John MacArthur's Needless Offensiveness

John MacArthur’s Rhetoric and the Charge of Needless Offensiveness

You people out there, you say you're believers, but you believe there's many paths to God. You guys are so into your idolatries, you're like a whore on a street corner. You spread your legs for any dude with five bucks that passes by.

If anyone says they're a Christian, but then they twist the gospel into something that's not, God damn you. You even think about messing with God's children in any way, encouraging them to sin. Like a lot of you guys who want to make your little boys girls and your little girls boys, you might as well go throw yourself in the ocean, drown and die.

Those troublemakers that are bothering you, they might as well get it over with already and chop off their balls. By the way, trigger warning. Yeah. So my name's A .D. Robles. A lot of you guys who are watching this video are probably pretty new to what I do.

Why the Clip Uses Shockingly Offensive Language

My channel is mostly dedicated to social justice, cultural commentary, news, things like that. This week, a lot of you new people have been finding me from the Beth Moore stuff and the controversy there.

That's not something I talk about all the time, but it's definitely something that's relevant. Um, I started this video with a couple of sort of rewording, some modernized versions of things that are straight out of scripture.

I think sometimes we read scripture and we really try to take the emotions out of it. We really are a little bit disconnected from the time period it was written in. And so we don't see these insults, this mockery, this shall I say needlessly offensive content that's in there.

And there's so many things I could have chosen. I chose some of the ones that kind of came to the top of my head when I was thinking about this. But I've seen people really criticize, uh, you know, John MacArthur's whole statement on Beth Moore and say, they say stuff like this.

It was needlessly offensive. He didn't have to say that. That was just for shock value. They were just joking and mocking and things like that. And I find that so ridiculous a lot of the time because yeah, of course he didn't need to do it.

But this is, this is a, this is a rhetorical thing. You know, to be really shocking. Um, but you don't leave it there that you don't just say the shocking thing and leave it there. And he didn't. He spent 10 minutes explaining what he meant, why he meant it.

It was nuanced. It was pastoral. And he started with something that was very shocking. This is something that the Bible does all the time. Needlessly, you know, offensive. What, what does that even mean?

Needlessly offensive. How could you even prove that? How could you even prove someone was being needlessly offensive at this is all a matter of opinion. So all you guys out there that are saying, Oh my gosh, this is so unloving.

Paul’s Curses, Ezekiel’s Imagery, and Jesus’ Hard Sayings

It was so sinful. Prove it. Prove it. You can't prove it because it's all basically just, it's sinful because my feels says so my feelings were hurt and I don't like that. And people didn't like what he said.

And so therefore it was sinful. Well, they wouldn't have liked what he said even if he didn't say anything shocking whatsoever, which he basically didn't. I mean, go home. That's a paraphrase of something Paul said.

That's a paraphrase of something Paul said. It's not offensive in any way, but some of you in your opinion think it's offensive and I don't know why you think that your sensibilities and your, you know, feelings are the standard that everyone else is judged by, but it isn't.

So get over yourselves. Number one, get over yourselves and, and, and man up. I mean, let's, let's be men about this. Look, you know, this is something that, that men do with each other. I mean, you know, you talk to any man, a real man, not these effeminate types, but you know, people, you know, make jokes on each other and insult each other and things like that.

It's all in good fun and it's all, it's not really taken seriously, but, but okay, she's a woman, so you can't do it. Okay, fine. So, so, so you tell me, you prove to me how saying go home and it was a, it was a bit of a joke obviously, and then taking 10 minutes and explaining the biblical positions here that you all claim to agree with, which I don't buy that for 10 seconds.

Oh, I believe, I agree with John MacArthur, but the way he said it was so sinful. I mean, look, if that criticism applies to John MacArthur, then it clearly applies to Ezekiel who said the thing about the whore.

Here's what it says in Ezekiel chapter 16, verse 24, you built yourself a high place at the top of every street and you made your beauty abominable and you spread your legs to every passerby to multiply your harlotry.

Another word for harlotry is whoring. That's why I use that word. Here's, you know, how, how does your, how does your criticism of unloving and sinful not apply to Paul when in Galatians he writes this, as we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one we received, let him be accursed.

In other words, God damn you. If I were to say God damn you to anyone, no matter what the context, no matter how appropriate it was, people would obscure.

They would skewer me, inappropriate, unloving.

Yet Paul said, God damn you to this guy, Paul in Galatians, he was on fire in Galatians. Chapter five, verse 12, I wish that those who were troubling you would even mutilate themselves. I wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off.

I wish that those who were disturbing you might also let themselves be mutilated. I wish that those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves, chop your balls off. That's what I wish. I wish all of you effeminate men who don't have enough courage to stand up for things that are necessary, chop your own balls off.

Go all the way and just make it official. If I were to say that, unloving, sinful, and yet that applies to scripture as well. I mean, there's no real standard that would let that apply to me and not scripture, except for this, well, you're not the author of scripture.

Yeah, I know I'm not the author of scripture, but again, if you don't have a clear definitive definitive way to say it applies to what you said, but not what Paul said, Paul wasn't being needlessly offensive, even though clearly he was being offensive intentionally when he wrote this intentionally offensive.

So clearly that is not a problem. Clearly God, the Holy Spirit didn't sin when he was offensive intentionally, Jesus was offensive intentionally at times. It didn't characterize his whole ministry. Yes, neither does it characterize most of anybody's whole ministry.

Neither does it characterize John MacArthur's whole ministry, but yet for some reason, when John MacArthur does it, it's sinful, it's unloving, and yet the same criticism would apply to Paul and also would apply to Jesus because Jesus was the one who told people to go throw themselves in the ocean and drown.

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea. Go throw yourself in a river, Jesus said.

There was one time when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees and his apostles came to him. They were shocked. They were like all of these men, grabbing their pearls and stuff. Jesus, you offended the Pharisees.

You offended them. Don't you know? You said offended them. And Jesus did know. He did it on purpose. It wasn't needlessly offensive, but it was offensive, but it was offensive. So all you guys out there, and I'm talking to people that ordinarily I agree with on so many things, like Joe Thorne and his stuff, oh my goodness, John MacArthur was just so sinful and unloving.

Prove it. Prove it. And show me why, logically, that same criticism could not be levied on Christ himself who intentionally offended people at times when he thought it was appropriate. I don't know, but I mean, maybe I'm missing something here.

Maybe you can show me the logical proof that shows me that John MacArthur's offense was needless and sinful and unloving, but yet somehow Paul's wasn't, and somehow Ezekiel's wasn't, and Jesus's wasn't, and the endless amount of examples you could pull from the scripture.

I just pulled four that came to my head instantly. I thought about this for 15 seconds, and it came out with four. But there are so many more just like this. And so you tell me why I can't follow the full example of Christ, the full example that's put forward in scripture, because I could have the whole range of things.

I can be gentle. I can be patient. I can be, you know, I can talk to someone with tenderness, but at the same time, we again demonstrate the whole range of this. And John MacArthur has been on record saying that this movement, this social justice period that we find ourselves in, is the most serious threat to the gospel that he's ever seen.

The Full Range of Christian Speech in a Serious Crisis

So let's just take him at his word for a second. If it really is, wouldn't it warrant the harshest rhetoric? If there's no room for harsh rhetoric, if there's no room for offense, intentional offense in your words, then I have a hard time understanding how you could follow the whole example of the Bible.

For some reason, you have all of the, you know, the soft and tender sides, but you for some reason take out all the harshness, all the seriousness, all the solemnness and all of that kind of thing. There's no reason to do it unless maybe you can show how you know that when Paul or Jesus or these people were offensive, Ezekiel, all these people were offensive, the Holy Spirit writes offensive things in his word on purpose, knowing it's going to offend, yet somehow that is completely off limits for us.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful. God bless.