47.240 | I feel the ability to look right into people's eyes while I'm talking.
00:44:52.160 | That used to throw me for a loop in the first five years of preaching.
00:44:55.660 | If I looked at somebody, I'd lose my place.
00:44:58.440 | I couldn't think.
00:44:59.440 | I think young preachers have a hard time of being immediately, directly engaged with human
00:45:04.840 | beings.
00:45:06.500 | And thirdly, as an older person, I feel more warranted to press into people's consciences,
00:45:14.440 | even older people.
00:45:15.440 | I mean, a 30-year-old pastor with about 160 old people in his church is a little bit hesitant
00:45:22.520 | to get serious with them and press into their sins.
00:45:28.640 | I don't care anymore.
00:45:35.080 | That's one difference, I think.
00:45:37.640 | But in summary, I think what I've discovered, so this is my summary of preaching that where
00:45:44.960 | I land, I'd be happy to die tomorrow and believe this.
00:45:50.160 | It's a combination of faithful, rigorous exposition of what's really there, mingled with a passionate
00:46:00.640 | demonstration or exaltation in the reality of what it's talking about, mingled with a
00:46:07.480 | in-your-face application to their consciences.
00:46:11.400 | Those three things is what I want to do when I preach.
00:46:15.680 | It's actually a little easier to do that on the Internet.
00:46:19.680 | It is?
00:46:22.000 | Than to face the same people every week and do that.
00:46:28.640 | I see.
00:46:30.280 | No, you've got to – well, you know what I'm saying.
00:46:39.880 | I mean, you've got to come back next week, John.
00:46:48.020 | You lose some and you win some, right?
00:46:59.480 | More about preaching, okay?
00:47:01.680 | Titus 1, "Paul, a servant of God and the Apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's
00:47:06.360 | elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, a faith and knowledge
00:47:12.920 | resting on the hope of eternal life which God who does not lie promised before the beginning
00:47:19.880 | of time and at His appointed season He brought His Word to light through the preaching entrusted
00:47:28.800 | to me by the command of God our Savior."
00:47:33.760 | Let's encourage these brothers in their preaching and how preaching triumphs.
00:47:42.520 | Talk to us about the triumph of preaching.
00:47:44.440 | How can you help them see that they're preaching, which we're able to forget our own sermons
00:47:51.000 | in a week's time sometimes.
00:47:53.160 | Easy.
00:47:54.160 | By Monday.
00:47:56.200 | Yeah.
00:47:58.120 | But there's something about preaching that's got eternal significance and lasting, persevering
00:48:05.280 | power in it.
00:48:07.320 | Encourage the brothers that their preaching will triumph.
00:48:10.960 | Help them think about triumphant preaching.
00:48:13.400 | As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and return not thither, causing it to bring
00:48:21.760 | forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so will my Word be
00:48:27.760 | that goes forth from my mouth.
00:48:29.320 | It will not return to me empty.
00:48:31.220 | It will accomplish the thing for which I said it.
00:48:34.120 | It's just absolute glorious promise that God doesn't speak in vain.
00:48:38.800 | And the closer you can get to His Word, when your Word sounds, the more confident you can
00:48:44.720 | be this wasn't wasted.
00:48:48.860 | It may look for a moment like it had little effect.
00:48:53.200 | It is never without effect.
00:48:55.940 | If you're faithful to God's Word, so there's a promise.
00:48:58.880 | I will cause my Word to accomplish my purposes.
00:49:06.160 | That's what I say to myself over and over again when I step into the pulpit.
00:49:13.640 | And I would say this, lasting effect doesn't come from homiletical cleverness, meaning
00:49:26.660 | acronyms or like this conference has all P's.
00:49:30.320 | How you ever did that, I have no idea, like 11 P's, strength, the triumph of the truth
00:49:36.780 | through pleasure, the strength of the truth through providence, the strength of the truth
00:49:39.940 | through prayer.
00:49:40.940 | I said, "That's cool.
00:49:41.940 | How do they do that?"
00:49:44.160 | That has zero effect on the lasting nature of these sermons, okay?
00:49:48.920 | You just know that.
00:49:50.200 | And when you come up with a...and you use C's in yours, like compassion, whatever, wherever.
00:49:55.800 | That has zero effect on...
00:50:02.600 | That will help you remember His outline about three days, okay?
00:50:08.200 | And we're talking about three million years.
00:50:11.800 | That's all we care about.
00:50:14.020 | And what will affect people in three million years in your sermon is whether they were
00:50:19.740 | born again and whether the Holy Spirit convicted them of a sin in their lives, and they killed
00:50:27.700 | it, and they walked in holiness until they saw Jesus.
00:50:32.920 | In other words, the legacy of preaching, the lasting effect of preaching is the work of
00:50:39.180 | the Holy Spirit.
00:50:41.280 | And so you do the best you can with your acronyms, and you do the best you can with stories,
00:50:45.420 | and you do the best you can with H.B.
00:50:47.540 | Charles' amazing ability to put these little things together that you just say, "That's
00:50:53.340 | great.
00:50:54.340 | How did you do that?"
00:50:55.800 | And you do the best you can, and it holds people's attention, and that's good.
00:51:00.720 | But in the end, you're talking about what's going to be true in 10 years.
00:51:05.700 | And the answer is only if they were born again, and if some major mental structures in their
00:51:11.620 | life just went 180 degrees - sovereignty of God, free will of man, regeneration - just
00:51:19.180 | massive alterations in their thinking.
00:51:22.940 | That's what you're after, and that's the work of the Holy Spirit through a faithful rendering
00:51:28.580 | of His Word.
00:51:30.260 | Yeah, I think I would agree with all that.
00:51:34.580 | I would simply say that effective preaching is a journey.
00:51:40.620 | You start somewhere, and you're going somewhere.
00:51:43.700 | And you illustrated that last night.
00:51:47.220 | You told us where you were going to go, and you were going to get us to pleasure.
00:51:53.140 | And we bought into that, so we followed the journey.
00:51:58.740 | The four points, whatever you called them, the four connections, weren't the reality
00:52:04.420 | of the message.
00:52:05.560 | They were just the progression to get to the main point.
00:52:10.420 | So I always think of an outline or any kind of structure as the necessary logical chronology
00:52:17.660 | to get you to the main point.
00:52:20.820 | And one of the things with preaching is people have to be willing to stay with you until
00:52:29.140 | the end, because they know that they're going to be given some precious reality if they'll
00:52:36.060 | stay.
00:52:38.540 | So I think you handle the Scripture in a progressive way that keeps them involved in that journey.
00:52:45.740 | Some of it is the device, mnemonic devices, or whatever you use.
00:52:53.460 | Preaching is not just shooting out one idea and another idea and another idea and another
00:52:56.780 | idea and an emotional thing and a story.
00:52:59.500 | It's going somewhere.
00:53:01.120 | It's an argument.
00:53:03.900 | It's a crafted argument, and it has all the necessary devices to hold them to that.
00:53:11.060 | You have to shift and change and pace all of that.
00:53:14.980 | But if they'll stay on the journey, they'll learn eventually in your preaching that the
00:53:21.120 | finish is worth the trip.
00:53:23.820 | So stay on the journey.
00:53:26.700 | AUSTIN: And I think that's what makes your preaching, both Pastor John's preaching, so
00:53:32.500 | similar, is that it's driven and logical and focused on the text.
00:53:39.640 | And though you sound different when you listen to, as we have our seminarians do, listen
00:53:44.180 | to the same passage from John MacArthur and listen to the same passage from John Piper,
00:53:50.660 | the central truth is the same.
00:53:52.340 | It's the same passage.
00:53:53.340 | It's the same meaning because that's what Paul said.
00:53:57.060 | But the way you get there, what's common, you move a lot more than he does in the pulpit.
00:54:05.780 | But it's driven by logic, right?
00:54:09.460 | Both of you are so fastidious and logical and movement-oriented towards this is the
00:54:17.260 | meaning of the text and how it needs to be brought into light and life.
00:54:23.760 | So talk a little bit, just for a moment, about each other's preaching.
00:54:28.540 | What is it that you see in MacArthur's preaching that is of such preciousness to you?
00:54:35.700 | And what do you see, Dr. MacArthur, about John Piper's preaching that you love?
00:54:39.180 | DR.
00:54:40.180 | MACARTHUR I think, I'm not going to say anything that
00:54:43.700 | we don't all say, is that Dr. MacArthur's preaching is incredibly clear.
00:54:51.180 | It is so clear, and it doesn't fumble around to get to the clear point.
00:55:03.940 | As I'm listening, I think, he's not wasting any words here.
00:55:08.620 | He's not blowing smoke anywhere.
00:55:11.980 | It's just clear.
00:55:13.580 | And then second thing is, that's really there in the text.
00:55:17.860 | That's really there.
00:55:18.860 | Look at that.
00:55:20.700 | And people love that.
00:55:22.060 | I love that.
00:55:23.420 | Like tell me what the text says, I want to know what God says.
00:55:28.620 | And third, he has the ability to relate the immediacy of the text to doctoral concerns
00:55:36.900 | or cultural concerns, without getting off on a tangent that gets you bogged down in
00:55:42.260 | excessive application, but rather, wow, you feel the force.
00:55:46.500 | That's relevant.
00:55:47.500 | Right now, in this situation, that's relevant.
00:55:50.660 | So those three things at least strike me and attract me, draw me in.
00:55:55.020 | I want to hear clarity.
00:55:57.020 | I want to see what's really in the text.
00:55:59.380 | I want it to be relevant to my life in this culture right now.
00:56:04.780 | And there's just plain earnestness.
00:56:07.700 | I think preaching that's not earnest.
00:56:09.380 | A lot of preachers are playful.
00:56:12.300 | They think playful.
00:56:13.300 | I mean, we all know one preacher who crashed and burned a while back, and he said, "The
00:56:18.300 | main model you should have are stand-up comedians."
00:56:21.220 | That's what he said.
00:56:22.220 | He said, "That should be the main model.
00:56:24.300 | You want to learn how to communicate?
00:56:25.900 | Watch stand-up comedians."
00:56:27.220 | And I thought, "You don't watch many comedians."
00:56:33.380 | I don't even have a television.
00:56:45.660 | No, I would say the same about John for the very same reason - clarity, the meaning of
00:56:56.820 | the text, and the doctoral implications.
00:57:01.960 | His preaching - I like to think of it this way - his application is one thing.
00:57:06.300 | Implication is something else.
00:57:08.420 | There may be a thousand applications, but there's usually just a few implications that
00:57:13.960 | just are so pervasive it changes how you approach life.
00:57:19.100 | And John is a genius at the implication of a given text without saying, "This is what
00:57:24.260 | you do on Tuesday afternoon when this happens, and this happens, and this happens."
00:57:29.020 | It's the power of that implication drawn because you know the text said it, and you understand
00:57:35.340 | the bigger picture of the theology that undergirds that specific revelation.
00:57:40.780 | And that - I just - I want to feel the implication.
00:57:44.660 | I want to feel the burden of that text, and I want the people to feel that burden.
00:57:50.820 | And I don't want to over-define it on a practical level lest I leave something out.
00:57:56.380 | AUSTIN: So what you just heard was not me trying to get them to compliment each other.
00:58:02.060 | I'm being serious.
00:58:03.940 | This is a good word for young preachers, and you've both poured your life into training
00:58:08.200 | men, and immature people are drawn to personality instead of truth.
00:58:14.540 | And so they're of Paul, they're of Cephas, they're of MacArthur, they're of Piper.
00:58:18.380 | And what that just was was a master class for young preachers to learn what they have
00:58:23.300 | to prioritize.
00:58:24.300 | And it's not style.
00:58:26.780 | It's substance and truth and a focus on the text.
00:58:31.680 | And that's what we're so grateful for, for you men and your impact in our lives because
00:58:35.960 | of that and the model of preaching that that is.
00:58:38.500 | JOHN: Just one caution.
00:58:45.260 | The fact that I love to hear that kind of preaching is owing to the fact that I'm born
00:58:52.380 | again and have a spiritual taste bud on my tongue.
00:58:58.660 | His preaching is going to alienate a lot of people.
00:59:02.300 | So is mine.
00:59:03.840 | Which means the fact that we like each other, and almost everybody in this room likes everybody,
00:59:09.100 | right?
00:59:10.100 | This is a nice group to be among.
00:59:13.980 | But you're going to have churches where you preach like he does or like I do, and they
00:59:20.040 | will not hear it because they don't, they're not attracted to, "Give me more Bible, I want
00:59:26.460 | to hear more Bible."
00:59:28.220 | That takes a spiritual mind.
00:59:31.140 | So that's why prayer, which H.P. reminded us of, is absolutely essential.
00:59:35.240 | We pray for our people to have ears to hear.
00:59:38.580 | LARSON: Final question.
00:59:43.520 | Our culture idolizes the young.
00:59:47.780 | The Bible reveres the aged.
00:59:52.540 | Old age in the Bible is a gift from God, it's a blessing, a tribute of divine favor, a cause
00:59:58.880 | for honor, respect, blessing.
01:00:02.500 | You both, if I could say it with all the force of what the Bible is saying, are old.
01:00:12.500 | And we love you.
01:00:13.660 | We love you old, and 78 and 84.
01:00:21.240 | And you are modeling for all of us, if the Lord gives us that many breaths, what it looks
01:00:28.480 | like to age in a way that honors Christ.
01:00:31.820 | So let's talk about that for just a few more moments here.
01:00:37.700 | Talk about aging as a believer and as a pastor.
01:00:44.100 | How do you think about growing old in your experience to honor Christ and serve His church?
01:00:51.220 | JOHN: Well, I don't know that I've created a sort of paradigm in which to think about
01:01:00.640 | myself.
01:01:01.640 | I just do what I do.
01:01:05.680 | Old age has its issues, like putting on your socks and getting a longer shoehorn every
01:01:24.860 | year.
01:01:25.860 | But I don't know that I even think about that.
01:01:26.860 | I'll tell you what I do think about is, "Lord, please keep me faithful."
01:01:28.860 | I just don't want...
01:01:35.220 | I don't want to say something somewhere or do something that would undo a lifetime of
01:01:48.260 | endeavoring to be faithful.
01:01:49.260 | No.
01:01:50.260 | I mean, that's, "Lord, just keep me faithful."
01:01:56.640 | And I think...
01:01:57.640 | I mean, I trust the Holy Spirit.
01:01:59.260 | I don't fear.
01:02:00.900 | I'm not afraid to live my life.
01:02:03.700 | I trust the Spirit of God.
01:02:05.420 | I love the Lord.
01:02:06.420 | I love His Word, but I'm not invincible.
01:02:11.860 | And the second thing is, "Lord, don't let some people say things about me that aren't
01:02:17.100 | true that are destructive," because I don't ever want to be in a position to have to defend
01:02:24.460 | myself, because that's so impossible.
01:02:31.060 | So yeah, I just pray that the Lord would take heed to myself and my doctrine and stay faithful,
01:02:40.180 | and Lord, protect me from my enemies who could undo so much if they were believed when they
01:02:48.940 | said things that weren't true.
01:02:51.340 | Oh my goodness, so many things to say.
01:03:02.940 | That prayer, "Hold me.
01:03:06.260 | He will hold me fast.
01:03:08.380 | He will hold me fast.
01:03:10.540 | For my Savior loves me so.
01:03:12.880 | He will hold me fast.
01:03:14.440 | No hope without it."
01:03:16.740 | Because if you think sanctification is progressive in the sense that there's no battle after
01:03:23.580 | age 70 of walking with Jesus, you're not thinking straight.
01:03:31.940 | The danger of the sins of lust at age 78, sloth, doubt.
01:03:45.140 | When Paul said, "I have fought the good fight.
01:03:47.540 | I have finished the course," he meant to the end, right, till they cut my throat, because
01:03:56.220 | on the way to the gallows, I could betray Him.
01:04:04.100 | My view of eternal security, which is a Romans 8:30 kind, is it's a community project and
01:04:12.060 | is to be fought for.
01:04:14.180 | That's the way God keeps you.
01:04:15.380 | He keeps you.
01:04:16.860 | So I just fully expect that as long as I have a brain, it has to be engaged in, "Keep me.
01:04:23.620 | Keep me.
01:04:24.980 | Don't let me do anything stupid to undermine the ministry.
01:04:28.900 | Don't let me betray my wife.
01:04:31.640 | Don't let me give up on prayer.
01:04:33.620 | Don't let me become superficial.
01:04:36.500 | Don't let me cave in to just watching videos every night.
01:04:40.660 | Oh, God, protect me from the world and the worldliness that can creep into a 78-year-old
01:04:46.460 | heart."
01:04:48.900 | So that's the battle piece that I just...
01:04:52.460 | I mean, I used to think, I don't know if you thought this way, that since sanctification
01:04:57.940 | is progressive, that my 30-year-old patience would be 40 years old more patient, 40 years
01:05:07.500 | more patient.
01:05:08.500 | It didn't work.
01:05:13.500 | I mean, that might be just absolutely self-indicting for me to say that because of progressive
01:05:18.820 | sanctification.
01:05:19.820 | You ought to be a 78-year-old more holy person than at 38, and it doesn't feel quite like
01:05:27.180 | that.
01:05:28.180 | Like I'm in a battled soul every day.
01:05:32.700 | These arrows just keep flying, and you've got to be, you know, the shield of faith every
01:05:37.980 | day, sword of the Spirit every day.
01:05:40.980 | So just, if you think you're going to coast someday, you're going to be destroyed because
01:05:46.360 | there's no coasting in this life.
01:05:48.980 | Now, just to put a more positive spin on it, or reality to it, first of all, a caution.
01:05:59.940 | I know that we are going to get to the point where we can't preach.
01:06:05.980 | I mean, whether we could die, right, before we get there.
01:06:09.500 | But that's up to God.
01:06:11.020 | We don't believe in mercy killing, no matter what California or Oregon or Minnesota says.
01:06:18.180 | We don't believe in that.
01:06:19.180 | So God will decide if we have to sit in a nursing home and not have all our faculties.
01:06:25.700 | That's going to come if we don't die.
01:06:28.860 | And the question is then, will we be able to be faithful?
01:06:33.380 | So don't hear this as a kind of triumphalistic, "Yeah, strong old people."
01:06:38.380 | However, I sat under the ministry of Oswald Sanders at age 89.
01:06:48.340 | He was 89.
01:06:49.340 | I was 50-something.
01:06:51.180 | And he said, "I've written a book a year since I was 70."
01:06:56.140 | And I just went, "Yes, oh, that's what I want to be like."
01:07:01.480 | Now my new model is Thomas Sowell, who's 93, right?
01:07:06.540 | And when he turned 90, the interviewer asked him, "How is it that you've written a book
01:07:12.100 | every 18 months since you were 80?"
01:07:15.940 | So I said, "Great.
01:07:17.440 | Life begins at 80.
01:07:18.660 | I got two years to run up to it, and then we take off."
01:07:25.060 | So the way that balances out with the fight is, don't view aging as so embattled and so
01:07:35.020 | beleaguered and so, you know, your body's giving away your eyes, "I've got hearing aids
01:07:40.660 | on here."
01:07:41.660 | I mean, just everything, this outer nature is wasting away.
01:07:47.020 | Believe that while you have life, you have ministry.
01:07:50.380 | I hate the American view of retirement.
01:07:54.180 | I think it's totally unbiblical.
01:07:56.060 | I think it destroys souls.
01:07:58.620 | Ralph Winter used to say, "Men in America don't die of old age, they die of retirement,"
01:08:05.980 | meaning they lose heart, they lose meaning.
01:08:09.300 | So pastors, you don't have to do like he does and stay in the pastorate forever.
01:08:14.700 | You don't have to do that.
01:08:19.620 | That's a good thing.
01:08:20.980 | That's a good thing.
01:08:21.980 | I stopped at age 67, not sure I should have.
01:08:25.940 | I don't have total confidence about that, but I've tried to be useful, right?
01:08:30.060 | Tried to be useful from 67 to 78.
01:08:33.620 | So all that to say, be sober-minded about the battle and be hopeful and optimistic and
01:08:42.540 | energetic about what God might call you to do between 65 and 85.
01:08:58.460 | This Q&A was not brought to you by the AARP.
01:09:03.900 | I have never responded to one of those 10,000 envelopes, never.
01:09:10.660 | Never have I.
01:09:13.380 | We know that, yeah, we're well aware.
01:09:20.580 | So grateful for God's faithfulness on display in both of your lives and this was a very
01:09:28.740 | fruitful, profitable hour.
01:09:29.740 | Thank you so much, brother.
01:09:30.740 | You can sit down, calm down.
01:09:59.820 | Dr.
01:10:00.820 | MacArthur, will you pray for these men and that God would be faithful in their ministries
01:10:05.980 | and lives?
01:10:06.980 | Sure.
01:10:07.980 | Tom, I'll have you come up and give some announcements.
01:10:12.020 | Father, this has been such a refreshing hour together and in so many ways our hearts have
01:10:21.860 | been warmed and even thrilled to feel the impulse of every heart beating in this room
01:10:33.980 | about ministry, preaching, so that they can embrace every thought, every answer that we
01:10:44.940 | tried to offer and just it felt like we were giving water to their souls and strengthening
01:10:55.660 | them and that's the way it came across, just their exuberant response.
01:11:01.420 | So Lord, we ask that this might be used to raise this generation of pastors, these men
01:11:12.460 | who are right here, to a level of faithfulness and an endurance that will glorify and honor
01:11:19.980 | Your name.
01:11:20.980 | We don't want this to have just been a moment's experience, as enjoyable as it was, but an
01:11:32.180 | experience that bears lasting power so that we'll see a difference in the future.
01:11:43.180 | So many defectors, so many people who are superficial and shallow in their approach
01:11:50.700 | to ministry, and we need none of that.
01:11:53.100 | We need the best and the most dedicated and the most devout and the most faithful and
01:12:00.220 | most powerful.
01:12:02.420 | So use this, Lord, by Your Spirit in the life of everyone who's here to make a difference,
01:12:10.900 | a notable, significant difference in the next decade and even beyond in the church.
01:12:20.420 | For Your glory we pray in Christ's name, amen.
01:12:23.060 | Amen.
01:12:24.060 | Amen.
01:12:25.060 | Amen.
01:12:25.060 | Amen.
01:12:26.060 | Amen.
01:12:26.060 | Amen.
01:12:31.060 | you