May 22, 2007 Show with Dr. John MacArthur on “The Truth War” PLUS Phil Johnson

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to Iron Sharpens Iron, the only daily live broadcast in the New York metropolitan and greater

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Long Island area, on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians have a platform to address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27, 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and direct you to have in view, in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your questions.

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And now, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,

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Long Island, New York, Connecticut, and those listening internationally over the internet. This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, and today my co -host in the studio with me is

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Pastor Jim Capo of the Massapequa Church of God. We have the rare privilege and honor today to interview

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Dr. John MacArthur. Dr. John MacArthur is a world -renowned radio Bible teacher and author.

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We're going to be discussing his brand new book, hot off the press, a very provocative and controversial new book, The Truth War, Fighting for Certainty in an

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Age of Deception. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Dr. John MacArthur of Grace to You Ministries, the number is 631 -321 -WNYG, 631 -321 -WNYG.

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If you have family, friends, and loved ones that you'd like to inform about today's program, have them tune in to 1440

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AM on the dial if they live in New York or Connecticut. But they can listen anywhere in the entire world over the internet at www .wnygspiritofny

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.com. That's www .wnygspiritofny .com.

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And this is going to be our only station break coming up right now during this half hour, the first half hour. So take your opportunity now to call your family and friends and tell them about John MacArthur being on today's

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Iron Sharpens Iron program. And we'll be right back after these messages, so don't go away. Welcome back.

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This is Chris Arnsen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron. And as I announced earlier, I'm excited to announce that today we have the rare privilege and honor to have as our guest today,

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Dr. John MacArthur of Grace to You Ministries. Today we are loudly declaring a call to arms.

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Right now, truth is under attack and much is at stake. Perhaps no one in America is more passionate than John MacArthur about exposing those who are mounting this attack, especially those bringing the assault right into the church.

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John MacArthur is the author of over 150 books, including many bestsellers, is a pastor teacher at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and president of the

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Master's College and Master's Seminary. He is also president of Grace to You, the ministry that produces the internationally syndicated radio program

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Grace to You, and a host of print, audio, and internet resources. He authored the notes in the gold medallion award -winning

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MacArthur Study Bible. And it is such a great pleasure, Dr. John MacArthur, to have you as our guest for the first time on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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Well, thank you, Chris. It's my joy to be with you. And as I announced earlier, my co -host today on Iron Sharpens Iron is my dear friend, no stranger to our listeners,

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Pastor Jim Capo of the Massapequa Church of God of Massapequa, Long Island. Good afternoon, Jim. Good afternoon,

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Chris. Dr. MacArthur, tell us who are involved in this war over truth.

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Well, you know, I think it's a long war. It's the age -old war. It's the war between the people of God and the people of Satan.

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It goes back to the garden originally where you've got Satan coming to Eve and saying, you won't die.

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God said you'd die. I'm telling you, you won't die. God didn't tell you the truth. I'm telling you the truth.

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So Satan, who is a liar from the beginning and a deceiver, has always plied his deception and his lies through both demonic and human agents.

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And in every generation, every time, in every situation, the faces change, but the powers behind the battle for the truth are always the same.

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And throughout all history, the people of God have to defend the truth because Satan is going to attack it.

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You say in your book, Dr. MacArthur, that a biblical perspective of truth necessarily entails the recognition that ultimate truth is an objective reality.

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Truth exists outside of us and remains the same regardless of how we may perceive it.

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Truth by definition is as fixed and constant as God is immutable. That is because real truth, what

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Francis Schaeffer called true truth, is the unchanged and unchanging expression of who

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God is. It is not our own personal and arbitrary interpretation of reality.

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And you mentioned that some today would say things like that Christians in our generation need to be reminded of these things.

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Truth is never determined by looking at God's word and asking, what does this mean to me? That is what many in our day

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Christians would say when they read the scripture. And you ask, what did the Bible mean before you existed?

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If you could comment further on that. What does the Bible mean if I don't exist?

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What does the Bible mean if I've never been born? What does the Bible mean if I don't bring any of my own experience to it?

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What does the Bible mean in the sense that what did God intend to say when he gave his word?

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This is so basic and yet so lost. You know, when you have a Bible study today, a lot of times there's a pooling of ignorance.

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What do you think this means? What do you think that means? That is never the way to interpret scripture. What did

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God intend scripture to say? To back that up a little bit, Chris, you hear so many people talk today about how important it is to understand your culture.

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You know, we've got to communicate the message in the culture of our day, whether it's a grunge culture or whether it's a sophisticated kind of upscale psychologically oriented culture.

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We've got to find all the cultural cues. And I've always said this, look, there's only one culture that a communicator of scripture needs to master.

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And that's the biblical culture. Because understanding the context of the

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Bible is how you interpret the Bible accurately. We want to master the biblical culture.

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If I master the biblical culture, then the meaning of the scripture becomes crystal clear to me.

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And I can take that meaning anywhere on the planet. I suppose now we're talking about this yesterday. My books have been translated into 50 different languages everywhere from Tagalog in the

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Philippines to Croatian and Romanian and Finnish and Dutch and on and on it goes.

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And I've preached from one end of the world to the other, the same biblical messages.

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I'm no expert on any of those cultures. But I'll tell you this. If I understand rightly the biblical culture, then the word of God becomes crystal clear.

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And it transcends all time and all cultures and all nations and all languages.

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So I think to get at the truth, you've got to get into the discipline of biblical history, biblical context to get a good understanding of what the

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Bible really means. That should be the great passion of everyone who teaches and preaches the word of God.

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And you can always figure out how to get that message across because we know enough about the cultures that we live in to find accessible means.

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And we have Pastor Kappel here in the studio who'd like to ask you a question, Dr. MacArthur. Pastor John, in your book, and I've read your book, it's a wonderful book, you warn against the attack on the clarity of scripture that's taking place today within the emerging church movement.

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Why don't you tell us about that? Well, tell us about the book and why you wrote it and about this attack on the clarity of scripture and why that's so important.

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Well, the modern movement called the emergent or emerging church basically says this, and you're not going to see the first emergent church of New York City.

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So this is not going to be on the label. But the philosophy behind the emerging church is the scripture is not clear.

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It's an attack on what theologians have always called the perspicuity or the clarity of scripture. That is to say that God gave us a

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Bible so that we could understand. He didn't give it to us to obscure, but he gave it to us to reveal.

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So these people in this movement say, well, you know, we're not really sure what the Bible means.

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This is an accommodation to postmodernism. This is accommodation, accommodating relativism.

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Everybody's got his own truth. Everybody's got his own idea. Let's not offend anybody. Let's not be arrogant. We're too humble to say we know what the

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Bible means. So let's just love Jesus in very vague terms. Let's light a few candles.

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Let's light some incense, lower the lights, you know, sing a few songs, open our laptops, have somebody kind of give us some mild direction in a kind of conversational way.

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But no preaching of the Bible, no preaching of theology because the Bible is really not clear.

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Now, what's really convenient about that, if the Bible is not clear, then really the Bible has nothing specific that you're responsible for in your life.

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So you can kind of believe what you want, you can live the way you want, it brings nothing to bear upon what you believe other than very vague things.

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It brings nothing to bear on how you live and that's why the emerging church takes no position on homosexuality, no position on premarital sex, no position on other issues that are clearly indicated in scripture.

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So it's a convenient kind of pseudo -Christianity that is no different than old -fashioned liberalism where they got caught up in social issues while denying the gospel.

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Now don't some of the adherents to what is called the emerging church claim to be evangelical? Yeah they all do and that's the subtlety of it, that's the danger of it because this is back to wolves in sheep's clothing, right?

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That's what makes it effective. Satan always disguises himself as an angel of light, his ministers are disguised as angels of light.

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That's the point and this is what Jude warned us about, earnestly contend for the faith because these people are going to come in to the church, they're going to creep in unnoticed

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Jude says, they're going to wear all the evangelical labels and that's the subtlety of it.

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I think this would be my studied opinion based on looking at church history, there's never been a time since the reformation when it seemed to me that the bulk of people who call themselves

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Christians were less interested in the truth. This is part of the legacy of the market -driven church, the seeker church where everything is minimalized, where everything is oversimplified, where the gospel is reduced down to super simplistic non -saving terminology.

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But I think you have a whole group of people who don't know enough to be discerning.

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Being able to discern truth is simply a function of knowing what the Bible teaches and if you have an illiterate church, people who don't really know scripture and they don't know doctrine, they can't discern.

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Secondly, they'll have no will to battle for the truth. So it's not an issue, the truth is not important to them, what's important to them is the man -centered approach of ministry, fixing their life, fixing their marriage, bumping them up a few notches on the success scale in this world, making them feel good, telling them they're going to go to heaven, getting rid of their neuroses, going to 12 -step programs to get over the things that hold them back.

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But if they don't really understand the great profound truths of scripture that exalt and glorify the gospel and God himself, they're not going to be able to discern the truth and nor are they going to have a will to defend it.

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It's a kind of Christianity that is so self -centered that it has little interest in defending the truth of God.

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And I think that's the kind of Christianity that's really rapidly expanding in the

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West. Now this war over truth then, obviously this is not an in -house debate on peripheral issues, this is really a war with the enemies of Christ and his cross, isn't it?

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Yeah, well when you have probably the most vocal and most well -known writer in the emerging churches is

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Brian McLaren, who says nobody's ever gotten the gospel right, we don't have the gospel right now.

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So here we are, a church, this far from the life of Christ, still he says nobody's gotten it right.

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The bottom line there is, it doesn't matter. If nobody's gotten it right and we don't have it right, then let's be comfortable with never getting it right.

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Well it seems absurd to me to take that position, if they have a bible that they interpret literally, the apostle

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Paul obviously believed that people should know what the gospel is, and he warned those with the anathema that brought to the disciples a different gospel other than the one he had preached.

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That's absolutely correct. It is such an aberrant idea that the bible is unclear about everything.

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My conclusion is the only person who could think that is a person who is without the

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Holy Spirit, and therefore like a natural man cannot understand the things of God that are clear to the one who is regenerate and possesses the

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Holy Spirit, or that this person doesn't want the bible to be clear, because if they acknowledge that the bible is clear, then they're going to have to change their life.

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I think it's a perfect scenario, you can go to an emerging church, you can smell the incense and see the candles, and mill around and have kind of an experience that's very vague with Jesus, and then go out and live any way you want to live.

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We do have a caller on the line, we have Don in Lindenhurst, Long Island. Welcome to Iron, Sharp, and Ziron, Don. I'm sorry,

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I cannot hear Don. Hello? Yes, now I can hear you, Don. You're very faint.

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Yeah, well now I can hear you, Don, you have a question? I subscribe to the journal and I love it, and I just wonder in the whole concept of the perspicacity of scripture, that why do, in your view, why do we have so many denominations?

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Like even the broadest ones, the Catholic, the Orthodox, Evangelical, and then within Evangelicalism we get down to the different particular denominations, which is clear.

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And certainly I have my own convictions, as I know you do, but I would love to hear you address that, if you wouldn't mind,

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I'll go off the phone. Well thank you for the call, Don. By the way, Don, for calling in today, you're going to be receiving a free copy of The Truth War, by Dr.

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John MacArthur, compliments of Thomas Nelson Publishers. You're also going to be receiving a free leather -bound copy of the

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MacArthur Study Bible for calling in today. But Dr. MacArthur, did you hear Don's question about it? I sure did, and it's a very good question, and I think the simple way to answer that question is there are a lot of quote -unquote so -called denominations that aren't truly

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Christian to start with. They've got the gospel wrong, and that disqualifies them.

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But among those that are true to the gospel, there is not that much variation.

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There is a traditional reformational doctrinal strain that you can take all the way back to the apostles, you can follow it all through church history, it moves all the way through church history, even through the dark ages.

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It explodes in a blazing light through the reformation, and it continues to today.

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I don't believe anything different than the apostles believed, than the early church fathers believed who were understanding scripture rightly, than the reformers believed and the

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Puritans believed. Denominations typically come out of very often ethnic roots or special movements.

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The Methodists come from a unique movement led by John Wesley in England. Presbyterians come from the

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Scottish -Irish reform tradition. They all land in America, so we have those kind of diverse things and so forth.

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Then Baptists have their origin, as we well know, Roger Williams and others here in America.

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Many of them tended to be sort of ethnic, others tended to be distinct. Obviously the

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Baptists were distinct because of baptism, immersion being the form that they believed was the biblical form.

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But in their pure form, those denominations started out with an accurate understanding of the gospel.

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They simply came from various historic points, various locations. They all kind of landed here.

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Through the years, however, many of them have virtually abandoned the gospel, which originally gave them their start.

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Well, in fact, if every Christian on the planet perfectly understood all that was in scripture and perfectly agreed with one another, it would actually disprove what the scripture says about men being fallible and sinful and so forth.

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Yeah, but I do think that the true gospel is believed by all

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Christians. And that would include the Trinity, the deity of Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, literal bodily resurrection, ascension, intercession in heaven, and second coming in full glory.

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And most of scripture is pointing to those very factors. So on the issues that matter, there is unity, it has to be unity on gospel issues among true

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Christians. Yes, agreed 100%. And Pastor Capo has another question for you. Yes, on page 22 of the book, along the lines of what we're speaking about now, you said, this is not to suggest, of course, that we have exhaustive knowledge, but we do have infallible knowledge of what scripture reveals as the

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Spirit of God teaches us through the Word of God. Would you comment on that?

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Yeah, what I mean by that is the Bible is not exhaustive in the sense that God's knowledge is infinite.

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That is, it knows no limit. The Bible is limited to 66 books. We don't have exhaustive knowledge.

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We don't have revealed to us everything that God knows. There are a lot of things that maybe we think, boy,

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I wish God had said more about this or more about that. It's not exhaustive knowledge, but it is accurate knowledge.

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It is inerrant, infallible knowledge. What the Bible says is true, and it is all the truth that God desired to reveal to us, sort of like having all things that pertain to life and godliness.

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It is sufficient to save, it is sufficient to sanctify, it is sufficient to comfort, it is sufficient to instruct in the matters of holiness, it is sufficient to give the hope of glory.

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It is all we need, and as evangelicals and, of course, as true Christians, it's all that anybody needs, and so when we talk about the truth, that's all we've got.

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That is all we have. We have nothing but the Bible, nothing else, and to get that right and to be faithful to that and to defend it and to proclaim it is what it means to be a

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Christian. Now, you sum up the message coming from the post -modernized evangelicals and the

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Emergent Church in your book. You say this is their viewpoint. Certainty is overrated, assurance is arrogant, better to keep changing your mind and keep your theology in a constant state of flux.

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How does that square with what the Bible says about our ability to know the truth? You just stated how the

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Bible is sufficient for all things pertaining to life and godliness. Does the

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Bible, in fact, indicate that we can know with certainty what it teaches and what it means?

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Not only can you know, you are responsible to know, and you are held accountable for what the

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Bible teaches. The idea that this is all vague and that you need to embrace uncertainty is un -Christian.

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It is to the intention of God in his revelation as to be non -Christian.

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It is, I guess you could say, a foundational heresy to say that God has spoken but he mumbled.

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We have no idea what he's talking about here. So let's not draw any rigid conclusions, is to say that God did a terrible job of communicating his message to us and we're not really responsible for it when the truth of the matter is

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God holds us accountable even for what is manifestly obvious about him in creation.

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But when you have the word of God, you become far more accountable for the knowledge of the word of God, which you reject.

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Amen. Well, isn't it ironic, Dr. MacArthur, that some within the so -called intellectual intelligentsia of modern evangelicalism would revel in glory in having less factual knowledge about anything?

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It's really amazing. In the book, I begin with an illustration of Robert Christen Bell in Chicago, who said we used to think we knew what the

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Bible meant and the whole world was black and white. And now, since we're not sure what it means, everything's in living color.

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It's like they were all of a sudden liberated by ignorance. Well, this seems to be a very serious war that it seems to be really undervalued, downplayed, if you will, by many looking on at this war.

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Even within evangelicalism, they look at those who are seriously criticizing this movement, the emerging church in particular, as being nitpicking and so forth.

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Nothing can be farther from the truth. Correct? No, I think what's interesting from my standpoint is because I want to defend the truth,

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I'm looked at as the enemy. Right. That's how deep -seated this indifference to the truth is.

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Yeah. Agreed. Dr. MacArthur, if you could also, I want to make sure that our listeners, when they leave today's broadcast,

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I know you could only be with us for the first half hour. Unfortunately, I eagerly look forward to having you back on the program as soon as possible.

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But I really want you to leave our listeners with what you want most engraved in their hearts and minds when they leave today's broadcast.

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Well, I think what the message of this book is, Jude 3, earnestly contend for the truth, the faith delivered to the saints.

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That's all we have. All we have is the word of God. We have to defend it. We have to stand up for the truth.

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With the truth written, the truth incarnate, the honor and glory of Christ is at stake. Psalm 138 .2,

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God has exalted his word above his name. We must become lovers of the truth, defenders of the truth in every sense.

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And I just, you can't let Christian people think that there's anything more important than God's truth,

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God's word rightly understood, rightly proclaimed, and rightly lived. That's all we've got, as I said.

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That's it. God only gave us his word, his scripture, and to defend that word and to proclaim that word is our calling.

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Yes, and then Jude's words that you quoted would be absolutely meaningless if these scriptures were as ambiguous and cloudy as those waging war against us in this truth war claim.

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Yeah, great point, Chris. Why would we be called to defend something that wasn't clear? Great. In fact, we're going to be taking one more caller before you go off the air,

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Dr. MacArthur. If you could, just hold on one second, we have a caller on the line, and the name is

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Lou in Lindenhurst, oh, Farmingdale, Long Island, I'm sorry, Lou in Farmingdale, Long Island. Welcome to Iron Sherpa and Zarn.

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Do you have a quick question for Dr. MacArthur? Yes, very quick. How are you doing, Dr. MacArthur? Good, Lou. Question, I work with a

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Catholic lady, and she started reading, you know, I've witnessed her before and everything, trying to encourage her to get to the scriptures, and, you know, because the

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Catholic Church has encouraged it. She's been messaged? Yeah.

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Now, is that, does that encourage her to read, even if she doesn't want to read the Bible, or?

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Well, you know, you could probably, you could probably get the Gospel if you read that, but it is a, it is distorted in so many places, it is, it is a caricature, it is his spin on what the

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Bible means, not the Bible. Right. And so it's got a lot. Pardon?

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Yeah, yeah, I don't know why anybody would endorse it. It's Eugene Peterson's personal, private paraphrase and interpretation of scripture, and there are a lot of very serious problems, but as I said, if you're reading

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John 3, 16 or Romans chapter 3, the truth might come through.

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It's a bad place, in one sense, to send somebody who needs the truth, though, because if they become

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Christians through that means, it's going to be hard for them to let go of that, and they're going to be exposed to things that aren't accurate.

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Well, thank you so much, Dr. John MacArthur, we eagerly look forward to having you back on the Iron Sharpens Iron program in the near future.

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Thanks, Chris, thanks, Jim. Well, God bless you. Thank you for joining us. And if you're on the, on the line, you can hold on, because we do have, we have the

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Executive Director of Grace to You Ministries, Dr. John MacArthur's ministry, Phil Johnson, is going to be our guest during the second half of today's program to continue the discussion on the truth war, fighting for certainty in an age of deception.

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The number to join us on the air is 631 -321 -WNYG, 631 -321 -WNYG, don't go away, we'll be right back.

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Those of you who are listening now, we, the first half of our program featured a world -renowned radio

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Bible teacher and author, Dr. John MacArthur, who was addressing his brand new book,

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The Truth War, and it's hot off the press, this book, The Truth War, Fighting for Certainty in an

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Age of Deception. And right now, we are also honored and privileged to have with us the

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Executive Director of Grace to You Ministries, Dr. MacArthur's radio and tape ministry,

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Phil Johnson. And Phil Johnson, it is a rich joy to have you on the program today. Thank you,

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Chris, good to be here. And this is your second time as a guest here on Iron Sharp Desire, and we look forward to many more opportunities to interview you.

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And we're continuing the topic of the truth war with Phil Johnson, and also co -hosting this half of the broadcast as well.

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In the studio with me is Pastor Jim Capo of the Massapequa Church of God. Tell us something,

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I want to comment about one of the callers that called in earlier, Phil, who brought up the fact that if we really can believe in the perpiscuity of scripture, which seems to be the central theme of the truth war, the clarity of scripture, why do we have so many different views of what truth is in what is called

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Christianity? As Dr. MacArthur very correctly said, that within authentic biblical

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Christianity, there is comparatively little difference.

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We all believe in the same gospel, especially. But why do you think there is still, though, within even conservative evangelical

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Orthodox denominations within our faith, we still have very radical different opinions on things like the

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Calvinist -Arminian debate, eschatology, and baptism, and the sacraments, and so forth, the ordinances?

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If you could just comment on that, Phil. Yeah, there are several reasons for that, I think, Chris. One you named already is our own fallenness makes us, you know, it affects our minds, it affects our understanding, and it also affects our willingness to receive the truth.

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And so there are some things that people don't believe simply because they don't want to. It's not always that the scripture isn't clear, but it's simply that they don't believe it.

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Also, when we say we believe in the perspicuity of scripture, that doesn't mean every single detail of scripture is equally clear, right?

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In fact, I think in the first chapter of the Westminster Confession of the Faith, it says that it acknowledges that not everything in scripture is equally plain in and of itself.

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Scripture itself acknowledges that in 2 Peter 3, 16, that there are some things that are hard to be understood.

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But the perspicuity of scripture says that everything that is essential for us to know in order to be redeemed, in order to go to heaven, everything is so clearly set forth in scripture that not only learned people, but even unlearned people, just by using ordinary means, can attain to a sufficient understanding of the truth.

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And that's really the point we're making. No one is saying that everything in scripture is absolutely crystal clear.

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There are areas where we disagree. There are things that are not quite so clear. But everything that's essential, everything that's vital to the gospel message is absolutely clear or sufficiently clear.

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Amen, I agree. And Dr. MacArthur earlier was saying that this emerging or emergent church is really just another name for liberalism.

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Most of those who are in the forefront of this emerging church, do they at the very least believe in the exclusive claims of Christ and Christianity, or are they basically opening up eternal life for all in any religion?

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You know, it would be hard to quantify, because trying to pin down the emerging church movement is very difficult.

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There are guys who were at the forefront of founding the movement who now say, look, we don't want to wear that label.

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We don't want to be known as emerging. And so it's really, it would be impossible to really do any kind of numerical survey, find out what people in the emerging church movement commonly believe, or even whether a majority of them would believe in the exclusivity of Christ.

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The problem is, within the movement itself, there's a very large and noisy group who are arguing against the exclusivity of Christ and other issues like that.

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And what you end up with is this muddled perspective of truth that sort of gives everyone the impression that, you know, ultimately these things don't matter too much, because after all, it's just not all that clear to us.

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Phil, the emerging people, they refer to themselves as evangelicals, so they want to be considered part of evangelicalism.

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We would dispute that. But my question is, how much of an impact are they actually having on evangelicalism?

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Are they making inroads? I think they are. I mean, just from the people I rub shoulders with and seminary students

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I meet, I don't know of a single seminary age guy who's not at least intrigued by the movement and interested in what they're saying and doing and asking themselves, you know, is there something here we need to pay attention to, something we need to adopt and adapt?

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So, yes, they will have an influence. I think the comparison with liberalism, liberal theology, and the modernist movement that infused liberalism into the evangelicalism of 150 years ago is an apt comparison.

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The kind of thinking behind the emerging church movement is usually referred to as post -modernism.

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But I would argue that really it has more in common with modernism than it does with Christianity, and it's not really the opposite of modernism, it's just the next step after modernism.

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I often refer to it as modernism 2 .0. Yes, well,

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I just interviewed last week a local pastor here on Long Island, Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church, and he was doing a program on the emerging church as well, and he was lamenting that the college, a very well -known evangelical

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Bible college in Pennsylvania, which will remain nameless, which has its roots in fundamental

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Baptist circles, he was saying that this college, where his children go, at least one of his children go, the professors, at least a couple of them, were strongly recommending to their students, leave whatever church you may be in locally and go to these emerging churches.

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Yeah, I'm afraid that's a common problem. In some ways, you know, what they're doing in the emerging church is not really all that foreign to what some of the leading fundamentalists in the fundamentalist movement were doing just 20 and 30 years ago.

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There's a pragmatism at its core. You know, the idea is that you do whatever is necessary to reach people at the level where they are, and it's more concerned with methodology, oftentimes, than it is with the actual message.

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And it's really the fruit of, you know, probably several decades of fundamentalist and evangelical compromise on some very important issues.

35:29

And we're going to be going to a break. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Phil Johnson regarding the new book by Dr.

35:37

John MacArthur, The Truth War, a book which was edited by Phil Johnson. The director of Grace to You Ministries and also the editor of most of Dr.

35:46

MacArthur's books is our guest. And you can join us by calling at 631 -321 -WNYG, 631 -321 -WNYG.

35:53

I want to remind Lou and Farmingdale who called during the first half hour, I think I forgot to tell you, Lou, you are also going to be getting a free copy of the book,

36:01

The Truth War, compliments of our friends at Thomas Nelson Publishers, and a free copy of a genuine leather

36:08

MacArthur study Bible. Thanks to the publishers of the New American Standard Edition, the

36:13

Lachman Foundation, and also to our premier sponsor, Dan Buttafuoco of Buttafuoco and Associates. We'll be right back after these messages.

36:19

Join us on the air at 631 -321 -WNYG. Welcome back.

36:30

This is Chris Sorensen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, and we are continuing our theme today on The Truth War, fighting for certainty in an age of deception.

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During the first half of today's broadcast, we had John MacArthur, the author of that book, and during the second half of today's broadcast, we have with us

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Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace TV Ministries. We do have a caller on the line for you,

36:51

Phil. We have Anna Hilda in Bayshore, Laurentia. Dear God, and I always,

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I hear your program every day, and I, you know, and I thank the Lord, you know, because there's so much, and I always pray that the

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Lord, you know, will reveal through his word, you know, everything, because, you know,

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I know that there's a lot of things, you know, going on, even with the Da Vinci Code, and, you know, and I'd rather go through the

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Bible, and I ask always the Lord to bless the program, because, you know, everything comes real clear through the word, and may

37:29

God bless brother MacArthur and everything. I have a study Bible, which is very good.

37:35

Well, thank you. Do you have a question for Phil Johnson today, Anna? Well, I call more too, but I, what

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I was saying is that I always ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to me his word.

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Okay. Well, thank you for calling, and you're going to be getting a free copy of The Truth War, and we'll be sending that out to you as soon as possible, and God bless you.

37:57

Thanks for calling. And thank you so much, and may God bless you. I love you and the Lord. Thank you.

38:03

Thank you very much. And we do have another caller waiting, but Phil, can you mention something more about some of the movers and shakers within this emerging church movement, so that our listeners might be more aware when they see their names come up?

38:18

Well, probably the most familiar names as authors and contributors to the discussion in the movement would be, would start with Brian McLaren.

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He's probably the best -selling author in the movement. And then Rob Bell, who produces not only several books, but some videos, the

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NUMA video series they're called, very effectively produced videos where he talks about various issues and so on.

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There is Dan Kimball, who would take a more conservative stance than those other guys, and he pastors a church in Northern California.

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And Mark Driscoll, who was probably the most conservative figure in the movement, and he pastors a church in the

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Seattle area. Yeah, I've heard some differences of opinion whether he should be truly included in that category of emerging church, but you think he certainly should?

39:15

Yeah, he includes himself, so I would, and he was definitely one of the people who really began this movement and pushed it the direction it's going.

39:25

Oh, okay. We do have a caller online, Christian in Deer Park, Long Island, New York. Welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron, Christian.

39:31

Hey, God bless you, brother. Amen. Good. If you could quickly ask your question, and then we'll take it off the air, because we have other callers waiting.

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And we will be sending you, by the way, Christian, a copy of The Truth, War, and also a leather -bound John MacArthur Study Bible. Amen, amen.

39:44

This is just a quick question. And I mean, truth seems to really be at war nowadays, especially in Long Island.

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But my question is, where do they see the problem heading in the coming years?

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Will they think it will get worse progressively in the church itself, or more so from without?

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Well, I think as Phil's a premillennialist, he would say the first is true. No, actually,

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I would say what scares me the most, what makes me the most nervous about, as I look sort of towards the years to come, is what's happening in the church, more so than what's happening outside the church.

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I mean, the lines are pretty clear between the church and the world, or should be clear.

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They're clear enough, even though the church keeps trying to erase that line and muddle the line between church and world.

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But within the church, especially within the community that would label itself evangelical, it just seems to me over the past two or three decades, there's been a very serious and significant meltdown, so that most evangelicals couldn't even tell you what that label means anymore or what it meant historically.

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And as a result, they've backed away from evangelical distinctives. Many of them are no longer truly evangelical.

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And what that means is that the gospel itself is being suppressed, and the church is being corrupted in a similar way.

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I'll make the same comparison I made earlier. Pretty much a repeat of the cycle that you see with the rise of modernism and the decline of the mainline denominations owing to liberal theology.

41:33

It seems to me the same cycle is happening again. Yes. And we're going to be taking one more break, if you'd like to join us on the air for the final segment of today's

41:41

Iron Sharpens Iron program, the number is 631 -321 -WNYG, 321 -WNYG, don't go away.

41:51

Welcome back to Why Can't We All Just Get Along, starring Chris Arnzen and our guest Phil Johnson.

41:57

We do have a caller for Phil on the line. We have Deborah in Farmingdale. Welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron. Oh, hello

42:04

Chris. Hi, how are you? Good, thank you. I want to share a comment that my adult son made to me one

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Sunday after church when we were discussing the perspicuity of scripture and the whole approach to a very in -depth approach to the gospel.

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And he commented that he felt that there was a bias.

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In that approach, there was a bias given to those who are either educated, scholarly, intellectually oriented or just love to read and study.

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And I'd like to know Mr. Johnson's comments about that. And I also, in light of Matthew 19, when

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Jesus said to the disciples, let the children alone and do not hinder them from coming to me for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

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Is there something in Jesus's message about children that is contradictory to what you've been talking about today?

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Phil, did you hear those questions? Yes. Yeah. Great. Yeah, I think she's making a very good point there. And one of the difficulties with contemporary evangelicalism is that so many people have become enamored with the idea of scholarship.

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And often it's not true scholarship at all. In fact, before I came on the air, I was just reading a paper by an

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Oxford Don. This is one of the highest professors at Oxford University in England who has written an argument that he actually and actually believe this is not a joke.

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He's making an argument that in all likelihood, we are living in a computer simulation.

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Now, he wouldn't consider the idea of God, you know, irrational and foolish, and yet he's caught into the idea that we're sort of living in the matrix.

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So, I mean, I wouldn't regard that as scholarship. But many evangelicals are,

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I think, sort of infatuated with and intimidated by people's academic degree.

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Now, Christianity is not anti -intellectual, and I'm by no means against study or scholarship, but it needs to be careful.

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And going back to one of the first things I said at the bottom of the hour, the perspicuity of Scripture simply means that Scripture is clear enough that any person, whether learned or unlearned, if he just applies himself to ordinary means, which means reading the

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Scripture, praying, and just comparing Scripture with Scripture, he can arrive at a sufficient understanding of the

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Gospel. It's not too complex for even children to understand the

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Gospel. It's very simple, which is why it's foolishness in the eyes of philosophers and so on.

44:50

And Pastor Campo has a question. Yeah, Phil, the caller referenced Matthew 19 and seemed to be implying that where Jesus is saying, suffer the little children to come, and he's commending a childlike faith, that somehow that childlike faith implies, you know, ambiguity.

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And I think her question was, does Jesus' call to a childlike faith contradict all that we've been saying this past hour about the clarity of Scripture?

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What would you say about that? If that's what she meant, you know, I don't see the connection. I think...

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Is that what you meant, Debra? Oh, I guess Debra's not with us. Go ahead. I'm sorry, Phil. Yeah, I mean,

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I interpreted her question to mean that, you know, Scripture is simple enough for a child to understand.

45:36

I thought she was affirming the perspicuity of Scripture. No, no. No, I think she was asking about the possible contradiction between the message of the truth war and the

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Jesus' call to a childlike faith. Well, the Apostle Paul said, when I was a child,

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I fought as a child, and he contrasts that with when I became a man. But if she was affirming that, what would you say to her?

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I think what John MacArthur's saying in the truth war is that Scripture is clear and not difficult to understand.

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And so I would see that as actually an affirmation of the idea that saving faith is childlike in its simplicity and in its trust.

46:16

Amen. And one crucial thing, I'm sure you would agree, Phil, is the Holy Spirit's role in this discussion, because the

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Scriptures are not clear to those who are enemies of Christ and His Word, are they?

46:29

No. And, in fact, the natural man can't receive the things of the Spirit of God, they're foolishness to him.

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Of course, he doesn't understand them, but as I was saying about scholarly credentials, you can't acquire an understanding of Scripture by those sort of academic means apart from the

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Spirit of God, which, again, is not to denigrate study or scholarship, those things are fine and good and have their place, but where they serve to obscure the clarity of Scripture as opposed to take us deeper into the truth, those things have been badly abused by contemporary evangelicals.

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And it almost seems that those who are declaring the ambiguity of the

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Scriptures, it almost seems they're painting a picture of a God who would trick His own children by making things so complicated that they could easily fall into error.

47:21

Right. Well, Phil, it's been a great pleasure having you as our guest on Iron Sharpens Iron, and we eagerly look forward to having you back on the program, and we also invite all of you who are listening to continue to tune in every day,

47:36

Monday through Friday, 3 to 4 p .m. And I also want to thank our listener, Deborah, for calling in.

47:42

You're going to be getting a free copy of The Truth War by John MacArthur and a free leather -bound copy of the

47:47

MacArthur Study Bible. Thank you, Jim Capo, for being my guest today. It was an honor to have you back in our studio once again.

47:54

Oh, Chris, it was an honor to be allowed to sit in on such an important program. Thank you. And I just want to remind our listeners that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

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Savior than you are a sinner. God bless. Thank you for listening to Iron Sharpens Iron.

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We hope this broadcast has been a blessing to you and has caused you to delve more deeply into the scriptures for further wisdom regarding the burning issues facing the church and the world during these perilous times in which we live.

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For more information on any of Chris Arnzen's guests or on the topics addressed today, call toll -free at 1 -866 -DEBATE -1.

48:33

That's 1 -866 -DEBATE -1. Please tune in every day,

48:39

Monday through Friday, 3 to 4 p .m. to Iron Sharpens Iron. On the spirit of New York, WNYG.