Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - John MacArthur - What are the greatest dangers facing the Church today?

Episode Date: July 1, 2021

Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Big Questions, Biblical Answers, is a series that seeks to provide biblical answers to some of the most prominent and fundamental questions regarding God, the Gospel, and the BibleIn this episode Pastor John MacArthur from Grace Community Church answers the question: “What are the greatest dangers facing the Church today?Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGB5fYWHTNemqp9aZC232egFor more information visit: https://www.jonnyardavanis.comd

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In this series, the hope is to provide biblical answers to big questions. And in this episode, I sit down with Pastor John MacArthur and ask him what are the greatest dangers facing the church today. Let's dial in. Pastor John, my question for you today is, what are some of the greatest dangers that you see facing the church of Jesus Christ today? Maybe an analogy to start that.

If you ask me what is the greatest danger, physical danger in a human body, I would say a deficient immune system, right? Because then you could die of a hundred diseases. If the immune system can't fight off illness, there's a hundred ways to die. So the greatest danger in a human body is the collapse of the immune system. That's what fights off all the diseases. And I would say in the church, it's the same thing. It's a deficient immune system. It's the inability to discern truth from error. It's not recognizing deception. It's being led astray. It may be psychology. It may be pragmatism. It may be sentimentalism. It may be liberalism.

It may be some weird view of the atonement or some aberrant view of Jesus. Any kind of thing that is not true has potential to do severe damage to the church because the church is the pillar and ground of the truth, which means that the leadership of the church has to be discerning. They have to have a fully functioning immune system that fights off every heresy. I mean, there's a hundred heresies that can kill a church. There's a hundred wrong things that kill a church. Paul talks about them. He calls them every lofty idea raised up against the knowledge of God. Any ungodly idea, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10, is like a fortress that has to be smashed. It's a fortress and people are captive to those ideological fortresses.

And the word for fortress in the Greek is the same word for tomb. Those fortresses become their tombs. They're entombed in aberrant ideology. So Satan is a liar, right? His ministers are deceivers. Satan operates in false religion 99% of the time. He's not running brothels, he's running religions. That's his business. So it's the inability to discern because the people who are in leadership don't possess that discernment that comes from rightly dividing the word of truth.

So then, Pastor John, let's say hypothetically, I'm a pastor and I to know how can i boost then and how can i fortify my church's immune system to air how can i become more discerning what would be your advice yeah and again it goes back to that verse where paul says don't be children anymore tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine yeah if you have a child on the floor the child doesn't know the difference between a cracker on the floor and a safety pin. It's all going in the mouth. And you're so vulnerable when you are a child.

So how do you become mature? Through the scriptures, through the word. It's 1 John where the writer says, I write unto you young men because you are strong, because you know the word. So the only way that you can raise a congregation that has discernment is to teach them the word of God. And I want to say this, it's not enough to stand up and tell them what the Bible says. You have to let the Bible speak. If you explain the Scripture, God speaks. If you say to someone, this is what the Bible says, they have to believe you.

Let them believe the Scripture. And then there will be a great degree of unity and conviction on what is true and then a greater degree of discernment on what is even subtly false and full of error. And it's always the subtle lies that get you because they get like a Trojan horse. You know, they get in and then they send out their troops everywhere. Things begin to disintegrate. So it's the ability to discern the subtle deceptions and lies. That's so good. Thank you so much, Pastor John.

You're welcome.