M
MarcoPolo
Guest
I posted this in another forum, but thought I’d run it past my non-Catholic brethren here too. 
Some of you know that I listen to John MacArthur regularly and find him to be either on the money or way off in outerspace, a “Jekyll and Hyde.” The last couple days he has been Jekyll. He has been right on the money on the need for us to become pure to enter heaven. I transcribed a few excerpts. All bold emphasis is mine. Archives of the full MP3s will be available from here (the 2/17 and 2/18 episodes)*No Christian can give testimony, honest testimony, to the fact that when he became a Christian, sin was erased. It’s not so. The tendency to sin is still in our lives even though we’re saved we still sin. And worse, we still derive pleasure from our sin. We still struggle from sinful habits, not just sinful isolated acts. And sometimes we fall into shameful, scandalous sins. (2/17/09)*Then he goes into the OT story of Saul conquering the Amelkites and capturing their king Agag. But even though he had defeated them (which MacArthur says represented sin), he hadn’t completely rid himself of all remnants of them, namely the king. So Samuel came along and put the final death blow on Agag by hacking him to pieces. MacArthur continues…*When you were saved, and I was saved, there was at that moment a crushing defeat of sin. A crushing defeat. From one end to the other, from east to west, north to south, our sin was crushed. But, we still have remaining sins. There are some Amelkites running around loose in everybody’s life. We all have our Agags. And the problem in our Christian lives is not that sin has not been defeated with a crushing defeat. It has, but there is still remaining sin. There are some loose, iniquitous Amelkites in all of us. And though there was a great and glorious and triumphant defeat at the time of our salvation, there is the necessity that the remaining sins be hacked to pieces. Or they will revive, they will plunder our hearts and sap our spiritual strength. (2/17/09)*Then he actually acknowledges the suffering we endure in purification of these stains of sin, in order to be “like Christ.”*Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Pursue Christ’s likeness. Don’t be satisfied. Don’t be content until you awake in His likeness as the Psalmist said, or to borrow the words of Paul, he said, “I am in travail” or “bearing birth pains until Christ is fully formed in you.” Pursue being like Christ. 1st John 3:3: He that has this hope in him purifies himself even as He is pure. (2/17/09)*You’ve got to harness your prayer life, get it under control, your time in the Word, your focus on Christ, saying no to the things that feed your lust, if you’re gonna be a winner. And Paul says the people who compete in the games exercise self-control in all things. They control their diet, they control their exercise plan, their training program, their sleep. I mean you know that a great athlete is somebody who’s got his life under control. And they do it, he says, to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So Paul in verse 27 says, “I buffet my body.” Hupopiazo. Literally to strike under the eye. I punch my body. I discipline it and bring it into control to make it submit. That’s why Paul had a clear conscience. He had a clear conscience because he dealt with sin. He got his body under control, a watchful self-discipline. A self-discipline that is a child of constant prayer and constant meditation on the Word. It’s that kind of thing of which Luke 21:34 when it says, “Be on guard that your hearts may not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life.” Paul disciplined himself to lift himself above that. It’s just self-discipline. It’s Philippians 2, really, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure. You’ve gotta be committed to it, work hard at it, self-discipline. But on the other hand, it’s God who’s doing it, and that’s right back to Romans 8:13, isn’t it. “By the Spirit.” It is the Spirit’s power working in us that slays sin, but not without our involvement. You can’t just sit back, as I said earlier, and expect the Amelkites and the Agags of your life are just gonna go away. You can’t co-exist, you gotta be aggressive and active. (2/18/09)
Some of you know that I listen to John MacArthur regularly and find him to be either on the money or way off in outerspace, a “Jekyll and Hyde.” The last couple days he has been Jekyll. He has been right on the money on the need for us to become pure to enter heaven. I transcribed a few excerpts. All bold emphasis is mine. Archives of the full MP3s will be available from here (the 2/17 and 2/18 episodes)*No Christian can give testimony, honest testimony, to the fact that when he became a Christian, sin was erased. It’s not so. The tendency to sin is still in our lives even though we’re saved we still sin. And worse, we still derive pleasure from our sin. We still struggle from sinful habits, not just sinful isolated acts. And sometimes we fall into shameful, scandalous sins. (2/17/09)*Then he goes into the OT story of Saul conquering the Amelkites and capturing their king Agag. But even though he had defeated them (which MacArthur says represented sin), he hadn’t completely rid himself of all remnants of them, namely the king. So Samuel came along and put the final death blow on Agag by hacking him to pieces. MacArthur continues…*When you were saved, and I was saved, there was at that moment a crushing defeat of sin. A crushing defeat. From one end to the other, from east to west, north to south, our sin was crushed. But, we still have remaining sins. There are some Amelkites running around loose in everybody’s life. We all have our Agags. And the problem in our Christian lives is not that sin has not been defeated with a crushing defeat. It has, but there is still remaining sin. There are some loose, iniquitous Amelkites in all of us. And though there was a great and glorious and triumphant defeat at the time of our salvation, there is the necessity that the remaining sins be hacked to pieces. Or they will revive, they will plunder our hearts and sap our spiritual strength. (2/17/09)*Then he actually acknowledges the suffering we endure in purification of these stains of sin, in order to be “like Christ.”*Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Pursue Christ’s likeness. Don’t be satisfied. Don’t be content until you awake in His likeness as the Psalmist said, or to borrow the words of Paul, he said, “I am in travail” or “bearing birth pains until Christ is fully formed in you.” Pursue being like Christ. 1st John 3:3: He that has this hope in him purifies himself even as He is pure. (2/17/09)*You’ve got to harness your prayer life, get it under control, your time in the Word, your focus on Christ, saying no to the things that feed your lust, if you’re gonna be a winner. And Paul says the people who compete in the games exercise self-control in all things. They control their diet, they control their exercise plan, their training program, their sleep. I mean you know that a great athlete is somebody who’s got his life under control. And they do it, he says, to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So Paul in verse 27 says, “I buffet my body.” Hupopiazo. Literally to strike under the eye. I punch my body. I discipline it and bring it into control to make it submit. That’s why Paul had a clear conscience. He had a clear conscience because he dealt with sin. He got his body under control, a watchful self-discipline. A self-discipline that is a child of constant prayer and constant meditation on the Word. It’s that kind of thing of which Luke 21:34 when it says, “Be on guard that your hearts may not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life.” Paul disciplined himself to lift himself above that. It’s just self-discipline. It’s Philippians 2, really, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure. You’ve gotta be committed to it, work hard at it, self-discipline. But on the other hand, it’s God who’s doing it, and that’s right back to Romans 8:13, isn’t it. “By the Spirit.” It is the Spirit’s power working in us that slays sin, but not without our involvement. You can’t just sit back, as I said earlier, and expect the Amelkites and the Agags of your life are just gonna go away. You can’t co-exist, you gotta be aggressive and active. (2/18/09)
