SPEAKER_00: The New York Times obituary is headlines, John MacArthur, Fiery Preacher and Culture Warrior, dies at age 86.
SPEAKER_00: The article is better than the headline, though, although MacArthur certainly would have taken fiery preacher as a compliment.
SPEAKER_00: In order to understand the impact that John MacArthur had on the church and the Christian world, you almost really need the contrast in your mind between what Christianity and evangelicalism was like in the 1980s and 90s, because it's very different than it is today.
SPEAKER_00: 1980s and 1990s, for example, the media covered evangelicals, not as a political block, not as like evangelicals doing this for Trump kind of thing like today.
SPEAKER_00: But back then, the media covered churches.
SPEAKER_00: It was very weird to go back and read some of these stories.
SPEAKER_00: They covered churches almost kind of rooting for their downfall, but also putting forward an agenda for churches.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of headlines, things like unless the church embraces contemporary music, it will die.
SPEAKER_00: Unless the church embraces youth groups, it will die.
SPEAKER_00: Unless pastors get younger, the church will die.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was talking like Newsweek, Time Magazine, which were magazines that used to be around in the 80s and 90s.
SPEAKER_00: Every year they would have a headline that was something like this is the era where big denominations were shuttering churches, where massive cathedrals that would have thousands of people, you know, 50 years ago suddenly had 40 people.
SPEAKER_00: And they were just declining.
SPEAKER_00: And the media back then couldn't distinguish, I don't think, between, you know, the Episcopal Church with the lesbian pastor and like the Bible church down the street.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have that grid in their mind.
SPEAKER_00: And so they saw like the decline of the more liberal churches, and they roped that into the Bible-believing churches and into the Baptist world.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's where you get these headlines like, is Christianity even going to survive another generation question mark.
SPEAKER_00: Here's our experts say, here's six things they can do.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and that's what led in the 80s and 90s to this whole infatuation with the youth movement inside of the church that unless your church hires four youth pastors, they will die.
SPEAKER_00: Not the youth pastors, but the church.
SPEAKER_00: Unless the church does lock-ins, your grandchildren will never learn about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember lock-ins in the 80s and 90s?
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00: That led to the the worship wars in church.
SPEAKER_00: That's what people call it looking back on it now.
SPEAKER_00: They called it the worship wars.
SPEAKER_00: They had this whole idea, unless your church embraces contemporary music, but the older people were like, rah, and so, okay, we'll do two songs written in 1940 or earlier, and two songs in 1960s, 1980, and there everybody will be happy.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a train wreck.
SPEAKER_00: They did surveys.
SPEAKER_00: This became like the philosophy of ministry 101.
SPEAKER_00: Go door to door and ask people in your neighborhood, do you go to church?
SPEAKER_00: If you say no, what would you be looking for in a church?
SPEAKER_00: And then there was this whole thing, I'm telling you, this was America-wide.
SPEAKER_00: This is not like one or two churches here.
SPEAKER_00: This was evangelicalism in the 80s and 90s, was doing these surveys and then building churches to look like the answers of their surveys, asking non-Christians, what do you want in a church?
SPEAKER_00: And they say, we want programs.
SPEAKER_00: All right, kung fu for Jesus, or your grandchildren will never get saved.
SPEAKER_00: You saw churches that did the different services back then.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember those?
SPEAKER_00: The contemporary service at 8, the traditional service at 9:30, and the young adult's service at 11.
SPEAKER_00: I went to a church that was like that.
SPEAKER_00: The pastor changed his clothes between sermons.
SPEAKER_00: I am not joking.
SPEAKER_00: And I know you are laughing, but I bet many of you, if you were alive and a believer back then, went to a church that did exactly that.
SPEAKER_00: The guy would preach without a tie at the contemporary service.
SPEAKER_00: And then at the middle service, he'd put on a tie and a jacket, and at the 11 o'clock service, he'd switch to skinny jeans and a polo.
SPEAKER_00: Or the church will die.
SPEAKER_00: And you're watching, like, oh dude, walruses do not belong in skinny jeans.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: But it's unless you do that, the church will die, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: This was everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Topical sermons, topical sermons, topical sermons.
SPEAKER_00: If you preach more than 20 minutes, the church will die.
SPEAKER_00: One preaching book that I read that was written back then called Sermons that are longer than 20 minutes, homiletical violence.
SPEAKER_00: And I have received, I've been on the receiving end of some sermons that felt like homiletical violence, believe me.
SPEAKER_00: Your sermons had to be filled with application, cultural references, movie clips, even once the technology caught up.
SPEAKER_00: Movie clips, or the church will die.
SPEAKER_00: It was in that world that the Lord planted John MacArthur.
SPEAKER_00: Not anywhere, but in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_00: In North Hollywood, Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_00: Now there were gobs of faithful pastors all over the world.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong, and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself this morning, but to steal a verse from 1 Kings, there were 7,000 pastors in our country that hadn't bowed the knee to the seeker-sensitive movement, for sure.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord uniquely used John MacArthur to stand against that tidal wave, that onslaught of designing churches to meet the needs of non-believers, of watering down preaching to be non-confrontational.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, it's very common back then to say, you know, the way to approach the Bible isn't to say this verse has a meaning.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: The way you approach the Bible is you sit in a circle and you ask, what does this verse mean?
SPEAKER_00: You've all been there, haven't you?
SPEAKER_00: And you're sitting in that circle and you're hoping, oh man, please Lord, don't let it be that guy that talks first.
SPEAKER_00: And along comes John MacArthur, who says, you know, every verse has one meaning, and that's what you preach.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care about cultural references.
SPEAKER_00: The only culture that matters is the Bible's culture and bringing people back to that, not the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: They said less preaching, and MacArthur said, How about five sermons a week?
SPEAKER_00: This had this effect of resurrecting expository preaching.
SPEAKER_00: This idea, the right way to preach was to go line by line, verse by verse, through a book.
SPEAKER_00: Let the Lord set the agenda of the church, not topical sermons.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, there were so many pastors who would preach like at one church for three or four years and develop an army of like three to four years of topical sermons, and then just go to another church.
SPEAKER_00: And this was how the church was back then.
SPEAKER_00: Al Moller said this at MacArthur's passing: quote, evangelicalism is a pulpit-driven movement.
SPEAKER_00: And John MacArthur has had the most influential evangelical pulpit for more than 50 years.
SPEAKER_00: He not only preached verse by verse, but he started a seminary to teach others to do the same.
SPEAKER_00: And the result was frankly unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: People started taking in the 80s, they started taking his messages and copying them and mailing them out and sharing them.
SPEAKER_00: That led to Grace to You, which became probably the largest distributor of evangelical sermons in the world.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote a study Bible explaining every verse of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And again, there's lots of study Bibles in the world, but not like that.
SPEAKER_00: Not like this.
SPEAKER_00: It's arguing for a theological and truth-bear perspective throughout the whole of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, most other study Bibles are like, here's four views of this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Choose.
SPEAKER_00: He made an expository commentary set of the entire New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, just to appreciate that, understand he is the only pastor since John Calvin to do that.
SPEAKER_00: He is preaching to transform missions, finding a country and planting a model church in that country with a national pastor who's doing a biblical philosophy of ministry and then putting a seminary in that church to train up people to go out and plant churches, which for the first 20 years or so of that model of missions was not producing that much fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is like, I mean, that's like planting a redwood.
SPEAKER_00: By the end of his life, became one of the most massive church planting movements in missions history.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the seminary.
SPEAKER_00: Master Seminary has trained thousands of pastors and sent them around the world.
SPEAKER_00: Thousands of pastors to preach like that, line by line, verse by verse.
SPEAKER_00: Again, people say, oh, Master Seminary grads can be confrontational, they can be divisive.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm telling you about the 80s and 90s back then, which she which you remember, but there's this whole thing that churches were infatuated with youth.
SPEAKER_00: You had to be younger, younger, younger, dress younger, look younger, get the skinny jeans on, do that to reach Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then MacArthur's telling his students, no, you need to look older.
SPEAKER_00: So you drop a dude in a church who's 30 years old and he dresses like he's 50 and he pretends he's 50, and they were expecting it to go the other way.
SPEAKER_00: Back to the New York Times obituary.
SPEAKER_00: Quote Mr.
SPEAKER_00: MacArthur didn't just clash with secular authorities and liberal politicians.
SPEAKER_00: More often he took on perceived enemies within Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: He preached on the errors of Roman Catholicism.
SPEAKER_00: He published multiple books on the dangers of charismatic theology and the prosperity gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He attacked popular evangelical figures like Bible teacher Beth Moore and various other pastors, including the televangelist Robert Schuler and Joel Olstein.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the best part.
SPEAKER_00: Always citing specific Bible verses in every one of his critiques.
SPEAKER_00: Can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_00: My favorite line of the whole obituary.
SPEAKER_00: His critics said that he misled listeners by insisting that even the thorniest passages in the New Testament had a single, clear, and true meaning.
SPEAKER_00: To his supporters, that was exactly the point.
SPEAKER_00: MacArthur was first and foremost a pastor, of course.
SPEAKER_00: He was an author, but he was a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: He was my pastor.
SPEAKER_00: I joined Grace Church in 2001.
SPEAKER_00: I was new to the faith and I was struck by John, who was larger than life and yet also accessible.
SPEAKER_00: He was the last person out of church every Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, when I joined staff there, we basically had a rule on staff you can't leave until John leaves, and he would never leave.
SPEAKER_00: I say he's accessible.
SPEAKER_00: He would preach in college ministry at every opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: He would do evangelism with us at Seasun, Cal State Northridge, walk in the campus.
SPEAKER_00: Can I ask you a few questions about religion?
SPEAKER_00: When I became a chaplain for the LA Sheriff's Department, he would go with me to roll call.
SPEAKER_00: If I had the opportunity to do roll call at a substation, I could bring John with me, and he'd have this little pocket New Testament he would use for devotionals, just flip it out.
SPEAKER_00: He loved giving devotions in the Sheriff's Department.
SPEAKER_00: He loved going to jails.
SPEAKER_00: We had opportunity to do so many jail ministries, and his schedule didn't always allow it, but when he did, he loved to go.
SPEAKER_00: And that was not an easy place to go.
SPEAKER_00: LA County is like the largest jail system in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's intense.
SPEAKER_00: Getting in is intense, and they drop you in this like this room with like 50 people, and they tell you, listen, if things go down, we're not getting you.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that?
SPEAKER_00: John loved it.
SPEAKER_00: And I moved out here.
SPEAKER_00: John took Dieter's arm and put it on me.
SPEAKER_00: And says, He's your pastor now.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that's gonna take.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a sense it never did.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, John remained my functional pastor all the way until last week.
SPEAKER_00: I got to write books with him.
SPEAKER_00: I got to serve on the Master's University board with him.
SPEAKER_00: I got to text him questions.
SPEAKER_00: And when he died, there was definitely a sense of shock for me.
SPEAKER_00: And not shock that he was going to die.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, nobody lives forever, not even John MacArthur.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on.
SPEAKER_00: Like you could see it health-wise, you could see it coming.
SPEAKER_00: I told many of you throughout the past year, like if he lives next Sunday, I'm gonna be just astonished.
SPEAKER_00: And yet when it actually happened, I was shocked because there's a sense of like a I felt like a safety net is removed from me.
SPEAKER_00: Like I have a question I can ask him.
SPEAKER_00: He needed to go to heaven, of course, because the guy would not rest.
SPEAKER_00: He would not retire.
SPEAKER_00: Like he was always fighting a fight.
SPEAKER_00: There was always a battle to be waged.
SPEAKER_00: He got a house in Colorado Springs because he loved Air Force football.
SPEAKER_00: In his mind, Air Force football was the last bastion of true masculinity and chivalry perfectly mixed in all of the United States.
SPEAKER_00: Like he believed that sincerely.
SPEAKER_00: Well, not really.
SPEAKER_00: I looked at the Air Force football schedule, and when they played Navy, I invited him to preach the next day.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's wasn't that hard to figure out.
SPEAKER_00: But he like I said, he bought a house in Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_00: He would try to vacation there or spend time there, but he would like sneak in meetings with other pastors and staff members, would fly out to Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_00: He'd have tea with Patricia in the morning and then sneak in a meeting or two before lunch, as if she wouldn't notice.
SPEAKER_00: She noticed.
SPEAKER_00: The guy would not retire.
SPEAKER_00: It was a computer that didn't have a hibernate setting on it.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord had to take him to glory.
SPEAKER_00: My mind immediately went to this verse, verse 12, 2 Kings 2.
SPEAKER_00: Elisha sees that Elijah is no more.
SPEAKER_00: And he cries out, My father, my father.
SPEAKER_00: This is addressing Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: The chariots of Israel and its horsemen.
SPEAKER_00: John MacArthur in many ways reminds me of Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: If you're familiar with Elijah's life, you've probably heard like six or seven parallels just in my own description of it.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord used Elijah uniquely.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah would never rest.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he was leading the army, he was fighting the army, he was confronting kings, he was fighting famine, he was raising even in his own death, he raises the dead.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the guy, the guy never would rest even in death.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah wouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: He tried to retire a few times, and the Lord always brought him back, one time screaming and kicking.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that Elijah was the only person in Israel that was faithful to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
SPEAKER_00: At one time Elijah tells the Lord, hey, I'm the only one left that's faithful to you.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord says, No, you're not.
SPEAKER_00: Stop it.
SPEAKER_00: There's 7,000 people that didn't bow the knee to Baal, Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just you.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the Lord used Elijah in a singular way.
SPEAKER_00: When it came down, the most famous event from Elijah's life, 1 Kings 18.
SPEAKER_00: It comes down to the showdown with the prophets of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's 7,000 others that haven't worshipped Baal.
SPEAKER_00: And you can ask, is 7,000 a big number or a small number?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: It's the minority of Israel, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_00: But 7,000 is more than it's at this church, that's also for sure.
SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of a big number.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter because when the showdown came, it was only Elijah versus Baal.
SPEAKER_00: There's a massive crowd there of thousands of people that wanted Elijah dead and were rooting for that, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't just go out and say the Lord is the true God, repent.
SPEAKER_00: No, he went out and he mocked Baal from top to bottom, remember?
SPEAKER_00: Where is Baal?
SPEAKER_00: Cry harder, basically.
SPEAKER_00: Take your Baal tears and drink them, is what he told them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, where's Baal?
SPEAKER_00: Cut yourself harder.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he needs to see more blood from you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your God is in the bathroom, and that's why he can't hear you.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not that he was like just emotionally recalcitrant or disfigured or something, because he was crushed after after he had victory.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he goes up on the hill and hangs his head between his knees and just weeps.
SPEAKER_00: Like he it took the life out of him.
SPEAKER_00: That was that was the first time he quit, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: He literally left Israel after that, went to Egypt, went up to back to Mount Sinai, and told God, let's start over.
SPEAKER_00: Because Israel's gone.
SPEAKER_00: And God said, No, no retirement for you.
SPEAKER_00: Back to work.
SPEAKER_00: Shoes him back to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He goes back, he tries to retire again.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he ends up in the mountains.
SPEAKER_00: And God yanks him out to go confront Ahab and Jezebel over Naboth's vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the queen killed the dude to take his vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: This is a job for Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: There's 7,000 others, but the Lord called Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: Then Elijah disappears.
SPEAKER_00: He spends the last five years of his life not on the pages.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, it's the prophet Micaiah at the end of 1 Kings 22 who confronts the king and queen there, and you wonder where's Elijah?
SPEAKER_00: You find out where Elijah was in Two Kings.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah was out planning schools of prophets.
SPEAKER_00: So that was his epiphany at the end of his life.
SPEAKER_00: He gave up on the what he'd been doing earlier on the kind of the public ministry of the word.
SPEAKER_00: In the last few years of his life, he devoted himself to raising these schools of prophets.
SPEAKER_00: We find out in Two Kings that he raised up three of them.
SPEAKER_00: It seems they had about 50 students each.
SPEAKER_00: So he spent the last few years of his life raising up 150 seminarians to be prophets.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, prophet is not sometimes what we think of as foretelling the future.
SPEAKER_00: Prophet is preaching the word of God, is what a prophet was back then.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there were some elements of uh prophetic, you know, foretelling ability, but most of what they did was called people to believe the Mosaic covenant.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah spent the last few years of his life when he should have been sipping tea, training up these schools of men, but even he couldn't live forever.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, it's one of those verses in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's so familiar.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1 of 2 Kings 2.
SPEAKER_00: It's so familiar you can almost lose the wonder at it.
SPEAKER_00: When Yahweh was about to take Elijah to heaven by a whirlwind, what in the world?
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, did you say God was going to take him to heaven in a whirlwind?
SPEAKER_00: Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgalas, one of the schools of prophets.
SPEAKER_00: They went from there to Bethel.
SPEAKER_00: That's about an hour walk.
SPEAKER_00: It's not long at all, maybe two hours.
SPEAKER_00: It's walking from Alexandria to Arlington.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah knows what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Elisha knows what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah begs Elisha, just stay here, man.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2, Yahweh sent me as far as Bethel.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I call a Samuel truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the whole truth, but it is true.
SPEAKER_00: He did send him to Bethel because he's going all the way to the Jordan River, which is like another three days from there.
SPEAKER_00: But Elijah doesn't want Elisha with him when he dies.
SPEAKER_00: And so he tells him, just stay here, man.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to see this.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to go with me.
SPEAKER_00: Stay with the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Elisha's not having it.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: As Yahweh lives and as you yourself live, I'm not going to leave you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's just that's not like a formal vow.
SPEAKER_00: That's him saying, as long as you're alive, I'm at your side.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get rid of me.
SPEAKER_00: The sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha.
SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of thing people say.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, do you know that so-and-so is going to die?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know they're going to die?
SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, I noticed.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
SPEAKER_00: They come up to Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: They come up to Elisha in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that today Yahweh is going to take your master away from you?
SPEAKER_00: Seminary students hadn't had a pastoral ministry class yet.
SPEAKER_00: Elisha says, Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_00: Shut up.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows he's going to die.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah said to him, Elisha, please stay here.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh sent me to Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: What happened to the whole Bethel thing?
SPEAKER_00: It's like saying I would love.
SPEAKER_00: Lord just sent me to Arlington.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, he sent me to Fredericksburg.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry about the Arlington thing.
SPEAKER_00: So they walked to Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna take him two or three days.
SPEAKER_00: I know Jesus did it in one day.
SPEAKER_00: He was fifty years younger.
SPEAKER_00: Number six, let's just stay here.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh sent me to the Jordan, Elijah says.
SPEAKER_00: Just stay here, Elisha.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, as Yahweh lives, as you yourself have, I'm not gonna leave you.
SPEAKER_00: So the two of them went on.
SPEAKER_00: Fifty of the sons of the prophets also went and they got to the distance.
SPEAKER_00: They stood by the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: So there's 52 of them out at the river.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water.
SPEAKER_00: And the water was parted one side to the other until the two of them could go over on dry ground.
SPEAKER_00: This is another one of those funny verses that you just you're just accustomed to, so you lose sight of it.
SPEAKER_00: But think of all the pomp and circumstances the last time the Jordan River was parted.
SPEAKER_00: It was like the whole festival, the whole Ark of the Covenant, the whole trumpets in order for Israel to enter into the promised lands.
SPEAKER_00: And now Elijah just comes and like, my feet are old.
SPEAKER_00: Can I cross on dry ground, please?
SPEAKER_00: And they crossed the river.
SPEAKER_00: When they crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, What do you want?
SPEAKER_00: It's translated nicer into English than it comes across in the Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: And the ESV here says, Ask what I shall do for you before I'm taken from you.
SPEAKER_00: The gist of it is, what do you want, man?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you still here?
SPEAKER_00: Elisha said, please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.
SPEAKER_00: What does that even mean?
SPEAKER_00: He says, I just want to be like you.
SPEAKER_00: I want everything you have, but twice as much.
SPEAKER_00: It's meant as a compliment, but it's kind of a crazy thing to say, especially if you're Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't, how do you how's Elijah gonna take that?
SPEAKER_00: It's like it's like the disciple saying, Jesus, can can we beat your right and your left hand?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Do you even know it?
SPEAKER_00: Can you be baptized with a fire?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be baptized with and they're like, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Like you honestly don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And when people say, who's gonna take MacArthur's place?
SPEAKER_00: Like, do you get what that question even means?
SPEAKER_00: Like, would you even you think of all of the hostility the guy faced for the stands that he took?
SPEAKER_00: Do you want that?
SPEAKER_00: I remember once somebody said, you know, lied about my father-in-law and about me, and a way like you know, wrote stuff on a blog, and you know, there were lots of people that were dumb enough to believe it.
SPEAKER_00: There's probably a nicer way to say that, but I texted John and like told him all about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great during Shepherd's conference, and MacArthur says, Oh, did someone say something bad about you online?
SPEAKER_00: Kind of a double portion of your spirit?
SPEAKER_00: What does that even mean?
SPEAKER_00: That's what Elijah says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You've asked for a hard thing, verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: If you see me as I'm taken from you, it'll be so, but if you don't see me, it won't be so.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, uh maybe.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: They went on and behold, and they're talking.
SPEAKER_00: This is their last conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them.
SPEAKER_00: Was that a rodeo in upstate New York a couple days ago?
SPEAKER_00: And they're one of their last events, they put a bunch of cows in the rodeo pin and they sent the horses in and they had to work in teams to separate the odd number horses or the odd number cows from the even number cows, and cows can't read numbers, or at least they pretend like they can't.
SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of hard running every which way to try to peel the cows off from each other.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah and Elisha are walking, they're holding hands.
SPEAKER_00: They're arm in arm.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord sends chariots and fire and peels them apart.
SPEAKER_00: And then Elijah is sucked up by a whirlwind into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing like that happened at the rodeo.
SPEAKER_00: And Elisha cries.
SPEAKER_00: My father, my father.
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to hold on.
SPEAKER_00: The chariots of Israel and his horsemen.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's a name, that's what he's referring to Elijah as.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah is the chariots of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Chariots are a war implement, they're what you go to battle with.
SPEAKER_00: The horsemen are the soldiers.
SPEAKER_00: It's an army of chariots flanked by horsemen going into war.
SPEAKER_00: In Elijah's mind, in Elisha's mind, that's what Elijah was.
SPEAKER_00: In Elisha's mind, Elijah was the Lord's army.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, you understand the Lord is omnipresent, the Lord is everywhere, but you know how sometimes people get so associated with even in sports.
SPEAKER_00: A team might have such a famous player that has played his whole career there.
SPEAKER_00: He's so associated with the team that you think when he retires, is that team even going to exist?
SPEAKER_00: And yes, you know the team will still technically exist, probably, but it's not the same.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Elisha is with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah, again, 7,000 didn't bow the knee to Baal, of course.
SPEAKER_00: But God used Elijah in such a unique way that it's so wrapped up to him.
SPEAKER_00: He is the Lord's army, he's the one-man reckon ball.
SPEAKER_00: He rips his clothes in verse 12, tears his clothes to pieces.
SPEAKER_00: Is his grief.
SPEAKER_00: He hadn't read 1 Thessalonians.
SPEAKER_00: Don't mourn like those who have no hope.
SPEAKER_00: One of the seminary students probably would have told him that verse, I bet.
SPEAKER_00: He took the cloak of Elijah to replace his own.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he was doing a symbolic transfer here.
SPEAKER_00: I think he just ripped his clothes in verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: He's taking on the new jacket that's on the ground and went back to the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of verse 14, that is the key question of this whole narrative.
SPEAKER_00: The middle of verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Where is Yahweh the God of Elijah?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question.
SPEAKER_00: Again, the identity of the Lord is so wrapped up with the identity of Elijah in Elisha's mind.
SPEAKER_00: Now that Elijah is gone, where is even the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the Lord is omnipresent.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the Lord works in every era.
SPEAKER_00: Of course he does.
SPEAKER_00: But with Elijah gone, what?
SPEAKER_00: Is the Lord even still able to work without Elijah?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question.
SPEAKER_00: Where is he now?
SPEAKER_00: The next verse answers the question.
SPEAKER_00: And the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho saw him.
SPEAKER_00: They came out.
SPEAKER_00: Elisha, Elisha has the spirit of Elijah on him.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the middle of verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the prophets discern.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think Elisha felt that way, but that's what they discerned.
SPEAKER_00: The answer to the question, where is the God of Elijah?
SPEAKER_00: It is answered by the presence of Elisha and all the schools of the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: 150 dudes trained for ministry.
SPEAKER_00: That's where God is.
SPEAKER_00: They don't realize that.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what the seminary students say.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16, there's 50 of us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go find your master.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe the Spirit of Yahweh has cast him on some mountain somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want ravens to eat his body or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: This is a ridiculous enterprise.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to go back across the Jordan River and they're going to go try to hunt for Elijah's body.
SPEAKER_00: And Elisha says, don't go.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the end of verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: Don't stop it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go.
SPEAKER_00: This is a common thing you experience at funerals.
SPEAKER_00: People will find some task to fixate on because it makes them feel, I don't know, productive.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they're even thinking through that, but let me arrange the carrots one more time, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: Like death reminds you, it's life is out of your control, man.
SPEAKER_00: It's out of your control.
SPEAKER_00: And so what do you do?
SPEAKER_00: You you move the fruit platter two inches to the left.
SPEAKER_00: That's what these guys are doing.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go find his body.
SPEAKER_00: And Elisha says, You don't need to go look for his body.
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, no, they insist, verse 17, they urge him so much that Elisha got a save me.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, fine, go, I guess.
SPEAKER_00: They looked for days and couldn't find him.
SPEAKER_00: They come back, verse 18, didn't I tell you don't go?
SPEAKER_00: The Jesse translation would be, I told you so.
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: The main point of this chapter is simply this.
SPEAKER_00: The work continues while the workers change.
SPEAKER_00: The work of God continues, the workers change.
SPEAKER_00: Seminary students get back with no body.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna often do ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm not gonna go through the rest of the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: I'm exercising self-control.
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, Elisha is sitting there with his head down, crying in his tea or beer or however you say it.
SPEAKER_00: And people come up to him.
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, you know, the water here is poisons, and we heard from a prophet 50 years ago that if we repented, God could fix our water.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know how we do that?
SPEAKER_00: So that's Elisha's next conversation.
SPEAKER_00: He's sitting there mourning the law the lack of Elijah, and someone comes up to him and says, Hey, I know you're sad, I see your tears.
SPEAKER_00: We just need a prophet for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the the Formula One racer who retires and goes to the bar and cries, and somebody comes in and says, Hey, my car is stuck in the mud.
SPEAKER_00: Can you help?
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, maybe, maybe I can't still drive.
SPEAKER_00: That's Elisha's thoughts here.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe there is still work to be done for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Even though Elijah is gone, Elisha is starting to have the epiphany.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe God still has things to do in this world, not through Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: It couldn't be.
SPEAKER_00: The seminary students get back and they're having the same realization.
SPEAKER_00: Man, maybe there's maybe there's places we can minister.
SPEAKER_00: I remember a QA with John MacArthur and somebody asked him, What's going to happen to Grace Church after you go to heaven?
SPEAKER_00: And MacArthur, this is, I'm talking like 15 years ago, and MacArthur said, I don't know, do you know something I don't know?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, basic principle: every time a Christian worker is taken away, it's like removing your hand from a bucket of ice water.
SPEAKER_00: There is no hole left.
SPEAKER_00: Everything fills in.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's it's true in the conceptually.
SPEAKER_00: It's not true in our hearts, like there's a hole in our heart and our affections, but it is true.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's work carries on even though the workers change.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody asked Al Muller a similar question once.
SPEAKER_00: What's going to happen at Southern Seminary when you go to heaven?
SPEAKER_00: And Van Muller said, listen, this is the truth that every pastor faces.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to die.
SPEAKER_00: People are going to throw dirt on your face, go inside, have potato salad, and vote in the next guy.
SPEAKER_00: Does it have to be potato salad, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: We are all temporary workers here just for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Second.
SPEAKER_00: Lesson from this passage.
SPEAKER_00: The work is fulfilled by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The ultimate worker doing the ultimate work.
SPEAKER_00: The mystery of Elijah's body is not solved in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: The guys come back empty-handed.
SPEAKER_00: This is another body missing.
SPEAKER_00: Add it to the case file.
SPEAKER_00: The first one was Moses' body.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he died.
SPEAKER_00: Angels came down and fought demons for his body.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know more about it than you do, but that went down.
SPEAKER_00: Moses goes on to represent the law.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah goes on to represent the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: The law keeps Israel under captivity or under custody until Jesus comes.
SPEAKER_00: The prophets are fulfilled in the coming of Jesus, who is the final prophet.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself says the prophets prophesied until John.
SPEAKER_00: John prepared the way for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament ends saying, Elijah will come and prepare the way for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: John prepares the way for Jesus, and yet Elijah's body is still not found.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah's body isn't found until the last march of Jesus' life, where he walks from Banius or Caesarea Philippi all the way down to Jerusalem to die on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And before he starts to walk, do you remember James and John and Peter stumble upon Jesus having a conversation with Moses and Elijah, the two dudes with the missing bodies?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is talking to them in their transfigured glory.
SPEAKER_00: Commentators are hilarious in this.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, I wonder the resurrection hasn't happened yet.
SPEAKER_00: So where did Elijah get his body?
SPEAKER_00: Did he rinse it for the day, kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00: And like, his body never, it was just kept by God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't hard to find.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah and Moses found it, used it, spoke to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, of course, says, Oh, let's build, let's build shrines here and worship at the sight of their bodies.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Get behind me, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: That was that idea did not get out of committee.
SPEAKER_00: There's a better work to be done.
SPEAKER_00: The mystery of Elijah's body is fulfilled, but in the final work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: All of our work in the Lord is just working for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is the ultimate worker.
SPEAKER_00: He fulfilled the law and the prophets on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: John matched Elijah in terms of dress and eccentricity.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is the ultimate worker.
SPEAKER_00: Elisha went on to do twice as many miracles as Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to count that, but almost every commentator says that.
SPEAKER_00: Score up every miracle.
SPEAKER_00: Elisha has, you know, times two over Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: But Elijah was always the teacher, and Elisha was always the student.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus comes fulfilling the prophets represented by Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: Not by Elisha.
SPEAKER_00: There's no mystery about who the student is and who the teacher is, just like there's no mystery about the final work of the Lord, being the ultimate worker.
SPEAKER_00: John MacArthur's last sermon preached it, I don't know, nine months before he died, evening service at Grace Church.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 3.15.
SPEAKER_00: Two words.
SPEAKER_00: Be thankful.
SPEAKER_00: You know, MacArthur never ended his sermons on time, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: They always, you know, the key to growing a church is shorter sermons.
SPEAKER_00: They say, MacArthur, in my decades at Grace Church, when if a sermon ended on time, John would apologize.
SPEAKER_00: Like he felt like we weren't getting our money's worth.
SPEAKER_00: If the children's workers weren't angry, something went wrong in the pulpit.
SPEAKER_00: His final sermon he preached, Colossians 3.15, be thankful and apologize at the beginning, saying, Yeah, and preaching a few months, he's out of practice.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't know if it was going to go short or long.
SPEAKER_00: Answer long.
SPEAKER_00: He had an outline on why he's thankful.
SPEAKER_00: He dovetailed in there for 15, 20 minutes on heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It was on his list of reasons he's thankful.
SPEAKER_00: What a great sermon to go out on, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: He obviously didn't know it was going to be his last sermon, but for you to preach for, you know, 56 years or whatever it was, and have your last sermon be on thankfulness, that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about all the rewards that are awaiting believers in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to hold the rod of judgment over the nations in our hands.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to reign with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The nations are going to come to Israel to worship, and we're going to facilitate that worship.
SPEAKER_00: We're not the object of worship, but we facilitate it.
SPEAKER_00: We get a white stone, we get a white robe that's washed in the blood of the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: Don't know how that works, but that's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to rule the nations with Jesus, and then the heavens and earth will be destroyed, and a new heavens and a new earth will come, and the streets will be translucent in gold, and there won't be any sun because Jesus will illuminate all things.
SPEAKER_00: You'll be able to tell where Jesus is at all times because he gives light to the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: No more oceans causing divisions, just unity and worship in a cubed city that is as high as it is wide, and it goes up towers the size of the globe into the sun.
SPEAKER_00: Massive and indescribable.
SPEAKER_00: You've commanded us to consider those who've led us in the faith and emulate their faith.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, Elijah went before us in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: He trusted you until the end.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_00: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.