At the 2007 Shepherd’s Conference, John MacArthur opened the Conference with a message that was clearly on his heart and yet controversial among many of a reformed persuasion and preached with some humor. If you have not heard the message you can go to http://www.gracechurch.org/media/default.aspx?filter=ministry&id=26&page=10 and download the message in full for $2.50. It is well worth your time and money.
With that being said, here are the beginning excerpts from that message.
Sovereign Election, Israel, And Eschatology
“…It is one of the strange ironies in the church and in reformed theology, that those who love the doctrine of sovereign election most supremely, and most sincerely, and who are most unwavering in their devotion to the glory of God, the honor of Christ, the work of the Spirit in regeneration and sanctification, the veracity and inerrancy of Scripture, and who are the most fastidious in hermeneutics, and who are the most careful and intentionally biblical regarding categories of doctrine, and who see themselves as guardians of biblical truth, and are not content to be wrong at all, and who agree most hardily on the essential matters of Christian truth, so that they labor with all their powers to examine in a Berean fashion every relevant text to discern the true interpretation in all matters of Divine revelation, are (that’s the main verb) in varying degrees of disinterest in applying those passions and skills to the end of the story, and rather content to be happy and even playful disagreement in regard to the vast biblical data on eschatology, as if the end didn’t matter much.
Or another way of saying it… How many of you have attended an “amill” prophecy conference? …Does the end matter, does it matter to God, should it matter to us. I think it matters to God. I think it’s the whole point of history. I know it’s the whole point of history. History is headed to a divinely designed and revealed end. And if it matters enough to God to reveal it, it should matter enough to us to understand the revelation of it. Did not God fill Scripture with end time prophecy?
… Did God in this significant volume of revelation somehow muddle His word so hopelessly that the high ground for theologians is simply to recognize the muddle and abandon any thought of the perspicuity of Scripture with regard to eschatology? Is in fact working hard to understand prophetic passages needless and impossible, because they require a spiritualized or allegoricalized set of interpretations that says the truth is somehow hidden behind the normal meaning of the words, so any idea of what it might mean is as good as any other idea of what it might mean since it doesn’t mean what it says? Are you comfortable with the notion that the hard and fast, tried and true principles of interpretation have to be set aside every time you come to a prophetic text?
…That leads me to my title; ‘Why Isn’t Every Self-Respecting Calvinist a Premillennialist?’”
That should give you a taste. This message is not a defense of dispensationalism but rather a persuasive argument for the literal/historical exegetical hermeneutics of the prophetic scriptures. Now go and download the message! It will challenge your heart, even if you don’t fully agree with some of John’s conclusions.
-Michael Holtzinger
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