re: Conservative pastor John McArthur dead from pneumonia at age 86

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False teachers and preachers are leading millions of people to hell. McArthur was one of them.

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Heck, I'll play...

What did he teach that was false, and who, in your opinion, are some teachers that we should listen to that aren't, in your words, false?

Billy Graham? Adrian Rogers? Brennan Manning? R.C. Sproul? Charles Stanley (not his heretic son)? D. James Kennedy?

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I think it’s critical to point out just how horrific and damaging the man made 5 point TULIP doctrine of Calvinism and lordship salvation he spearheaded really is.

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This is the only valid criticism of him to be posted in this thread so far.

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What’s so funny?

ETA: Spiritual abuse is real. Did this not happen?

Erik Erickson remembered. him in his newsletter this morning.

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Years ago, in an age before Donald Trump, I got asked to preach at a conference. The set up was neat. The political guys were asked to talk about theology and the theological guys were asked to talk about politics. Since I was in seminary, I got invited explicitly to preach. I chose Genesis 1:1.

I walked on stage with a MacArthur Study Bible. I normally use a Ligonier Ministries Reformation Study Bible. For some reason, I had the MacArthur Study Bible with me on the trip.

I climbed into the pulpit before a giant crowd pretty puffed up with pride at what I was getting to do. Then I noticed a head of silver hair taking a seat right in front of me, below the pulpit.

John MacArthur looked up at me, we made eye contact, he smiled, and all I wanted to do was die. My thirty minutes became eight minutes. I rushed through as quickly as I could so I could get off that stage as fast as possible.

Afterwards, a mutual friend texted me. “Did you just preach in front of MacArthur?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“He said you did great, but slow down,” came the text back.

John MacArthur was a theological giant. Stories of him taking the time to attend small Bible studies he had been invited to are plentiful. Stories of him making time for random people are plentiful. He had a passion for the Word. Despite a global ministry, he never forgot he pastored an actual church with an actual, visible congregation. He loved the Lord and now gets to see Him face to face. I look forward to seeing him again one day.

God bless his family.

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That’s not a place I Wii be

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You can't know that for certain. That is one of the main heretical teaching of the false churches and preachers. (Once saved always saved) There is no doubt that God the Father judges what's in a persons heart and not what is visible to the human perception. There is also no doubt that Jesus himself said those who persevere to the end will receive salvation.

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John 15
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

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That’s not a place I Wii be

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You can't know that for certain.

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The book of First John has assurance of salvation as one of its primary thematic encouragements to the Christian. You make it sound like the Christian should not seek assurance even if God’s word includes such for us.

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That is one of the main heretical teaching of the false churches and preachers. (Once saved always saved)

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I think you and many others have a false understanding of this doctrine. The Scriptures certainly teach what the Reformed tradition labels “perseverance of the saints” (or “preservation of the saints”, as I prefer to call it)—and I would be happy to defend that claim—but it doesn’t teach that if a person believes himself to be saved, that means he is, or that he can live however he wants without consequence. In fact, that doctrine of preservation only works consistently within the Reformed soteriology that connects it to God’s electing and regenerating graces and acts. The reason why the elect Christian cannot fall away fully and finally is because He was saved by grace in the first place, and Christ will not lose any of the sheep that belong to Him.

Because the gracious work of God in regeneration also includes the continued grace of sanctification, the truly saved person will show evidences of a true conversion by the Spirit through increased conformity to God’s moral law (“good works”) over the course of their life. Therefore, anyone who embraces sin and rejects obedience to God as a pattern of living has reason to doubt their salvation is true, and therefore should run directly Christ, repenting and trusting in the forgiveness He alone provides for sin.

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There is no doubt that God the Father judges what's in a persons heart and not what is visible to the human perception. There is also no doubt that Jesus himself said those who persevere to the end will receive salvation.

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Amen to both of those statements. The only issue I have with your understanding of perseverance is that you seem to make that an entirely man-centered activity rather than seeing that as a work of God.