John MacArthur, well respected for his expository works regarding scripture, seemingly offers no hope to Christians regarding the power of Christ to operate in their lives through the ministry of saved mankind operating in the gifts of the Spirit on their behalf.
He writes that there is little hope that Christians of our age will actually be saved when they die (he uses 213 pages to explain this in his book "Hard to Believe" which does contain valid concerns in regards to man and their salvation) and to not expect anyone (aside from God I hope) to help you supernaturally with your sickness, demon possession, or premature death. This last part for me is literally, hard to believe.
Having said that, here is my thoughts regarding a quote from MacArthur's book "Hard to Believe". It is not my intent to discredit, throw mud at, or ruin MacArthur's reputation here, but to simply disagree with his belief regarding the apostolic age compared to our church age. I had posted this as a comment on another blog, but put it here as well.
I have been reading John MacArthur's "Hard to Believe" book. I bought the book several years ago but am just now reading it finally. Yes, I am sure everyone who blogs has already blogged this book, and I am way behind.
The book jacket caught my attention because of what it said on the back "This book is John MacArthur's unflinching, unapologetic treatise on the modern tendency to alter the true message of Christianity in order to meet the whims and desires of a culture hoping for nonconfrontational messages, easy answers, and superficial committments." This got me curious and I asked myself, 'What does he think is wrong with the churches today?'. So I bought the book.
My list of what I think is wrong with churches and 'Christians' today is rather lengthy but I was surprised at how strongly and unreservedly he attacked 'evangelicals', 'charismatics', 'preachers trying to get people power' and televangelists (and that's not even mentioning the attack on the 'seeker friendly' church). At any rate, I have plodded on through the book and still have two chapters left.
I do recall previously seeing unsympathetic blogs regarding John and his attack on the 'church'. But I was still unprepared for what I read. Evangelicals, charismatics, pentecostals, faith- healers, televangelists, and seeker-friendly churches are apparently single handedly thwarting the advance of the Kingdom of God being established in the hearts of men and women around the world -according to John.
Well okay, yes I agree, saying a 'sinner's prayer' or giving money to the televangelist is not going to guarantee entry into heaven. And I would agree that churches where the preaching never brings conviction of sin or never exposes the sinfulness of man to man, where the work of the Holy Spirit in convicting men's hearts is not welcome -well I would agree that church is not fulfilling its intended mission. We would be well to avoid these churches for our feedings.
Here's where I take exception to John MacArthur's writings. In chapter 10, 'Traitor's to the Faith' of "Hard to Believe" page 171, he writes: "No one on earth can have the power of Jesus Christ to do what he did, and anybody who promises otherwise is lying. God granted the power of Jesus Christ only to the apostles and those who followed in the apostolic age to establish His messiahship. You will never have the power to heal the sick or raise the dead, walk on water, or cast out demons." (The bold emphasis is mine.)
Are we just supposed to take whatever Satan and his demonic reign over this world throw our way and never stand up to it in the name of Jesus? I don't think so! We in and of ourselves are powerless against the enemy(ies) of God (meaning Satan and his strategies to take men to hell with him). Because of this, I do not believe for one fraction of a second that Jesus would leave us in this age without the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to combat Satan and his works in our lives. We in and of ourselves in the natural may not have the power to do what Jesus did, but Jesus already overcame Satan, and Jesus avails us the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to enforce that victory. I believe this means that we not only have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit when we are born-again (become the sons of God through regeneration by putting our faith in what Jesus and only Jesus has done for us to gain eternal life), but that we can also experience the infilling of the Holy Spirit to be given power in our lives to do what God has called us to do and to stand in the face of evil: laying hands on the sick and expecting them to recover, seeing the dead rise from their lifelessness, casting demons out, and preaching that cuts to the heart of men and brings conviction of sin leading to true salvation.
If saved men didn't have the power of Jesus to do the things Jesus did, anytime any attack that could be traced back to Satan came against them and those around them, wouldn't we be just standing around wringing our hands with our tails tucked between our legs watching Satan destroy everything around us? I have heard too many testimonies from this church age, of healings and demons departing their host, where saved men were participants in the event to accept that the power of Christ is not alive and well in men to heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead.
I really believed that when I read in the Bible that Jesus healed the incurable disease in His day, that I could be healed today of today's incurable diseases whether Jesus healed me or whether Jesus healed me through the ministry of man operating in the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Despite MacArthur's claims (he probably has a book filled with scripture that 'proves' this claim?) that no one on earth has the power to heal the sick and cast out demons, I will continue to believe otherwise. I refuse to put God in a box that does not allow these things to occur in my world.
As a side note, based on the criteria for books that could be placed in our church library, the above statement by MacArthur would eliminate "Hard to Believe" from being in our library. It is contrary to the teachings and beliefs of our pastor and the 'denomination' we are associated with.
K-Fish
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3 comments:
K-Fish
I agree with you 100%. If we, as chirstians, are to beleive that the Bible is the Word of God and means what God is saying to us, then we have to believe that we have the power to do great works as promised by Jesus Christ when He said that we would do greater works than these.
Elder for JC
I respect John MacArthur and enjoy his work immensely. But I too, must disagree with him on this point. Since the spiritual gifts are one of the nonessentials, I believe this is ok to disagree with him on! However; how does he explain the fact Gospels for Asia and Campus Crusade for Christ's work in areas like Africa, India, Brazil etc. where there are individual to mass healings happening? I can not believe this is Satanic, especially when these miracles of healing are faith based and trusting in the name of Jesus Christ. If someone had a reasonable argument to explain it as satanic, I'd like to hear it. These people ARE physically healed, from cancer, deafness, paralysis and other organic ailments. These people also turn to Jesus for the healing, and give their lives to Christ for salvation! I disagree with him wholeheartedly. The holy spirit was working in these people, not some other force.
Additionally, someone brought this to my attention; the unforgiveable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as mentioned by Jesus, was to attribute his works as demonic, not of the Holy Spirit. Wouldn't this be the same situation? If this is the work of the Holy Spirit, to suggest it is demonic, is that not blasphemy? I am NOT suggesting Mr. MacArthur said these works were/are satanic at all, far from it. I am just curious about the whole scenario as I am having this exact same conversation in my bible study.
Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit can also happen by declaring all those "signs" and "miracles" are the works of the Holy Spirit if they are not actually the Holy Spirit doing them. Remember that even demons believe in the Lord and Satan used verses from God's Word to tempt Jesus in the wilderness. I'm not saying you are but we can never forget how deceptive and murderous our enemy is toward mankind. He will use anything to deceive a person from Truth. How was it that when Peter pasted by and his shadow fell on people they were healed? (Acts 5:15) Because Christ Himself gave them authority like He said He would. A very important question to ask is WHY? Why did Jesus perform signs and miracles? So that He proved Himself to be Who He was. Same with the apostles. So that their message of Jesus Christ to the world, the world who thinks Him to be dead, might be believed, they were given authority by the Holy Spirit to credit that the things they said were from God Himself and not of themselves. They didn't have to ask permission from God for a miracle to happen. They, by/through the Holy Spirit's authority, performed miracle after miracle to authenticate their identity in Christ. Or else the Church wouldn't have been reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, or any of the epistles because how else would we have known what these men were saying was even true? Because it all aligned to what Jesus said in His ministry and the Old Testament accounted for the word's they wrote down. What was the number one sign for a prophet to test if they were from God? They had to be 100% correct whatever they said or else were proven to be false. So since there are no more prophets and no more apostles (whose qualification was an eye witness or one taught by an eye witness), there is no more performing of miracles like the apostles performed (where one could just go around choosing at their own will to heal, cast out demons, and raise people). WHY? Because it is for the sole purpose of qualifying someone who, when they speak, what is said is 100% correct. They have to be 100% correct to be identified as a messenger from the Undefiled/Perfect/Holy/Spotless God who is never 99% correct and 1% wrong.
SO, if you have people claiming to day that they are miracle workers, one who has authority of the Holy Spirit and can perform all those miracles the apostles, Jesus, and prophets did themselves, and they are ever in error, then they are a false prophet. Now, that's not to say they are not saved. Only God can see into the heart of a man. But anyone like this who believes like they have the power of God to perform miracles is blind, ignorant, and foolish and does not know how to handle the Word of God correctly. But if they were correct in what they believe (which Biblically examined is false), then all who have the authority of the Holy Spirit (which, if what they believe is true, is what we would call a Christian, a follower, a disciple), could tell us what God says without using the Word of God. Meaning - they would receive the revealed Word of God.
But I am not saying and never saying that we cannot pray and ask God to perform a miracle. It is up to Him if it is done or not. All I am saying is that there were many people who came to follow Jesus in the gospels explicitly for the fact He performed miracles. And when they figured out He wasn't there to fill their life with what they wanted, they fell away. They weren't ever true believers. We don't need to worry about if miracles are or are not being done. The authoritative Word of God is the only thing we need to use. If a person is called by God they will hear the Truth and respond because they want Jesus, not miracles.
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