Arminian

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The Doctrines of Grace (Part 5 of 10)

John MacArthur – Grace to You

The Doctrine of Election, Part 2

We’re going to return now to the, I trust, refreshment of the Word of God.  We’re talking about the doctrine of election, chosen by God, who chose whom? And this is not without controversy, as you well know.  The doctrine of sovereign election, the truth of predestination is much discussed and most discussions can degenerate into something very heated.  In fact, to say that there are people who hate the idea of predestination is not an overstatement.  There are people who hate the thought of divine election, sovereign choice.  In fact, there are some people who say that the doctrine is demonic, that the doctrine itself is satanic.  It is such an affront to their sense of fairness and sense of what they think is right that there are people who call themselves Christians who would see this as truth that comes from the enemy of God and not God Himself.

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The Doctrines of Grace (Part 3 of 10)

John MacArthur – Grace to You

The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 3

1 Peter 1:6-9

We are continuing a study for these few weeks on the subject of the perseverance of the saints. That is a, I think, a good biblical title to describe a doctrine that is often called the doctrine of eternal security, or the security of the believer. The bottom line in this doctrine is that when the Lord saves someone, that salvation is forever, never to be reversed. The Bible is clear on that basic truth and the basic truth is that salvation by its very nature is irrevocable.

In spite of the clarity of Scripture, however, on this, there are those who have fallen under the influence of teaching that denies it. There are many in the Christian church who are living in some kind of fear with the possibility that they could lose their salvation. They are warned that they can by sin or failure to believe forfeit that salvation which God has given to them. That is to say a believer can become again an unbeliever, a new creation in Christ can become again the old. Those who are now the children of God can become again the children of the devil. Those who are citizens of heaven can become occupants of hell. In fact, all that is given to us in Christ can be lost and forfeit. And inevitably those who teach that doctrine endeavor to support it in Scripture. And they bring up a list of doctrinal passages to be used as a support for the idea that you can lose your salvation. I’ve dealt with this through the years many, many times and many fronts and not the least of which is trying to help the Russians, the Russian believers understand this doctrine because for so many years they have been taught that it is possible to forfeit your salvation.

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The Doctrines of Grace (Part 2 of 10)

John MacArthur – Grace to You

The Perseverance of the Saints, Part 2

We are in a bit of a brief study on the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. And we sort of picked up on this doctrine because the study in the marvelous epistle of Jude and this little epistle, as you will remember, we’ve been studying on Sunday nights, ends with this great benediction, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy.” That is a statement of the security of our salvation. Our Lord is able to keep us and to present us. This was so important for us as we were going through it that I wanted to enrich our study of just that passage and so last week, and again this week and perhaps one other session next week, we will look at this very, very important doctrine.

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Not a Kingdom Now

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The Doctrines of Grace (Part 1 of 10)

John MacArthur – Grace to You

The Doctrines of Grace sermon series

At some time in your Christian life, you may have struggled with questions like, When a sinner is saved, who chooses whom—does God choose the sinner, or the sinner choose God? Did Christ die for the sins of everyone, or just the people He saves?

The vast majority of those kinds of thorny, persistent, mind-boggling questions are directly related to the sovereignty of God, election, predestination, perseverance, and the question of “free will.” Those, of course, are doctrines associated with Calvinism. All are vital to a sound, biblical understanding of the gospel, but they are not without difficulty.

In The Doctrines of Grace, John MacArthur takes you to God’s Word and walks you through challenging truth that’s often neglected, maligned, or mischaracterized, but critical for every Christian to understand. This series will help you come to grips with what you believe about God, the gospel, and the nature of man.

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Why Biblical Christianity Is Intolerable in an Age of “Tolerance”

John MacArthur – Grace to You

Psalm 119:160, John 17:17, 2 Timothy 1:14, Acts 4:12

In these postmodern times, tolerance is the supreme virtue of the public square.  Tolerant people can be broad thinkers, open-minded, and charitable to every worldview—every worldview, that is, except biblical Christianity.  The authoritative demands of Jesus Christ are beyond the threshold of postmodern tolerance.

In this postmodern era, one virtue is esteemed above all others:  tolerance. As a matter of fact, tolerance may soon be the only virtue secular society will embrace. Many traditional virtues (including humility, self-control, and chastity) have already fallen out of public favor and in some quarters are openly scorned or even regarded as transgressions.

Instead, with the beatification of tolerance, what was once forbidden is now encouraged. What was once universally deemed immoral is now celebrated. Marital infidelity and divorce have been normalized. Profanity is commonplace. Abortion, homosexuality, and moral perversions of all kinds are championed by large advocacy groups and tacitly encouraged by the popular media. The modern notion of “tolerance” is systematically turning morality on its head.

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Tsunami, Japan, March 2011: Why the suffering?

Grant Swart

The past week’s catastrophic events in Japan, brought about by the massive earthquake and resultant tsunami, has no doubt once again caused many unbelievers to pose the question as to why, if God exists and is an all loving God, He would allow suffering on such an enormous scale. It is a popular question which is often posed to apologists and to those who contend Biblically for true Christian faith.

This question has received some wonderful answers through the years, as the subject of numerous good books, articles and discussions. I certainly do not wish to emulate these great intellectual works by offering a new way of answering the question, but merely to address the subject in the light of recent events of global interest.

On a foremost TV channel, an American commentator asked of an unbelieving world, while reporting on the tsunami in Japan: “Now, where is Godzilla in all of this?” Continue reading →

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Sovereignty and Freedom

John MacArthur – Grace to You

Well, we are alerted throughout this series that every time you come to a service at Grace Church, you’re going to hear about an attribute of God. We want you to know our all glorious God. We want you to know all that you can know about Him, all that is revealed on the pages of Scripture.

And the emphasis that we have for this morning is on the sovereignty of God. Simply stated, Psalm 103 verse 19 says, “His sovereignty rules over all.” And we saw that demonstrated, didn’t we, in the passages that we read earlier from Isaiah and from Daniel. God is the absolute ruler of this world and the entire universe. God is the one who decrees all things, who purposes all things and who accomplishes all things that He decrees and purposes. He is simply in charge of absolutely everything.

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John MacArthur on Charles Spurgeon & Worldly Preaching

The Purpose of Pain

John MacArthur – Grace to You

2 Corinthians 12:5-7

For many years now we’ve been studying 2 Corinthians. And we did have a few interruptions, one whole year of interruptions when we were dealing with the anatomy of the church. And we have finally come to what is my favorite section in this whole epistle, chapter 12 verses 5 to 10. I’ve been waiting for a long, long time to get to this passage and I’m so thrilled at what is here. I actually am struggling in my heart to say it all. I feel like I have far too much to say than I can say and I’m afraid it might just come rambling out in some random fashion without enough structure for you to be able to grasp it, so I’m going to go slowly and hope we can stay contained in this wonderful text.

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