The NXR Podcast - BONUS EPISODE - John MacArthur & ＂Loser Theology＂｜ Live with Pastor Joel

00:00:00.000 All right, listen, guys, I get it.

00:00:01.900 Many of you are unable to financially support this ministry because you're spending your

00:00:05.900 cash and your lives on raising young children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

00:00:10.740 Praise God for you and that endeavor.

00:00:13.860 However, algorithms are a thing.

00:00:16.380 Shadow banning, sadly, is a thing.

00:00:19.000 And one major way that you can help to expand the reach and effectiveness of this ministry

00:00:24.160 that doesn't cost you a dime is by spending just a few moments leaving us a five-star review. Also,

00:00:31.900 perhaps even more effective than that, you can share our podcast with a friend. We hope you'll

00:00:37.100 take the time to do so. Thank you so much. God bless. So Pastor John MacArthur from Grace

00:00:42.980 Community Church in LA, California, has infamously said, we lose down here. Speaking to Christians,

00:00:51.100 speaking to the church of Jesus Christ, we are going to lose. We will not waltz into the kingdom

00:00:59.280 of God. The post-millennial hopeful eschatology is a sham. The reality is that we lose down here.

00:01:06.780 Don't take my word for it. Go ahead and take MacArthur's. Let me play the clip and then I'll

00:01:11.160 break it down. Oh, guess what? We don't win down here. We lose. You ready for that? Oh, you were

00:01:23.440 a post-millennialist. You thought we're just going to go waltzing into the kingdom as you took over

00:01:27.540 the world. No. We lose here. Get it. They killed Jesus. They killed all the apostles. We're all

00:01:36.100 going to be persecuted. If any man come after me, let him, what? By himself. Garbage of prosperity

00:01:48.440 gospel. No, we don't win down here. Are you ready for that? Just to clear the air. I love this 0.99

00:01:55.300 clarity. We don't win. We lose on this battlefield, but we win on the big one, the eternal one.

00:02:08.300 I love that clarity too. Let me start with that. I love that clarity because a lot of times we talk

00:02:13.980 around one another. We use ambiguous language. We are not clear about our theology, the implications

00:02:21.180 of our theology what we actually mean what we actually believe and so here we have john

00:02:26.600 macarthur not a bunch of christian nationalist advocates which i would be one right i'm not

00:02:31.820 necessarily excited about the label but i do fall into the camp we don't have a bunch of christian

00:02:36.780 nationalist you know young reformed and restless guys saying hey this is loser theology no you have

00:02:43.240 john macarthur who ironically would be the protestant pope he himself saying we hold to

00:02:50.180 loser theology. It is clarity. I love this clarity, says Dr. John MacArthur. And I love it too,

00:02:56.800 says Pastor Joel Webbin. I appreciate when we're honest about what we believe. That is his belief.

00:03:02.900 That is his theology. We lose. We lose. We lose. Calling it loser theology is not a pejorative.

00:03:11.920 It is not harsh. It is not rude. It is not mean. It's not mocking. It is the accurate label chosen

00:03:19.020 not by again the christian nationalist side of the aisle but rather chosen by john macarthur

00:03:25.100 and those that he represents himself it is his term loser theology now let me give a little bit

00:03:33.340 of friendly brotherly advice loser theology is not going to play well with young christian men

00:03:41.700 this is what watching the leaky dispensational again using john macarthur's own labels he would

00:03:48.920 say that he is a dispensationalist albeit he says a leaky dispensationalist leaky dispensational

00:03:55.300 we've got something coming on here leaky dispensational pre-millennial eschatology

00:04:01.460 it's not going to play well and watching it and those who are advocates of it is kind of like

00:04:07.880 watching the last living dinosaur slowly walk off into the horizon right it's it has an expiration

00:04:15.940 date that is rapidly approaching. This very novel theology, dispensationalism, namely,

00:04:22.800 it's only 150 years old. We've got Darby. We've got the Schofield Bible. You've got certain events

00:04:28.220 like Israel becoming a nation state in the 40s. And so 70 years, people got excited. You've got,

00:04:34.420 you know, all these things happened that made us think in a certain term. This is not biblical

00:04:41.640 theology it doesn't have its roots within 2 000 years of church history historic premillennialism

00:04:47.680 we can track it back to justin martin right that's arguably the oldest eschatological viewpoint

00:04:53.280 quickly on the heels we have all millennialism and post-millennialism but dispensational

00:04:58.540 premillennialism is not historic premillennialism it is a dying breed it came on the scene in the

00:05:05.320 1800s. It is a novel idea, and it has run its course. Three terms that you should be familiar

00:05:11.860 with. Now, I'm going to define them in the way that I'm using them, so don't inject to me a

00:05:16.740 certain meaning that I don't actually intend. Here are the terms, and I will define them.

00:05:21.980 Gnosticism, Pietism, and Nihilism. Gnosticism, Pietism, and Nihilism. I do believe that these

00:05:29.440 are accurate theological terms, not in every sense of the word, but this is how I mean it.

00:05:34.100 Gnosticism, that there's a radical dualism, a radical divide between the spiritual and the

00:05:41.940 physical, between the sacred and the secular. That's a part of John MacArthur's theology and

00:05:48.180 those who would throw their hat in the ring with him. That is a part of their theology. It is

00:05:54.160 a Gnostic theology, not in every historical sense of the term Gnostic, not with special

00:06:00.560 secret knowledge, not with an elite group that knows things by mystic revelation and everybody

00:06:06.400 else is in the dark. I'm not using the term in that sense, but it is Gnosticism in the radical

00:06:11.280 divide between the sacred and the common, between the spiritual and the physical, that Christian

00:06:17.820 faith has no real practical physical implications for a nation, for the world, for your family.

00:06:25.680 that is a dying breed of theology it will not work well with young men because of the nature

00:06:32.440 of young men but it also doesn't work well with the scripture which is vitally more important

00:06:37.480 not just that it doesn't appeal to a certain group of people right christian theology will

00:06:42.900 always not appeal to a certain group of people namely unbelievers right if that was the only

00:06:48.120 reason the only objection i had to this theology then we would have a problem we would be doing

00:06:53.440 eisegesis rather than exegesis, but it does not pair well with the scripture. That's first and

00:06:59.160 foremost. So Gnosticism, a radical divide. I'm using the term to say it's all the emphasis on

00:07:04.620 the spiritual, but none of the implications of the physical. Another way to say it would be like

00:07:09.500 this, right? Are we in a spiritual war or a cultural war? Is there a culture war going on?

00:07:14.540 There's a lot of guys in the MacArthur type camp that would say, it's not a culture war. Stop

00:07:19.860 fighting the culture war stop caring about the culture war it's a spiritual war okay well here's

00:07:26.540 the reality it's both and here's why it is first and foremost a spiritual war that is thoroughly

00:07:32.560 biblical that is objectively what's going on in the world today a spiritual war right our weapons

00:07:38.820 are not carnal but spiritual our our our battle is not with flesh and blood but with principalities

00:07:45.080 and spirits. But here's the thing, get a whole biblical theology. So cross-reference over from

00:07:50.580 our battle not being with flesh and blood, but then look at what Paul says to Timothy. Paul says

00:07:55.540 to Timothy that Satan takes captive people to do his will, that we should rebuke our opponents

00:08:02.340 with gentleness, not knowing if God would grant them repentance after having been taken captive

00:08:07.840 by Satan. So here's the deal. Our battle is against a principality, a spiritual entity,

00:08:15.380 creature, namely Satan himself. But here's the deal. Satan employs within his ranks flesh and

00:08:22.700 blood. So there is a sense in which our battle is with flesh and blood because our spiritual enemy,

00:08:28.340 he employs flesh and blood in the ranks of his army. So it is first and foremost, a spiritual

00:08:34.540 war, but with culture implications. And here's another reason why. The reason why there are 0.73

00:08:39.160 cultural, physical, tangible, earthly implications of this spiritual war happening right now is

00:08:46.580 because the spirits that are at war care about the earthly creation. God cares about the world,

00:08:55.120 the cosmos, the physical world that he created. He's at war with Satan. Guess what? Satan cares

00:09:00.920 about the world he wants to be the prince of this air he wants dominion over the physical earth he

00:09:06.620 doesn't want to just reign in the 17th dimension he wants to have dominion and reign and rule in

00:09:13.100 the physical reality in the cosmos so god cares about the physical creation the world satan that

00:09:19.280 he's at war with he cares about the physical world and in terms of people leftists and progressives

00:09:25.480 and Democrats, they care very much about the physical world. There's only one group that I

00:09:30.580 can think of that doesn't seem to care about the physical world, and it's evangelical Christians.

00:09:36.500 Christians, we are the only people who don't care about the culture war, who don't care about the

00:09:41.620 physical world, that don't care about the welfare of our nation, that don't care about these things

00:09:46.340 because we're Gnostic. At some level, maybe not all the way, the whole nine yards, but at some level,

00:09:52.980 we have given into Gnosticism, at least in the reality of it being all about the spiritual and

00:09:59.300 not about the physical. Gnostic. Okay. Second, Pietism. I mean that in the sense, defining my

00:10:05.040 terms, that everything is private. So Gnostic, it's all the emphasis on the spiritual, none on

00:10:11.620 the tangible, the physical, the literal. Pietistic, what I mean is in Pietism, it's all private 0.91

00:10:18.440 rather than public. John MacArthur famously wrote his article after the lockdown of churches with

00:10:24.740 COVID, right? He said, Christ, not Caesar, is head of the church. Yes and amen, Dr. MacArthur,

00:10:31.060 a million times over. But I would urge you to consider going one step further, and here's the

00:10:37.620 biblical support for it, Ephesians chapter 1 verse 22. It says this, that God has appointed Christ

00:10:43.720 as head of the church. No, as head of all things to the benefit of the church. Biblically speaking,

00:10:51.300 we can say that Christ, not Caesar, is head of the church. We can also say Christ, not Caesar,

00:10:56.700 is head of the public square. He's head of the state. Christ is not only head of the church,

00:11:01.840 he is rightfully head of every square inch. He bought it by his blood. Romans 13 says that

00:11:10.320 Caesar is an autonomous leader. No, that he's the highest leader with no authority above him. No,

00:11:17.360 what it says is that Caesar is God's diaconate, God's servant, that ultimately he has an authority

00:11:24.280 above him. He's not the final ultimate authority, even in the political realm, because that realm

00:11:29.920 also has to submit to Jesus. Psalm chapter 2, the kings of this earth and princes of this world,

00:11:36.900 kiss the son s-o-n kiss jesus that is pay homage to the son submit to the lordship of christ

00:11:44.740 lest his wrath be quickly kindled right so so caesar is a deacon of god he is underneath god

00:11:52.280 christ is uniquely not exclusively but uniquely head of the church in the sense that the church

00:11:57.880 is the only entity for which christ died so christ is head of the church in a unique way

00:12:03.940 but he is not exclusively head of the church. He is head over all things, including the public

00:12:09.180 square, including the body politic, including the government. He is head over Caesar as well.

00:12:15.540 Our faith is not private pietism, but it is private and piety is good, but it is private and

00:12:23.380 public. It is not just pietism, private, but not public. It is not just Gnosticism, spiritual,

00:12:30.560 but not physical and lastly it is not nihilism the clip that we've just seen i would say at least at

00:12:38.260 some measure it reeks of pietism private versus public it reeks of gnosticism spiritual versus

00:12:45.120 physical and nihilism meaning it's not a red pill it's a black pill you lose young man who wants to

00:12:53.980 serve Christ and be faithful to him, buckle up for losing. No. See, the difference between post-mill

00:13:01.060 and all-mill and pre-mill and the whole nine yards is this. Here's the difference. To be fair

00:13:06.500 to these eschological positions, they all believe that Christ wins. The question is how? How does

00:13:12.100 Christ win? Does Christ win despite a losing church or does Christ win through the church?

00:13:19.280 Jesus says in Matthew 16,

00:13:21.560 I will build, not just sustain my weak, faltering bride.

00:13:26.520 No, I will build, that is expand, increase, and advance my church,

00:13:32.120 and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

00:13:35.160 The gates of hell are not weapons.

00:13:37.400 They are not offensive.

00:13:38.940 No, the gates of hell is defensive.

00:13:41.300 So what is Jesus saying?

00:13:42.740 He's saying that because of his life, death, and resurrection,

00:13:45.760 and glorious ascension to the right hand of God Almighty where he's ruling and reigning here and

00:13:51.360 now because of that reality the church is on the offense hell the gates is on the defense and you

00:13:58.580 can picture it like this the church of Jesus Christ is the battering rams in the battering

00:14:04.900 ram in the hands of Jesus himself ramming up against the gates of hell and that hell will

00:14:11.380 not prevail, meaning that the gates, the defense of hell, will not be able to ultimately withstand

00:14:16.960 the advancement and building and increase of Christ's church in the world today. So does Christ

00:14:23.960 win? If you're pre-mill, yes. If you're all-mill, yes. If you're post-mill, yes. But the question is 0.93

00:14:29.660 how does Christ win? And the answer is that he doesn't win despite a losing church. He wins

00:14:35.900 progressively throughout real human history in this real world through an advancing church that 0.79

00:14:43.160 is the biblical model pietism gnosticism and nihilism is on its last leg it will not continue

00:14:52.240 this dispensational 150 year old theology is going away if you would like to not go the way of the

00:14:59.300 dodo, then I encourage you to get with the scripture and take a biblical position about

00:15:06.260 these things. It appeals to young men, but more importantly, it's faithful to what God has said

00:15:11.540 in his word. All that being said, one quick plug. If you want to go to a conference that says we win

00:15:17.400 down here instead of we lose down here, and here are the practical and theological methods for

00:15:24.100 winning the church experiencing victory in the world, then come check out our conference coming

00:15:29.680 up March 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of 2024. It's called Blueprints for Christendom 2.0. The subtitle is

00:15:38.320 Seven Doctrines for Ruling the World with Doug Wilson, Brian Sauve, Joe Boot, and yours truly,

00:15:46.000 Joel Webin. This is a Right Response Conference. If you'd like to register, then go right now to

00:15:50.980 rightresponseconference.com again that's rightresponseconference.com to take advantage of

00:15:57.860 our current early bird rate for blueprints for chrysidom 2.0 seven doctrines for ruling the

00:16:05.320 world that's reformed confessional theology it's covenant theology it's biblical patriarchy

00:16:12.600 it's presuppositionalism it's kyperianism every square inch all of christ for all of life

00:16:18.180 its general equity theonomy the goodness of god's law applied to every element every realm within

00:16:24.880 human society and lastly hopeful eschatology post-millennialism if you want to learn about

00:16:31.040 these things seven doctrines for righteously stewarding and ruling the world establishing

00:16:36.700 the blueprints for achrissidom 2.0 again march 1st 2nd and 3rd that's a friday through sunday

00:16:43.320 2024 sign up today right response conference.com thank you so much for tuning in and i look forward

00:16:50.920 to talking to you again shortly god bless can i be frank with you for just a second right here at

00:16:56.560 the end look some of you guys you're financially supporting this ministry and from the bottom of

00:17:01.880 my heart i say thank you i cannot thank you enough however some of you you just you can't

00:17:09.120 afford it. In fact, some of you shouldn't afford it. Let's be honest. I mean, we're living in Joe

00:17:15.760 Biden's ridiculous economy. Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their minds 0.99

00:17:24.780 over the last three years due to COVID. We have written checks that we simply cannot cash. It

00:17:31.960 doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession. We are living in a recession right now

00:17:38.540 regardless. Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the grocery store.

00:17:44.660 You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should you, but you could still

00:17:51.840 help us tremendously. I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so, take one minute of your

00:17:58.880 time. Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, iTunes, Spotify, whatever that

00:18:06.080 might be, this is the way the system works. We want to be innocent as doves, but shrewd as vipers.

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00:18:20.180 And the Word of God and courageous theology applied in practical ways to every realm of life

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00:18:36.080 You

The NXR Podcast - May 17, 2023

BONUS EPISODE - John MacArthur & ＂Loser Theology＂｜ Live with Pastor Joel

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

The NXR Podcast - May 17, 2023

BONUS EPISODE - John MacArthur & ＂Loser Theology＂ ｜ Live with Pastor Joel

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

BONUS EPISODE - John MacArthur & ＂Loser Theology＂｜ Live with Pastor Joel