Posted on 07/18/2023 5:16:02 AM PDT by metmom
"That you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2:9). God has granted you the ability to understand the truth and live accordingly.
In the natural realm, darkness can be a debilitating and frightening thing. The story is told of a missionary who was on board ship one dark night when suddenly he was awakened by the frantic cry of "Man overboard!" Immediately he arose from his bunk, grabbed the portable lamp from its bracket, and held it at the window of his cabin.
He couldn't see anything, but the next morning he was told that the flash of his lamp through the porthole emitted just enough light to enable those on deck to see the missing man clinging to a rope. They rescued him seconds before his strength would have given out. The light had shone just in time to save the man's life.
In the spiritual realm, darkness is even more devastating because it represents sin with all its disastrous consequences. First John 1:5-6 says, "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth."
Unbelievers are characterized as children of darkness. They are enslaved to Satan, the prince of darkness, who blinds their minds so they don't see the light of Christ's glorious gospel (2 Cor. 4:4). They love darkness and reject light because they don't want their evil deeds to be exposed (John 3:19-20).
Christians, however, have been called out of darkness into God's marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9). That refers to God's taking the initiative to save us. As an unredeemed sinner, you could never have turned from darkness on your own because you had neither the ability nor the desire to do so. God had to grant you saving grace and the illumination of His Spirit so you could recognize truth and respond accordingly.
That blessed privilege is known only to Christians. What a joy—not only to recognize God's truth, but also to walk in it daily!
Suggestions for Prayer
Thank God for illuminating your mind and enabling you to see spiritual truth. Pray diligently for others to be so illuminated.
For Further Study
Read 1 John 1:5—2:11. Contrast the children of darkness with the children of light.
From Drawing Near by John MacArthur Copyright © 1993. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com.
Studying God’s Word ping
What a joy indeed!
I suppose most believers see those more knowledgeable than themselves as older brothers or sisters that they trust when unsure about something. John Macarthur is one such to me. I am grateful to God for those trustworthy brethren in my life. I’ve been on FR for a quarter of a century now and I know those that I trust. They know who they are because I’ve told them.
Thank God for those brethren worthy of that trust. You are held dear to me and no doubt many others.
In the spiritual realm, darkness is even more devastating because it represents sin with all its disastrous consequences. First John 1:5-6 says, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”
Unbelievers are characterized as children of darkness. They are enslaved to Satan, the prince of darkness, who blinds their minds so they don’t see the light of Christ’s glorious gospel (2 Cor. 4:4). They love darkness and reject light because they don’t want their evil deeds to be exposed (John 3:19-20).
........................................
This is terrifying for loved ones living in delusion. There can’t be any worse words to hear, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”
Dear Holy Father, help us to focus today to sieze every opportunity to share the Good News of Jesus Christ our Savior.
With MacArthur you can be assured you will not hear a liberal perversion of Scripture, and overall hear an upholding and exposition of Biblical Truth, yet as a reflection of his Calvinism and perhaps his personality, he rejects the perpetuity of spiritual "sign" gifts (cessationism).
And while fabrications and false doctrine abound in Pentecostalism (hardly a monolithic movement), yet as an example of a "false balance" and throwing out the baby with the bath water, and thus of unsound doctrine, then as was documented in a now deleted content in the wikipedia article on him,
He has made a list of Gifts of the Spirit, mostly from 1 Cor. 12-14, but holds that "once the New Testament was finished, those sign gifts ceased to have a function", and ended with the conclusion of the Apostolic Age, around AD 100.[37]
In a subsequent teaching, "What has happened after the 'Strange Fire' Conference" (2013), MacArthur allowed that within the Charismatic movement there were those who believed in the authority of Scripture, honored the Lord, and pursued Godly living, and that the movement retained enough gospel truth so that souls could be saved within it. However, he saw its interdenominational presence as being "a testimony to the absence of any theology," and charged that "its theology is both heterodox and heretical...everything is defined by experience..and therefore has a weak view of Scripture, that's the charismatic movement." He further criticized the modern Charismatic movement, stating that "In 1967 a bunch of Jesus freak people in the beach areas of Southern California go to Calvary Chapel..and for the first time, the church, that I know of in history, the church lets the very defined subculture dictate what it will be. Out go the ties, out go the hymns, out go all the normal and formal things...and the hippie culture, you know, kids coming out of drugs, communal living, free sex, and all that kind of casual thing, and that's a charismatic church, that's a four-square church...That's where the movement becomes what we know as Calvary Chapel." "The first Calvary Chapel was essentially the church saying we'll let the culture tell us what we need to be...The charismatic movement has developed...its comfortable in Roman Catholicism, its comfortable in dead denominationalism...I think its a false form of Christianity."[38]
In 1991 however, MacArthur commended Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Chapel movement, for writing "a straight forward critique of charismatic extremism," and stated that "there are many like him who have taken their stand and I thank God for their courage and their desire to be Biblical."[39] In response to MacArthur's "Strange Fire" conference, Calvary Chapel expresses a fundamental disagreement with MacArthur's understanding of spiritual gifts among God's people today, but affirms "charisma, not charismania," and commends Chuck Smith's book "Charisma versus Charismania" as being one of the best short, popular works on the subject.[40]
Three books have been written in response to the Strange Fire book and conference, arguing for the continuationist position: Authentic Fire: A Response to John MacArthur's Strange Fire by Michael Brown; Holy Fire: A Balanced, Biblical Look at the Holy Spirit's Work in Our Lives by R.T. Kendall and The Essential Guide to the Power of the Holy Spirit: God's Miraculous Gifts At Work Today by Dr. Randy Clark. Addressing the "Strange Fire" conference, continuationist Calvinist Baptist John Piper concurs that there are many abuses in the charismatic church, however he adds that "we really need to keep in mind that every charismatic abuse has its mirror image in non-charismatic abuses...In some of these cases, the non-charismatic church is more guilty than the charismatic," such as, "the absence of emotion, which is probably more deadly than the excesses."[41]
Not everyone is given the same gift.
The whole idea that you can learn a gift, such as speaking in tongues, is perverse.
I visited an Assemblies of God church where they had a little, mostly visual, booklet for children that taught them how to get started getting the “gift” they all are supposed to “receive.”
It was eye opening and bizarre, to me.
You have another solid post, sir.
Indeed: or be taught. But along with all speaking at once and with no interpreter, and usually no means of verification of these public expression as actually being from God, this represents the other extreme of those who deny all such, including verifiable healings, as being from God.
Interesting post John Mac is my Fav and
John Piper has just popped in view.
‘GIFTS’ and the emotionally dead are extremes and worthy of discernment.
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I’ll now read the article per
FR SOP.
This corresponds to Jesus' teaching in John 10 where He says, "I know my sheep and my sheep know me." and "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.". I praise God every day for turning on the light of the Spirit to my heart and saving me by His grace, mercy and love. I certainly could never earn nor deserve it. We love Him because He first loved us.
Amen
I like that!
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