I’ve spent the last three days listening to some of the strongest, most solid teachers of our Christian faith; John MacArthur, Al Mohler, and Steve Lawson. It has been a great PRIVILEGE. I’m referring to the Shepherd’s Conference held at Grace Church in Los Angeles, California. It is an all-men’s conference of pastors and lay-leaders, from across the country and around the world, designed to encourage, instruct and equip pastors to “preach the word, in season and out of season”.
As a woman I’m unable to attend, but for the first time (thanks to the wonders of the internet), I’ve been able to tune in via live video streaming. I must say that seeing the auditorium filled with men singing hymns, listening to messages and getting excited about God’s Word is a great encouragement. We live in a world where godly preaching is disappearing and yet it is alive and well at the Shepherd’s Conference this week. Why? Because these men take the Word of God very seriously, they are men of conviction and men of great passion for God’s truth.
John MacArthur led off the conference with a challenge to pastors and churches: Will you be a “church of the tares” and give in to current trends, the culture, and becoming “relevant” or will you be true to how Christ built His church? In Matthew 28, Christ told us to go into all the world and “preach the gospel”. This gospel message is transcendent, it never changes and it applies to all people of all nations, all ages, and all cultures. It is an alien message, in that it goes counter to our innate fallenness. The church should be a congregation of regenerated, pure people who will likely be respected by the world for the way we live, but offensive to them as sinners because our message is damning. We are a congregation who must live and worship in the fear of our Holy God, not meeting people at their social level, or felt needs, but rather pursuing holiness and obedience. He finished his message with an explanation of Revelation 3:20 “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door I will come in to him and dine with him and he with Me.” He said, this is not a salvation verse, this is Christ knocking and saying “Do you have a place for me in the church?”
Tom Pennington gave a message on Psalm 1 outlining the two paths that we can chose in life, the “way of the righteous” and “the way of the wicked”. First, we are “blessed” which refers to satisfaction, joy and delight. As a tree that has been transplanted by God (carefully cared for near rivers of water) we have life, spiritual health and vitality, whereas chaff has no life. Second, we are to not “walk” in the counsel of the wicked which means we “abandon every human way”, stay awake and choose the correct route. Counsel means the way we think and who we listen to for advice. Do not stand in the path of sinners refers to our lifestyle and habits. Do not adopt the lifestyle of sinners, “avoid it, stay away from it, turn from it, keep walking!” Lastly we are not to sit in the seat of the scornful, in other words, participate with the world so much that we become one of them. So abandon every human way and embrace only God’s way (Scripture), and we do this by meditating on His Word. He explained that to meditate means to 1) understand the meaning of the text and 2) apply it. “Apply yourself wholly to the text, and apply the text wholly to yourself.”
John MacArthur addressed the pastors once again on Wednesday evening with a passage from Luke 20:45 - 21:4 which is when Christ confronted the Pharisees and scribes telling the people to beware of them. He then goes into detail describing the story of the widow who puts her two copper coins in the church coffer. MacArthur dispels current understanding of this passage as a story about generous giving. Instead he points to the fact that this story is evidence of the hypocritical church who is taking money from the poor widow when God commanded that the church take care of the widow. By telling this story, Christ was giving evidence of what he had just accused the Pharisees of doing, devouring widow’s houses. MacArthur went on to talk about this current trend within churches and television healers, motivated solely by greed.
Rick Holland gave an excellent message from Leviticus 10 and the story of Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, set aside and sanctified as priests. He made the point that as people that are exposed to the Scriptures regularly we can become careless in our familiarity with God. He then gave three points showing the dangers of how we do this and justify it within ourselves. 1) We redefine what God requires - we don’t take Him at His Word. 2) We under-estimate how God responds and presume on his grace. 3) We ignore what God deserves.
Al Mohler started with the line “We are living in very strange times…there is a crisis in preaching”. He then told us the answer is very simple, preaching is not complicated. In the Old Testament, Nehemiah 8 clearly lays out the process, Read - Explain, Read - Explain, Read - Explain. It’s that simple. He then took us to the New Testament, 2 Timothy 4:2 “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.”, showing us that the process is still the same. Mohler then took us through 4 points regarding preaching: 1) The true and living God is the God who speaks. We have not “figured Him out, by grace He has spoken to us”, just as Francis Schaeffers book title says The God Who is There, He is Not Silent. 2) God’s true people are identified by the fact that God speaks to them and they hear. This should not produce arrogance in us, but humility that only by God’s grace does He speak to us. 3) God’s people serve and survive by hearing His Word. Romans 10:17 says “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. 4) Preaching is always a matter of life and death. It is not the preacher’s words that sustain the life of the people, it is God’s words through the preacher. People should leave after hearing a sermon and know that they have heard the voice of God “speaking from the fire and survived”.
Steve Lawson gave my favorite session of this conference. Many people don’t know this man, but he has a passion for the Word of God that excites and challenges me to know and love it more as well. Lawson’s message was titled “The Preacher’s Invincible Weapon” and he preached from the text of Hebrews 4:12-13 taking each description of God’s Word and expounding on it with the 7 marks of the sword of the Lord.
1) The divine word. This is God’s book, God’s message, He is the Author as the Bible itself claims, “Thus says the Lord”. Because it is God’s Word is requires the preacher to be Humble (yielded to God’s authority), Dignified (you are commissioned by the High King of heaven, so present it in a manner befitting it) and Authoritative (Titus 2:15 ..”rebuke with all authority”).
2) The living word. God’s Word is not idle, it is supernatural, it has the life of God in it. John 6:63, Acts 7:38 As Lawson said, “This is the only book that has ‘read’ me”. There is nothing more living and nothing more relevant.
3) The powerful word. It is “active and relentlessly effective”. It contains the power to save (I Peter 1:23), sanctify (John 17:17), satisfy (Psalm 119:3), strengthen (Joshua 1:7), steer (Psalm 119:105), sustain (Matthew 4:4)
4) The razor-sharp word. No instrument is an sharp. There are no “dull” verses, every verse, every chapter is ready to cut. It is also two-edged, for example, it comforts the afflicted, but afflicts the comforted. It both softens and hardens, enlightens and blinds, exposes sin and covers sin. The people who listen are pierced to the heart which is what must happen to be saved. Pastors today are using butter knives he says, instead of the powerful two-edged sword of the Word of God.
5) The piercing word. It penetrates the depths of the inner man. If you don’t preach the word you are just “massaging egos and tickling ears”. It divides the soul and spirit which are who you are, what you are inside. The joint and marrow are the inner soul, the thoughts, motives and attitudes. “Only the Word of God can perform heart surgery”.
6) The judging word. Once our soul is laid bear by the razor-sharp, piercing word revealing who we really are, then it begins to judge. This exposes our lostness. As Lawson then explained, the hardest person to reach is the religious person. They must first be exposed, and pierced because only then will they come to the realization of their condemnation and repent.
Then verse 13 shows a continuation of thought through the word “And”…”there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.” This word, naked, implies the neck of an animal stretched back in preparation for sacrifice.
7) Lastly, the saving word. The purpose behind the judging word is to bring sinners to Christ…the one to whom we must give an account. The people hearing this passage were halting between Judaism and coming to Christ. It isn’t enough to hear the word, we must repent. This is the purpose of the saving word.
Phil Johnson gave an interesting study of Acts 17, Paul’s at Mars Hill. Post-moderns love to hold up this passage as an icon of Paul becoming “all things to all men”, and yet, Phil brilliantly debunked this interpretation. To a post-modern the number one goal is to assimilate, be cool, so that the world will like us and accept our Jesus. Certainty is offensive. Instead they set this aside for culture, conversation, charitableness, and contextualization.
Culture - Paul didn’t embrace the culture, he observed that the city was given over to idols, this “provoked his spirit” and he went to the heart of the problem and challenged Athens with the truth of Christ. So when Paul spoke of “the Unknown God” he began with the point of culture that he most hated. Conversation - Paul didn’t say “I’d like to learn your approach and maybe we can learn from one another.” He spoke contrary to what all the philosophers present would have believed - that God is creator and Lord of all, that He is spiritual (not dwelling in temples), that He is sovereign and transcendent. Contextualization - Certainly Paul spoke in Greek, not Hebrew, but Paul did not adapt his message to Athen’s culture. He quoted ancient poets, their forefathers, not to engage in their culture but to speak against their current worldview. At all points Paul confronts their culture and calls them to repentance. Lastly, Charitableness - Post-moderns would be “broad-minded”, not dogmatic, and “appease” rather than confront, but Paul spoke of Christ’s death and resurrection (something that was crazy and foolishness to them), he didn’t change his message. There were three responses 1) some mocked, 2) some said they would listen again, and 3) some believed. This is always the result of a faithful ministry that doesn’t waiver and doesn’t shift. Preach Christ, His death and resurrection, and this will confront every worldview, every religion, and every philosophy.
John MacArthur closed out the conference with a message on Christians as slaves (duolos). He announced that this April he is re-publishing a 20th anniversary edition of the Gospel According to Jesus. Tonight’s message comes from material that will be included in a new version of Chapter 1.
He began by asking us “What is the distinguishing fact or characteristic of Christianity? What essential core confession should we proclaim? “Jesus is Lord!” However, this is not what contemporary salvation claims, instead it says we have a “personal relationship with Jesus” implying that we can personally define it. The devil has a personal relationship with Jesus - and its not good! He is not your buddy, He is Lord!
This was a simple message, MacArthur had but two points; 1) Jesus is Lord and 2) Christians are slaves.
1) Jesus is Lord. Kurios translates “sovereign Lord”, and despotes translates “absolute Lord”. Both imply dominion, despotes implies that “he owns slaves”. The church is made up of people who have confessed Jesus as Lord, they do not have their own will, wants, ambitions, dreams and hopes, but rather are subject to the power and control of the Lord. Romans 10:9
2) Christians are slaves (doulos). He spent an extensive amount of time proving this and showing that most current versions of the Bible do not accurately translate this word and instead use “servant” or “bondservant” (for which there is no Greek equivalent. Slavery indicates that you are owned, whereas a servant only works for someone. He goes on to explain that the Bible doesn’t command or condemn slavery, but it does borrow it as a metaphor. Acts 4:29, 16:17 claim that followers of Jesus were His slaves. This seemed an absurd notion to a culture that was living during a time of slavery. However, MacArthur went on to give example after example of pastors as slaves in 2 Timothy 2:24, the 44,000 Jews mentioned in Revelation 7 will be “slaves”, and that we will all be slaves in heaven someday, Revelation 22:3. Paul, Timothy, James, Peter, Jude and John all called themselves “slaves” of Jesus Christ. When we understand this concept the rest of Scripture makes sense. When the Bible says you were “chosen” it is like the Master who went into the slave market and picked you out as a slave, he then bought you and paid the price to own you…this image is so much clearer. We are called to slavery! Would you rather be a slave of Christ or a slave of the devil? - this is the true evangelistic message.
Lastly, The fundamental issue as slaves is obedience and submission. MacArthur takes us from the idea of being slaves to Luke 15: 14-15 where Jesus says we are no longer slaves, but friends. The difference is that a slave doesn’t know what His Master does, nor why He does it. So we are slaves to Christ, but He has also told us and shown us what He does and why He does it so we go from being a slave to becoming a friend, part of His intimate circle. Obedience doesn’t make you His friend, it shows you are His friend because you can’t obey if you don’t know His intentions
Philippians 2:3-7 says Christ took on the same form of a slave and became obedient to death. He denied Himself, and He did only what His Father told Him to do. Therefore, God exalted Him, and gave Him the name above every name - Jesus is Lord!
