Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1008 ｜ Dr. John MacArthur on Preparing Our Kids for Battle

00:00:00.440 Dr. John MacArthur has been the pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California

00:00:06.300 since 1969.

00:00:08.320 He has given over 3,300 sermons.

00:00:14.020 He is a husband of over 60 years to his wife, Patricia.

00:00:19.960 He is a father, grandfather, great-grandfather.

00:00:24.060 His ministry has had an impact through the power of the Holy Spirit on millions and millions

00:00:29.980 of people, and he is here today to talk about his new book, The War on Children.

00:00:37.420 As we often say on Relatable, children are always the unconsenting subjects of progressive

00:00:42.720 social experiments.

00:00:44.220 Satan seems to have it out for children, and it feels like an especially scary time to

00:00:50.120 be a Christian parent.

00:00:51.320 But Dr. John MacArthur is here today to encourage us, as well as to respond to some of the backlash

00:00:56.580 that he's received in recent weeks over comments that he made about mental illness and mental

00:01:03.200 health.

00:01:04.320 We've got all of that and more on today's episode of Relatable.

00:01:07.720 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable.

00:01:19.460 Happy Thursday.

00:01:20.520 Hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far.

00:01:22.580 So we are going to get into this conversation with John MacArthur.

00:01:26.460 Maybe you have seen his name recently.

00:01:28.700 He went viral on X for saying that PTSD does not exist.

00:01:37.340 Here's thought one.

00:01:38.480 There's no such thing as PTSD.

00:01:40.600 There's no such thing as OCD.

00:01:42.860 There's no such thing as ADHD.

00:01:45.000 Those are noble lies to basically give the excuse to, in the end of the day, to medicate people.

00:02:03.300 And Big Pharma is in charge of a lot of that.

00:02:05.660 This caused quite a bit of backlash on social media, several Christians claiming that this

00:02:12.540 is dangerous, but he is going to explain exactly why he said what he said and what he really

00:02:20.240 meant at the end of our conversation today.

00:02:23.540 First, we are going to get into his new book, The War on Children, why this is such a uniquely

00:02:29.640 dangerous time for children, but why we can absolutely trust as parents in God's sovereignty,

00:02:35.640 and what God will do through our children.

00:02:38.460 He is going to give us advice on what it looks like to live life in light of the hope that

00:02:44.860 we have in Christ, even when the age that we are raising children in is so chaotic.

00:02:49.720 You are going to be so encouraged by this conversation.

00:02:53.340 Before we get into it, just a couple announcements or one request, actually, if you could please

00:02:59.740 leave, if you love this podcast, if you have benefited from it at all, if you could please leave

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00:03:06.840 If that's where you listen, or if you listen on Spotify, you can leave a positive review

00:03:11.020 there, but a five-star review on Apple Podcasts would mean so much.

00:03:15.220 If you watch these episodes, make sure that you are getting the notifications.

00:03:20.000 Make sure that you like and subscribe.

00:03:21.880 That helps us a lot, too.

00:03:24.760 Also, there will be no episode.

00:03:26.580 There will be no episode on Memorial Day.

00:03:29.140 So no episode on Monday.

00:03:31.240 We will be back here on Tuesday, and everyone hopefully will enjoy your safe and fun in

00:03:37.040 the sun weekend.

00:03:38.560 All right.

00:03:39.000 That's all we've got.

00:03:40.380 That's enough preamble.

00:03:42.140 Here is Dr. John MacArthur.

00:03:47.820 Dr. MacArthur, thanks so much for taking the time to join us again.

00:03:51.600 And, you know, I heard you tell a story not too long ago about your great-grandson, and

00:03:58.760 he was, I think, running across the church campus, and someone remarked to you about just

00:04:04.120 the trying, scary times that he is going to grow up in, and you gave a really comforting

00:04:10.440 response to that.

00:04:11.880 And I would just love for you to share that.

00:04:14.420 I think a lot of parents listening to this are nervous about the age in which our children

00:04:19.560 are growing up.

00:04:21.600 Well, this was my great-grandson, who, by the way, his name is John Owen MacArthur,

00:04:32.880 so he's got a lot to live up to with a Puritan name like that.

00:04:35.900 But it was his first foray to run around the church campus, and he was just checking it all

00:04:41.540 out, and his dad was following, you know, at a distance, just kind of watching him.

00:04:46.540 He was bouncing in between the people.

00:04:48.080 He was looking at the fountain and just taking it all in.

00:04:51.600 And somebody came up to me and said, you know, such a beautiful kid, it's too bad he had

00:04:56.160 to be born in a time like this, so difficult.

00:05:00.700 And I said, I don't look at it like that.

00:05:03.540 This is his time in the plan of God.

00:05:06.940 He has come to the kingdom for such a time as this, and God knows what this generation 0.99

00:05:11.840 is going to need, and he's going to raise up the right kind of leaders for this generation

00:05:17.020 as well.

00:05:17.760 And I'm thrilled that this little guy is going to be raised in Grace Church by loving

00:05:24.620 Christian parents to become everything he can be in Christ and make a difference in the

00:05:29.740 world.

00:05:30.080 I'm not worried for him.

00:05:33.060 And he's got a personality that's going to make him—he's going to be something to deal

00:05:37.440 with.

00:05:37.740 So we hope with the gospel clearly penetrated in his heart, he's going to have an impact.

00:05:45.460 Yes.

00:05:46.000 And that is really at least part of the spirit of the recent book that you just published,

00:05:51.920 The War on Children, Providing Refuge for Your Children in a Hostile World.

00:05:58.180 And though we trust in the sovereignty of God, and of course, we know that he is going to

00:06:05.320 raise up the leaders that he has predestined, that he has ordained, there is something seemingly

00:06:12.560 unique about the age that we're in.

00:06:16.040 It does seem like there is, I don't know, a different kind of intensity when it comes

00:06:22.780 to the assault on children's innocence, on children's bodies.

00:06:26.740 Can you speak to that?

00:06:28.860 Is the wickedness that we face now, is it unique in any way, or is it just a reiteration

00:06:33.520 of evil that we've seen in the past?

00:06:37.200 Well, I think it's both of those things.

00:06:40.960 For one thing, this is a post-Christian era. 0.95

00:06:45.120 And in our culture, largely speaking, it's as if the New Testament was never written.

00:06:49.980 It's as if Christ never came, never died, never rose again, as far as the culture is

00:06:55.320 concerned.

00:06:55.760 So we have gone really back to the paganism of the past, the pre-Christian era.

00:07:02.780 This is not post-Christian only.

00:07:05.480 This is pre-Christian. 0.98

00:07:07.460 So what was pre-Christian culture like?

00:07:11.360 Go back to the Old Testament, and you find child sacrifice.

00:07:15.760 You find babies being offered to Baal and Molech. 0.85

00:07:19.420 And there's a chapter in the book where I deal with this, and it covers all the continents.

00:07:25.900 There was child sacrifice in Europe, in Africa, among the Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs. 0.83

00:07:31.300 It was very much a part of pagan life to pacify false gods by the sacrifice of children.

00:07:37.860 And one of the things you have in those ancient cultures like Carthage and Phoenicia was when

00:07:44.700 people ran out of their own children, they basically would buy somebody else's child to

00:07:50.160 offer as a sacrifice.

00:07:51.340 Christianity changed all of that dramatically. 0.98

00:07:55.960 But as the centuries have gone by, and we've wound up with a post-Christian culture, it's 1.00

00:08:04.120 as if it's pre-Christian.

00:08:05.660 And we're back to killing babies at a pace that even the ancient world wouldn't have understood. 0.94

00:08:11.200 I mean, killing them in the womb by the millions, I think, over 60 million in the last number

00:08:18.620 of years since Roe versus Wade. 0.97

00:08:20.700 And if we don't mutilate them in the womb, we wind up mutilating them when they get out. 0.99

00:08:25.920 And we're still mutilating them when they're 12 and 13 years old based upon a horrendous, 0.98

00:08:31.440 satanic, deceptive lie about gender identity.

00:08:36.580 So it's not just enough to be in a fallen world, to have a sinful heart.

00:08:41.520 That's enough of a battle.

00:08:42.960 The culture, the Christian influence in the culture in America for years has protected 1.00

00:08:47.900 the innocent, protected children.

00:08:50.160 That is gone. 0.98

00:08:51.980 As some of the gays said so boldly, we're coming after your children. 1.00

00:08:57.800 And they mean just exactly that. 0.90

00:09:01.240 Right.

00:09:02.220 You write,

00:09:03.020 Today, we are not merely contending with the normal accumulated evil of past generations.

00:09:07.760 We're also living in a culture that has specifically targeted children for destruction.

00:09:15.900 Why is it that it seems like Satan has always had it specifically out for children?

00:09:22.260 Why do we continually see this kind of manifestation of evil?

00:09:28.340 Well, because they're the most vulnerable.

00:09:30.500 I mean, they're the least able to defend themselves.

00:09:35.580 Satan goes after the weakest and children are the weakest.

00:09:40.140 And the design of God was to provide protection for that in the family.

00:09:47.080 Protective parents and protective grandparents and protective friends.

00:09:51.800 And the basis of the family was going to provide the protection, the insulation for children.

00:09:57.460 But in this culture, the family has been basically dismantled, destroyed, the attack on women, the attack on men, the attack on the family, the sexual revolution, followed by a homosexual revolution, as Romans 1 says, followed by the reprobate mind where you can't even think straight. 0.87

00:10:18.560 All of that literally has caused this open assault on children. 0.66

00:10:24.020 And this is satanic.

00:10:25.400 Satan knows that if you want to get them, you get them young.

00:10:29.080 So it comes through.

00:10:31.580 Just think about it this way.

00:10:33.000 It's in the educational system.

00:10:34.920 It's in the breakdown of the family where Satan has access.

00:10:37.580 And it's in the cell phone, in the hands of the child, the corruption at a level that never has occurred in human history.

00:10:44.900 So they're not only fighting natural fallenness, natural evil.

00:10:49.140 They're fighting the culture, abandoning all of its normal protections and allowing assaults that children have never experienced in the Christian era. 0.97

00:11:02.800 Let's put it that way.

00:11:03.620 It's more like the paganism of pre-Christian history.

00:11:07.580 You know, it's crazy to think that Obergefell, which attempted to redefine something that the law can't redefine, and that is marriage, happened in 2015.

00:11:18.400 That's not a long time ago at all.

00:11:20.820 And as you mentioned, the sexual revolution has moved forward since 2015.

00:11:26.240 Of course, it was happening long before that.

00:11:28.700 But since 2015, at an astounding clip, I think most people, even Christians, can't even wrap our heads around how we went from love is love, how does it harm you for two men or two women to get married, to what we're seeing now.

00:11:46.040 You mentioned how gender ideology has convinced us in the name of empathy and love to allow children to butcher their bodies because they supposedly believe that they are the opposite sex. 0.88

00:11:59.540 How do you explain just how quickly we have traveled from the redefinition of marriage to the complete obliteration, attempted obliteration of biological reality that, as you said, is now showing up in the lives of young, young children who are being purposely deceived and confused by their parents and doctors?

00:12:22.920 Well, I think it's because of the fact that the people who are the worst purveyors of Satan's agenda have so much power.

00:12:36.780 And I'm not just talking about political power, but there's plenty of that.

00:12:41.120 I mean, when you have the president say, if you're a transgender young person, you need to know I've got your back.

00:12:47.920 Well, that's a bizarre statement to say.

00:12:51.800 I mean, what I thought of when the president said, I've got your back, it was as if he's going to push him off a cliff into a disastrous oblivion.

00:12:59.820 But if the politicians are protecting those people and if the media, the educational system, television, music industry, I mean, you name it, film, all of it is going to advocate for that.

00:13:16.260 The tsunami of this corruption coming at children will escalate as fast as media can produce it.

00:13:27.320 When you think about going back maybe five years, even with the Disney Corporation, there was still some sense of Disney means family.

00:13:37.640 And now it's frightening to see what's happened.

00:13:40.520 I was just yesterday at the largest hospital in L.A., and they're one of the leading places where they do this transgender surgery.

00:13:59.920 What happened to the Hippocratic Oath of the doctors to protect?

00:14:03.640 Yes. Yes. And that's a really scary part of this.

00:14:08.860 A lot of parents are intimidated by these doctors who threaten them by saying, you know what, if you don't go along with what we say about so-called transgenderism, your child's going to commit suicide.

00:14:21.540 Or we are going to remove your child from your home and we are going to ensure that this child is, quote unquote, transitioned ourselves. 0.98

00:14:31.400 I don't think that we have ever seen something like this, and it causes a lot of, even Christian parents who hope that something like that, of course, would never happen to them.

00:14:43.420 It causes a lot of anxiety.

00:14:45.400 It causes a lot of fear and a lot of, I don't want to say paranoia as if it's unjustified at all, but it causes a lot of panic.

00:14:54.420 I would say among Christian parents to look out the window and see all of this chaos.

00:15:01.680 How do we balance the real concerns that we have with what is going on and the trust and the hope that we have in Christ?

00:15:11.480 We don't want to bury our heads in the sand and pretend like these threats don't exist.

00:15:15.360 At the same time, we don't want to be preoccupied by them constantly so that we're living in this state of fear.

00:15:23.480 So what does that look like?

00:15:26.780 Well, I think there's a dynamic that you have to understand.

00:15:30.240 The whole world lies in the lap of the evil one.

00:15:33.460 That's what the Bible says.

00:15:34.720 Satan is the god of this world.

00:15:36.860 He is ruling in this world.

00:15:39.580 He goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

00:15:45.120 So this is not just a political issue, an educational issue, a moral issue.

00:15:50.140 This is a satanic conspiracy. 1.00

00:15:52.360 And at the bottom of the efforts of Satan is one dominating reality, and that is that he is a liar. 1.00

00:16:03.280 Jesus said Satan is a liar and a murderer. 1.00

00:16:07.880 He's the father of lies and a murderer. 1.00

00:16:12.180 He's a deceiver. 1.00

00:16:13.760 All of his emissaries and all of his agents are deceivers and liars. 1.00

00:16:18.900 And I think going along with all that's happening to assault the family, to assault virtue, to assault Christianity, of course. 0.99

00:16:28.780 So go back to COVID.

00:16:30.560 How did they get away with that?

00:16:32.060 How did they do so much destruction to families, to children by taking them out of school?

00:16:38.600 They did it by fabricating lies about the supposed danger of COVID.

00:16:44.560 I think the toughest thing right now for Christians in this world is to get to the truth.

00:16:51.220 The culture is not going to give that to you.

00:16:55.060 Oh, here and there, there'll be a whistleblower.

00:16:57.940 Here and there, there'll be somebody who's willing to tell you the truth.

00:17:00.780 But there's a massive effort to build an entire society on lies so that people, first of all, are confused.

00:17:10.200 And secondly, that they are made afraid.

00:17:12.380 That the lies that they want to tell frighten you, like, you know, if you don't quarantine at home and stay at home, you're going to kill people.

00:17:20.420 If you're not vaccinated, you're going to be the cause of somebody's death.

00:17:24.100 If the kids go to school, they're going to pass on this illness and people are going to die.

00:17:28.820 So that the extreme lies that we've seen happen are part of the fabric of how this thing is laid out.

00:17:39.360 And I would just add, recently a new study was done. 0.89

00:17:43.920 And the truth is that if you have transgender medication or transgender surgery, you are 12 times more likely to kill yourself. 0.99

00:17:57.460 So that lie that if you don't let your child follow the feelings of this bizarre transgender movement, you're going to cause your kid to commit suicide is actually the opposite of the truth. 0.99

00:18:27.460 Do you think that Christians have any responsibility in how quickly this revolution has gone? 0.92

00:18:39.340 It does feel like to me, especially the Christians that have been elected to represent us in D.C., that when Obergefell happened, most conservatives, even people who consider themselves Christian conservatives, just decided, you know what, that's a lost cause.

00:18:55.200 We're going to move on from that.

00:18:57.120 OK, they got marriage.

00:18:59.220 Who cares?

00:18:59.880 Not that big of a deal.

00:19:01.400 And let's move on to the economy and immigration and some other things.

00:19:05.520 It just feels like there wasn't a whole lot of courage at that time to say, hang on, this is a fundamental existential societal issue.

00:19:15.680 And we can't just we can't just move on from this.

00:19:19.060 So I don't know.

00:19:19.960 Do Christians bear any responsibility for the direction that this has gone? 0.99

00:19:23.260 Yeah, it's a really important question, Ali.

00:19:26.940 And yes, they do.

00:19:28.220 We are salt and light in the world.

00:19:30.660 And, you know, Jesus said, if the salt has lost its savor, then what effect is it going to have?

00:19:36.720 So, yes, Christians have stood by and watched as spectators.

00:19:42.640 But it's more than that.

00:19:44.660 You have to step back one one step from the Christians and ask the question, have the churches stood up? 0.97

00:19:51.420 You know, for the last 20 years, the evangelical movement has been bent on courting the world, bent on finding a way to connect with the culture.

00:20:05.400 I mean, this is opposite of what the church is in the world.

00:20:07.980 We are against the world.

00:20:09.840 Contra mundo.

00:20:11.200 We confront the world.

00:20:13.580 We condemn the world.

00:20:16.060 Friendship with the world is enmity with God.

00:20:18.940 It doesn't mean that we lack kindness or compassion.

00:20:22.780 Quite the contrary.

00:20:24.380 It's kindness and compassion that forces us to be honest.

00:20:27.900 But when you have so many mega church pastors who largely influence masses of quote unquote Christian people who are only fearful that they might offend the world,

00:20:41.820 the church gives up its power.

00:20:45.260 It fails to fulfill its calling in the world.

00:20:50.960 And I think you have so many of these churches trying to make connections with sinful people without offending them that we have failed to be honest about sin and righteousness and judgment.

00:21:07.920 And I think this comes out in so many, many ways.

00:21:14.100 Churches are afraid to identify LGBTQ for what it is.

00:21:20.440 Many churches are talking about same-sex attraction as if it's something normal.

00:21:27.260 Church leaders are talking about that as if it's a God-given design that you have those feelings.

00:21:33.700 And, I mean, why would we cave in on that?

00:21:37.980 There's a recent edition of Christianity Today, which through the years has been a flagship magazine where you could kind of catch up on evangelicalism.

00:21:46.660 Their latest issue was all about LGBTQ and pronouns.

00:21:50.040 So the evangelical church has failed to take a stand.

00:21:56.300 You know, when COVID came and our church sued the state of California and city of Los Angeles because they tried to shut us down, we sued them to stay open.

00:22:07.820 You'll remember we won that lawsuit.

00:22:09.600 But evangelical leaders said to me and about me, why are you fighting this battle?

00:22:17.880 Why don't you wait and fight a bigger battle?

00:22:21.180 And I said, we fight every battle.

00:22:24.400 We earnestly contend for anything that comes at the faith.

00:22:28.420 There are no small battles.

00:22:29.940 You know, you die a thousand cuts.

00:22:31.500 But literally, there were articles written, we're wasting our ammunition on COVID, which we ought to be storing up for some future battle of homosexuality. 0.98

00:22:43.440 Well, I watched that fall on deaf ears.

00:22:47.760 They didn't fight COVID, and many of them aren't fighting the homosexual intrusion either. 0.97

00:22:52.720 So we fight for the truth.

00:22:54.540 We uphold the truth.

00:22:56.200 That's our calling in the world.

00:22:57.540 And when the church doesn't do that, Christian people get confused about what the issues really are.

00:23:03.540 And how can you expect them to take a stand if their leaders don't?

00:23:08.640 You wrote a book that I own 24 years ago.

00:23:13.820 Let's see.

00:23:14.140 Yes, it came out September of 2000.

00:23:17.080 Why Government Can't Save You, an alternative to political activism.

00:23:22.040 Really, really helpful book.

00:23:24.060 How do we balance that reality, that biblical truth, that we know that the government cannot save us, that we cannot put all of our trust in princes and politicians, understanding that Jesus' victory is sure.

00:23:36.860 That's where our hope is.

00:23:38.780 That's what we cling to.

00:23:40.420 While also understanding that politics have an effect on people, that policy really matters, that they can—it can lead to the greater slaughter of unborn children.

00:23:51.960 It can lead to children being taken out of their parents' home because the parent won't call Jack Sally.

00:23:58.400 So, like, how do we balance that?

00:24:00.100 How do we balance understanding that there has to be political involvement with Christians, and as you said, even with churches, with also realizing that at the end of the day, God is the one who is in charge?

00:24:14.000 Yeah, well, first of all, Ali, you understand that Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.

00:24:21.240 If my kingdom was of this world, my servants would fight.

00:24:24.200 So we don't start revolutions.

00:24:26.140 We don't overthrow the government.

00:24:28.900 That's not the Christian behavior. 1.00

00:24:32.180 In fact, we conduct ourselves as good citizens.

00:24:35.360 We should be the best citizens in a society.

00:24:40.060 Now, the way that you live out your Christianity in a society is by your godly living, your righteous living, upholding truth and the word of God.

00:24:54.040 And how does that coincide with politics?

00:24:56.960 Politics, for me, politics gives me an opportunity to stand up for righteousness, to stand up for righteousness.

00:25:08.340 So sometimes you've got two fairly bad options with candidates.

00:25:15.820 You might say neither one of them is, you know, consistent with biblical righteousness, but I want to make the best choice I can.

00:25:24.560 We have to uphold righteousness.

00:25:27.620 We have to stand up if we have any mechanism in the government that we live in.

00:25:33.820 And the United States certainly has that more than any other nation in history to declare our stand for righteousness.

00:25:41.920 Then we need to exercise that.

00:25:44.520 But again, it's not about it's not about economics.

00:25:47.880 It's about righteousness.

00:25:49.220 And that that that has become the issue.

00:25:52.240 I mean, in all honesty, the Democrats and the Republicans aren't particularly against each other based on economics.

00:26:01.440 It's it's morality against immorality. 0.99

00:26:04.400 When your agenda is kill babies, mutilate children, advocate homosexual marriage. 1.00

00:26:15.220 Those are sins of epic proportions that will completely destroy a culture. 1.00

00:26:22.100 So if I am in a society where I can take a stand against that, then then I have to do that.

00:26:28.840 That that's my my responsibility before God to do that.

00:26:32.880 But at the same time, I understand that changing the culture will not change the people.

00:26:38.560 The gospel changing the people will change the culture.

00:26:42.480 So the church can't fall off on the sort of political side, the nationalistic side to the detriment of the proclamation of the gospel.

00:26:52.500 There's only two possibilities.

00:26:55.120 One, you can change the culture and that'll change people.

00:26:58.260 Or you change people and they'll change the culture.

00:27:00.520 And that's the only correct way.

00:27:02.520 That's the biblical way.

00:27:03.500 And if we're looking back at the ancient pagan world, you mentioned how when Christians burst on the scene in a world that was full of child sacrifice, the objectification of children, the sick, the elderly women. 0.96

00:27:19.340 And how did that look concretely, tangibly when Christians changed culture and ended up changing the world because of their radical revolutionary view of human beings and specifically children? 0.86

00:27:33.640 Well, I would say, first of all, it didn't go well because they were martyred.

00:27:40.360 I mean, when you look at the apostles, they killed all the apostles, basically, with a few exceptions.

00:27:46.120 In the early church, persecution broke out.

00:27:48.880 Severe persecution broke out.

00:27:50.580 But eventually, as the gospel began to find its way into the hearts of people in the first and second century, it began to change the culture dramatically.

00:28:03.820 And historically, you can show where cultures began to abandon those, you know, just really vile pagan practices that were really the defining aspects of their religion. 0.68

00:28:17.580 Sexual orgies, prostitutes who were priests and priestesses in these false temples, all of that began to go away.

00:28:28.140 Within the first three centuries, Christianity had developed enough that it was having an influence on the culture. 0.78

00:28:34.520 Even though it was kind of the Roman Catholic Church that sort of launched itself in the 300s,

00:28:42.660 that church did have a moral impact on the culture because it did uphold biblical morality.

00:28:51.660 Even if they didn't get the gospel right, they got biblical morality right.

00:28:56.680 And they were a monolithic force for that morality.

00:29:00.500 And they held the culture to that.

00:29:02.840 But as that began to break down, even the Reformation added to that, the true gospel.

00:29:09.800 But as the Reformation eventually gave way to the Enlightenment and the increase of philosophical ideologies,

00:29:19.840 the culture was no longer propped up by Christian principles, Christian truth, biblical truth.

00:29:29.500 And we've seen the result of that.

00:29:30.920 Mm-hmm.

00:29:32.420 Orphanages, hospitals, homeless shelters, organizations that provided aid, resources to those who were considered less than Christians treated them with the dignity that they knew that they had

00:29:48.120 because of this radical message of the equality of value of image bearers.

00:29:54.500 And also the gospel that says that we are all equally dead and sin apart from Christ, and we can, by grace through faith, be made alive in Christ.

00:30:03.960 I mean, that changes what you think of people.

00:30:07.260 Of course, in ancient Rome and ancient Greece, how they measured value was not by your innate worth and not by your humanity,

00:30:14.300 but in different ways what you could produce and what you could add.

00:30:18.360 Christianity changed all of that, and I think people believe that we are going to be able to preserve the parts of Christianity that we like, 0.90

00:30:29.920 for example, human rights, even when Christianity loses its entire influence here in the United States.

00:30:37.860 That's just not the case.

00:30:39.480 We're not going to be able to retain the things that Christianity brought us once we have decided Christianity is of no use to us anymore.

00:30:48.440 Yeah, it really becomes, and that's all very true, and I agree with that.

00:30:53.960 It all comes down to an authority.

00:30:56.500 As soon as a society abandons an authority, it has no way to define right or wrong, truth or falsehood, morality.

00:31:06.900 So again, you're back to the Bible. 0.71

00:31:10.140 When people accepted the Bible, biblical morality, they accepted the Bible as an authority.

00:31:16.080 When leaders accepted the Bible as an authority, you had a divine, transcendent revelation of human behavior, what God would tolerate, what he wouldn't.

00:31:29.700 There was a threat of judgment.

00:31:30.980 Even the founding fathers of America knew that the Constitution would only work in a society where there was this divine authority,

00:31:40.060 where there was the threat of a divine judge and divine judgment.

00:31:44.580 So when a society abandons the authority, then you can do anything, because there's not a common authority.

00:31:55.480 What we have in the culture today is the authority is how I feel about myself.

00:32:02.140 It's literally insane.

00:32:04.060 If you're a man and you are saying, I demand to be considered a woman, the insanity of that on the surface is obvious.

00:32:13.160 The simplest kind of authority would be, well, you could take a look at the biology and the DNA, and we could tell you you are a man.

00:32:22.240 But when you reject every form of authority, even natural law, and then you reject biblical law, you get utter chaos that's completely out of control.

00:32:34.660 Everybody is doing exactly what they did in the Old Testament, whatever is right in their own eyes.

00:32:39.280 Right.

00:32:39.740 And if you don't like what I do, you have hurt me.

00:32:45.940 You have harmed me, because my feelings are who I am.

00:32:51.000 Yes.

00:32:51.560 It's the God of self.

00:32:53.600 And the God of self will follow its whims, will follow its demands,

00:32:57.680 even if it's sacrificing biological reality, as you said, biblical truth as well.

00:33:14.660 What does it look like in the everyday life of parents who are looking at the chaos that is before us,

00:33:24.340 and with the expectation that in a lot of ways it's probably going to get worse?

00:33:29.140 But as you said in the beginning, raising our children with joy, with hope, with trust in the Lord's faithfulness,

00:33:37.260 with His goodness, that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

00:33:40.460 What does that look like moment by moment?

00:33:44.520 Well, I think it's twofold.

00:33:46.380 First of all, you have to provide protection.

00:33:48.460 We don't hear about that, but that is a vital, vital responsibility for a child.

00:33:56.020 When I think back to our four kids being raised, we were as much concerned to protect them as we were to instruct them.

00:34:04.620 And what that meant was we protected them from things that could harm them,

00:34:07.980 whether it was playing in the street, or whether it was playing with tools that they shouldn't handle,

00:34:14.260 or whether it was making friends with kids that we didn't think were going to be a good influence on them.

00:34:20.980 I think parents have lost the sense that these children are so vulnerable, so vulnerable to whatever comes their way.

00:34:31.960 And they don't have the maturity, obviously, to pick and choose and discern what to accept and what not to accept.

00:34:40.840 So parental protection is huge.

00:34:43.540 That means I've got to protect them from bad educators.

00:34:48.920 You know, Psalm 1, don't sit in the seat of scoffers.

00:34:53.520 You know, you don't put your kid in a school where Christianity is being mocked.

00:34:57.960 So you're making an impossible situation for that child to go down the right path when somebody far more powerful than that child is pounding into their brain things that are not true.

00:35:14.360 So protection, I think, is missing.

00:35:16.940 I think parents are irresponsible because they let kids watch whatever they want.

00:35:21.480 They let them have cell phones.

00:35:23.020 There's a book out, you may have seen it, called The Anxious Generation.

00:35:29.020 And it's a book about what happens to this generation of kids from 2010 to 2015 who got into the cell phones.

00:35:36.720 And how in an unprotected environment, their souls were stolen from them.

00:35:45.000 And it's led to this increase in self-harm, cutting, and even suicide.

00:35:52.500 So protection is a big thing.

00:35:54.880 And protection means you have a father who is a protector and you have a mother who is a protector.

00:36:00.520 In addition to that, the positive side is you want to instruct them in what is right.

00:36:08.080 You want to raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

00:36:11.260 The book, The War on Children, starts out by dealing with the problem.

00:36:16.180 But the bulk of the book is looking at what the scripture says about raising your children so that you can enjoy the fruits of that effort.

00:36:27.280 And I don't think that any culture can stand against a faithful family that provides protection for their children and provides instruction in the word of God.

00:36:38.560 And if you live it out, it's not this difficult.

00:36:41.660 I mean, this is God's design.

00:36:44.040 One husband, one wife, mom, dad, a family built around the truth of God's word.

00:36:50.920 The children are being protected, being loved, and being instructed.

00:36:55.080 But the home has become sort of an ancillary issue.

00:37:00.540 Everybody's career-oriented.

00:37:02.780 They're going a million directions.

00:37:04.520 We all know that.

00:37:05.240 They're sitting together, but they're all looking at their own cell phones.

00:37:10.240 I mean, we all know these things.

00:37:11.940 So to get a hold of the family, to provide protection and instruction, it's as simple as that.

00:37:19.660 Yes.

00:37:20.260 The War on Children.

00:37:21.840 I remember you did a similar sermon series a few years ago, and it was in the midst of COVID.

00:37:27.340 And I just remember listening to that.

00:37:29.000 And it provided so much help for me.

00:37:31.080 And this book goes into more detail about all those things, and I'm so thankful for it.

00:37:34.960 I've got one more question for you.

00:37:49.600 A lot of people saw comments that you made recently that went viral.

00:37:54.100 And I'm sure that you don't spend your days scrolling through Twitter and social media.

00:37:59.560 But comments that you made about PTSD and mental illness, ADHD, have received some backlash.

00:38:11.180 And I'm just wondering if you could talk just a little bit more about that.

00:38:14.740 I know we're about to run out of time.

00:38:16.640 But for people who are saying, what are you talking about?

00:38:19.460 There's no such thing as PTSD.

00:38:21.440 There's no such thing as ADHD.

00:38:23.480 Of course they are.

00:38:24.460 I'm diagnosed with those things.

00:38:26.560 What do you say to that?

00:38:29.560 So just to sum it up with a couple of clear foundational truths, the brain can be sick.

00:38:37.820 The brain can be damaged.

00:38:41.200 You can have a tumor.

00:38:42.180 You can have encephalitis.

00:38:43.240 You can have a brain problem that's clinically manifest, that can be diagnosed, and that can

00:38:50.120 be treated with medication and surgery for the brain.

00:38:54.200 The mind is something completely different.

00:38:57.760 The mind is transcendent.

00:39:01.320 You can't fix the mind with a chemical.

00:39:05.460 You can wound the brain.

00:39:08.120 And that's what's coming out now in psychiatry.

00:39:10.300 You go back to Thomas Saas back in 1957, I think, when he wrote the book, The Myth of Mental Health.

00:39:17.180 He wasn't saying that people don't have problems.

00:39:20.080 What he was saying is they aren't brain problems.

00:39:23.520 So you can't use some kind of chemical as if it were to fix the brain.

00:39:28.220 The big deception was there's a chemical imbalance in the brain.

00:39:32.760 We all heard that for decades and decades.

00:39:35.580 Take this medication and it'll fix the chemical imbalance.

00:39:40.140 Well, they're now admitting that that was all a useful lie.

00:39:43.920 There's no way to define people's difficulty in dealing with the issues of life as a brain

00:39:53.260 problem.

00:39:53.980 It's a mind problem that's very different.

00:39:57.020 So what I was saying was, is there post-traumatic stress?

00:40:03.020 Of course.

00:40:04.060 Is it a brain syndrome?

00:40:06.060 No.

00:40:07.140 Is there ADHD?

00:40:09.020 Are there kids who have trouble paying attention?

00:40:12.900 Trouble sitting still?

00:40:14.160 Yeah, I was one of them.

00:40:15.500 Is it a brain problem?

00:40:17.060 No.

00:40:18.580 What about obsessive compulsive problems?

00:40:22.180 Is that a brain disorder?

00:40:23.920 No.

00:40:25.080 But part of the culture's bent is to say, hey, it's not your fault.

00:40:31.100 It's not your fault.

00:40:31.760 You've got a disorder.

00:40:34.080 You've got a disorder.

00:40:34.940 You can have a brain disorder, but that's not what they're talking about.

00:40:38.920 Like PTSD is really grief.

00:40:41.640 It's horrendous grief.

00:40:43.300 It's survival guilt.

00:40:45.320 It's having watched your buddies blown to pieces.

00:40:48.140 You've got to deal with that grief.

00:40:50.440 But putting a chemical into your body that will alter your brain, that's what's becoming

00:40:56.980 the issue now.

00:40:58.220 And there are lots of psychiatrists who are being honest for the first time.

00:41:03.680 There's a book that's very helpful.

00:41:06.900 It's called A Profession Without Reason by Bruce Levine.

00:41:11.200 And what he basically says is that psychology and psychiatry has been trying to deal with

00:41:19.080 mind problems, with things that alter the brain.

00:41:22.520 They don't fix the mind problems, the emotional issues, but they do negatively impact the brain.

00:41:30.100 That's all I was saying.

00:41:31.580 If you want to solve your mind problems, you've got to find love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness,

00:41:38.620 faith, meekness, self-control.

00:41:40.660 Those are spiritual virtues that are available in Christ.

00:41:44.920 Don't turn to chemicals.

00:41:46.260 Turn to Christ.

00:41:46.920 And we've had psychiatrists on this show say the same thing that you said, by the way, that

00:41:55.340 actually we are causing a lot of harm, especially to children, by diagnosing or medicalizing every

00:42:03.100 single behavior that doesn't fit perfectly into a classroom or doesn't fall in line within

00:42:10.360 this uniform range of normal.

00:42:12.740 It is actually causing side effects in these kids, in these veterans, that actually make

00:42:17.820 it worse than what they were dealing with before in a lot of ways.

00:42:22.180 So there are a lot of people saying what you are saying as well.

00:42:26.740 And I appreciate your boldness.

00:42:29.620 I really do, as always.

00:42:31.460 Thank you so much, Dr. MacArthur.

00:42:33.480 Thank you for your ministry.

00:42:35.400 I have lots of friends who attend your church and they're thankful for your faithfulness as

00:42:40.680 well.

00:42:40.860 So I appreciate it so much.

00:42:43.640 My pleasure, Alibeth.

00:42:45.740 I'm thrilled with your ministry over the years.

00:42:48.660 Thank you for being so faithful.

00:42:50.400 Thank you so much.

00:42:51.340 Have a great day.

00:42:52.760 You too.

00:42:57.340 Okay, so all of this is why we are having our Share the Arrows conference this fall, September

00:43:05.620 28th.

00:43:06.600 We are bringing together Christian women.

00:43:09.540 You don't have to be a mom.

00:43:10.760 There's going to be a lot of moms there, but there are going to be single women there. 1.00

00:43:13.720 There are going to be college women there. 1.00

00:43:14.860 There are going to be grandmothers there, grandmother age women there. 1.00

00:43:20.060 And we are all coming together as Christian women to understand, to get our heads around

00:43:25.440 the craziness that we are facing coming from so many different directions as the church.

00:43:32.260 But also, how do we combat it in our everyday lives with clarity and courage, with whatever

00:43:37.580 resources, whatever talents, whatever people influence God has given us?

00:43:42.500 Like, how do we face this current age with courage?

00:43:45.360 That's why we're having people like Rosaria Butterfield, Elisa Childers, Abby Halberstadt. 0.72

00:43:50.720 These are apologists.

00:43:51.880 These are authors.

00:43:53.420 This is a homeschooling mom of 10 that is going to just encourage, equip, and empower us.

00:43:59.380 That's why we're having Francesca Battistelli lead us in worship, even some more speakers.

00:44:04.080 That's why we are coming together with thousands of us in Dallas, Texas on September 28th.

00:44:10.400 Go to sharethearrows.com.

00:44:12.900 You can go to sharethearrows.com.

00:44:14.840 Your ticket options are all right there.

00:44:16.880 Either come by yourself.

00:44:18.020 That's totally fine.

00:44:19.180 Or bring friends, bring sisters, bring your mom, bring your women's ministry. 0.65

00:44:24.400 It's going to be an incredible time, and I'm so excited for it.

00:44:28.460 That's sharethearrows.com.

00:44:30.840 All right.

00:44:31.480 That's all we've got time for today.

00:44:32.980 We will see you back here next Tuesday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - May 23, 2024

Ep 1008 ｜ Dr. John MacArthur on Preparing Our Kids for Battle

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