Tom Steller: I think one of the most exciting times of our conference where it’s just free, give and take questions and answers. And the ground rules are that we would like you to come to a microphone, you’ll see that there’s one in each of the aisles here, and that would save me having to repeat the questions. But we want the questions as well as the answers to be put on the tape. So this is our panel and you’ve probably been building up questions throughout our whole morning. We didn’t give any time for questions for Dr. Wilson and so let’s make sure we have those as well.

Questioner: If you boil the gospel down to its bottom-line essential, what is necessary for salvation?

J. Christy Wilson: If I could speak to this from scripture, we read in Romans 10, “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” But in that same 10th chapter it says it is those who confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God has raised him from the dead. So I would say that that is the basic belief for someone to be saved.

Don Whitney: Well, interestingly, this came up at supper last night, and Dr. MacArthur, you gave the answer, I would defer to you on that. But I think some summary of the life and work of Christ is essential.

John MacArthur: Well, let’s see if I can draw it all to some kind of a summary. I believe for salvation, it is necessary to believe in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is necessary to believe in his deity, that he is God. It is necessary to believe that he died on the cross as a substitute for sin. It is necessary to believe that God raised him from the dead as an affirmation of the perfect work accomplished on the cross. I think that’s all bound up in the resurrection faith of Romans 10.

I think there are two things you have to discuss when you talk about salvation. One is the nature of saving faith and the other is the object of that faith. The nature of saving faith is that faith which trusts in Christ alone and which within that faith is a full part of repentance. So the nature of saving faith is that it is repentant, that it is a turning away from sin, and it is an affirmation that salvation is by faith in Christ alone — by grace through faith. The object of that faith then, is the person of Jesus Christ and the work which he accomplished on the cross. Anything less than that I think is either in the case of a non-saving faith or you missed the point of the object of faith.

I have a chapter in my book Reckless Faith on what the true doctrines of evangelicalism are. What is the real thing?

What is the nature of saving faith as opposed to non-saving faith? There are people in the Bible who believed but the Lord did not commit himself to them because he knew it was in their hearts. So there is a saving faith, and I think it is a repentant faith, and it is a faith that puts its trust in the work of God solely and only. That is, it adds no works, no merit, nothing. That’s the nature of saving faith. The object then, of saving faith, is the person of Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, coming into the world as an atonement for sin on the cross, raised by the Father as affirmation of the perfection of that atoning work. And we put our trust in him as the one who is the sacrifice for our sins.

They need to know that. They need to know that as fact and they need to believe that. One of the problems we had in recent discussions with some of the people on the other side of the Catholic accord thing was that they wanted to make the Apostles’ Creed the standard, but the Apostles’ Creed leaves out too much. What it says is true, but it’s not complete enough. But I believe for salvation to occur, and this is a very important issue. I don’t know if you guys have been exposed to the book Ecumenical Jihad. We were talking about that last night. That book wants to say that everybody who’s a monotheist is going to get into the kingdom. It’s written by Peter Kreeft and it’s dedicated to Charles Colson and on the back cover it’s endorsed by J.I. Packer and Charles Colson. The thesis of the book is that all monotheists are going to end up in heaven, basically. And I think that’s a grave error obviously.

Question: In my church, I have the privilege of working with college and high school students, and recently we have had opportunities to consider what to do with some of these students regarding their actions toward Christ and the lifestyle that they’re living. Now I know I have a responsibility to go to them and talk to them. I also realize that if that doesn’t work, I need to go back to them with somebody else. I guess my concern is when it comes to the point where if these people would continue in their lifestyle, 1 Corinthians 5 says that we’re to expel the immoral brother from our church. Matthew says we’re to treat them as unbelievers. One of these students is a ninth grader and his parents are fully aware of what’s going on. How do you deal with something like that?

MacArthur: We do that at our church obviously more frequently than we wish. The process that we use is that we believe that everybody who names the name of Jesus Christ is accountable to the word of God. So a junior high young person who identifies with the church and is a so-called brother, to use the terminology of 1 Corinthians 5, falls under the authority of Scripture at that point. Our process would be when there’s a young person in our church — and this is something that does happen — is in sin, the first approach is to that young person. If there’s no immediate response from that young person, we go to the parents and we work with the parents. We encourage the parents to do whatever they need to do in the life of their child to bring that child to faith in Christ or to responsibility, confession, repentance, or whatever. If that does work, we bring it to the church. And we feel that’s exactly what the Scripture says. That puts an amazing reality into that family to deal with that young person. But that’s precisely the way we handle it.

Questioner: Do you have any requests as far as the other people in the church? How do they deal with that person?

MacArthur: The rest of the people in the church are to pursue that person. We would name him publicly in a communion service, or if it was in a youth group, maybe in the youth group, that he would not respond. It says in Matthew 18 to tell the church, so we tell the church. We tell the church to go after this individual and pursue him and call him back from sin and to restrict association to confrontation. It’s loving confrontation, as the apostle Paul said, admonishing him like a brother. In Galatians 6, we’re supposed to remember that the one who is overtaken in a fault could be you. Make sure in terms of Matthew 7, that you get whatever two-by-four is in your own eye out before you go try to fix everybody else. But with a right heart attitude and genuine compassion and treating him as a wayward brother, you go and you lovingly but confront, call that individual back. What you don’t do is provide occasion for accepting fellowship.

Whitney: There’s a great book we use when we teach a class on spiritual disciplines in the church, and we spend one eighth of our time on the book. It’s called A Guide to Church Discipline. It’s a paperback and it’s a tremendous resource and there’s a huge section of Q&A in the back. I’d recommend that to anyone.

Questioner: This is a question for Dr. MacArthur. You made a reference to being a New Covenant minister and preaching systematically through the New Testament. At times, I’ve heard Chuck Smith at his pastor’s conferences talk about the importance of preaching from cover to cover starting Genesis through Revelation. I’m just wondering what you see are the advantages or disadvantages of both, and is it a matter of taste or is there a conviction in your statement?

MacArthur: That’s a good question. First of all, I believe the New Testament is the main message. You remember in Hebrews it says that the perfection anticipated by the Old Testament people never came without us. So obviously this is the fulfillment of everything anticipated in the New Testament. We are new covenant ministers. We are ministers of the mysteries of God unfolded in the reality of Christ and in the reality of the Jew and the Gentile one in the church and all that. I think in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says that the things that are written in the Old Testament have happened unto us as examples. So I think like New Testament preachers who preached New Covenant truth and drew Old Testament illustrations, including Peter and Stephen and whoever, that’s what I’ve always tried to do. I’ve had this commitment to illustrate my messages as much as possible with Old Testament truth. I rarely use non-biblical illustrations. Sometimes I do, but usually I try to explain Scripture with Scripture and illustrate Scripture with Scripture.

That’s not to say that one should not preach through the Old Testament, but in preaching through the Old Testament to give the full meaning of it, you’re going to have to be reaching forward all the time to bring the completion to these realities. Obviously, for example, you can only preach limited features of the work of Christ from the Old Testament, limited features of the work of the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament, and limited aspects of the doctrine of sanctification or of the gospel. You have to piece it together. Based on the New Testament knowledge you can sort of feed it back. But I think the strength of preaching, at least for me, is to preach the New Testament drawing from the Old and giving the Old the fullness of the sense that it gets.

Now, when I came into the ministry, I decided I was going to preach the New Testament. I want to preach through the whole New Testament. If I finish that, I’d go back. I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to do that. But it was really a choice I made because I wanted to do the whole New Testament and write commentaries on the whole New Testament.

Questioner: Dr. MacArthur, you wrote the book The Gospel According to Jesus and it has proved to be controversial in the church. Why would you say you have the propensity to write things that are sometimes controversial? What makes you inclined toward addressing those things?

MacArthur: I’ll try to answer that briefly so there’s time for some of these others. I don’t know why I am wired the way I am. In fact, my wife said to me a few months ago, “Why don’t you just write a book everybody likes? Why do you do this?” I don’t know why I feel like a guardian of truth. I don’t know why I feel that way. I don’t know why I’m wired that way. I just am. I basically was going along in my ministry and I had written a book on the charismatic movement in 1978 called The Charismatics. It was 10 years after that that I wrote a polemical book. I really didn’t see myself as someone polemical or a battler who wanted to enter into the fray. I really didn’t. I just saw myself as a pastor going along with my work. But I had a passion for the doctrine of salvation. Obviously I felt that if there’s anything we gotta get right, that’s it. I answered your question about what’s necessary very briefly. But that’s a passion for me.

I picked up a book that really amazed me called The Hungry Inherit and it was written by Zane Hodges. And it so startled me and shocked me because it was the first articulation of this non-lordship view of salvation that I had ever seen. It was inherent in some of the earlier writings of Dallas guys like Chafer and others. Dr. Ryrie had a section in the back of his Bible called Errors added to the Doctrine of Salvation. And he listed them as “confession and repentance.” But when I saw this book, I was so startled by it. Moody sent it to me to review, and I wrote them back and said, “Don’t print this.” And I wrote why and I got very concerned about that and I didn’t think it was a very big issue at that point, but they printed it anyway. And it basically said that the Gospels and the ministry of Jesus was a call to already converted people to come to a higher level. My Bible says the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. I just couldn’t compute that. So I started to dig in a little bit.

And then Zane. Hodges came out with another book that was even further out. Then I ran into a Bible conference with Earl Rodmacher and I heard things that I never heard in my life, like Romans 6:23 being Christians who are dead Christians. And James 2 was the dead faith of Christians who hadn’t come to the second level. And then I went to Moody and Bruce Wilkinson came and did a whole series on this, and by then I realized that this thing had escalated. So I sat down and started to work on that book.

They thought that book would sell 25,000. Stan Gundry told me, “We think it will sell 25,000.” It sold a quarter of a million in a year. I stepped on Dallas seminary’s air hose and cut off the oxygen I guess. I didn’t intend to be ungracious at all. In fact, I met with Dr. Ryrie, who’s a good friend, and we talked this stuff through. And he sent me a copy of his book, which answered mine with a little dedication. I know this will have a great impact on your life. You know what I mean? There’s a sense in which we understand that this is not personal.

But that’s what generated it. Then I rewrote it and there’s a new revised edition of The Gospel According to Jesus and probably a better book called Faith Works, which takes the problem into the epistles and deals with it there. And that’s when RC.. Sproul became my friend. And since that time, he’s called me Boris. And every time he sees me, he gives me a Big Russian kiss and calls me Boris because he says I was the Boris Yeltsin who stood on the tank and said, that’s enough. Dealing with the doctrine of salvation, he’s told me many times, was like the Wittenberg door deal. It just needed to be dealt with. I don’t know why the Lord picked me to do that. But I do feel like a guardian of truth for some reason.

Questioner: What’s in the works as far as books go?

MacArthur: Another book you mean? Well, I’m going to write a book on two things. I’m going to write one in the process of putting it together. I just did a series on forgiveness. Because I feel like our culture is into so much vengeance and revenge and we’ve lost the spiritual significance of real forgiveness. And also one on parenting, not from the technique side, but how to lead your child to justification and sanctification.

Questioner: A few months ago, we were listening to one of your question and answer tapes from back in 1980. I know how you like all those recordings. The subject came up on limited atonement. And I may be wrong in the way that I perceived it, so you can correct me. But it sounded like you were rejecting it based on 1 John 2:2 at that time. And I didn’t know if there was an evolution of thought that’s changed since then. I would like to get your comments.

MacArthur: The book that I just wrote recently called The Love of God is basically a statement that deals with the nature of the atonement. And let me summarize it by saying this. I believe the atonement is a limited-unlimited atonement or an unlimited-limited atonement, whichever you’d like. You can actually take your pick. I’m comfortable with either one.

Let me tell you why. I believe there are features of the atonement that are unlimited and in the book I try to point them out. I think common grace is an unlimited feature of the atonement. I think God by nature is a Savior (1 Timothy 4) of all men. And I think temporarily God delivers the ungodly from what they deserve immediately and lets them live and smell the flowers. I think common grace, providence, gospel opportunity, and the universal call are elements of an unlimited atonement. There’s another very important feature of it and that is this. I think it should be clear to all of us. Had God determined to save every person who ever lived, no further atonement would’ve been required. And that is speaking of the sufficiency or the unlimited character of the atonement. I don’t even like to talk about limited atonement. I can talk about “limited” only in one sense and that is that the actual, efficacious sin-bearing of Jesus Christ on the cross was limited to those who would believe. In its application, in its efficiency, in its efficaciousness, the atonement has to be clearly limited to those who believe. But there are features of that atonement that are unlimited, such as the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ and the temporal goodness and providence and common grace of God that is extended to all sinners.

But I do believe in the end that God treated Jesus Christ as if he had committed all the sins of all the people who ever believed. I don’t think Jesus efficaciously atoned for the sins of people who will never believe or else hell would be double jeopardy.

Questioner: I was wondering if you can give me your current assessment of the parachurch.

Whitney: As far as the publisher Moody Press is concerned, when it came to me and asked me if I was ready to do a sequel to the first book, I said, “Not in the sense you’re thinking of.” They said, “Do you have anything in the works?” I said, “Well, I have this material I’m thinking about,” and they said, “Yes, let’s go with that.” And then we realized that it could be seen as a sequel in the way that your title and so forth. NavPress at the time said, “Okay, we’ll let Moody Press do that. We don’t have to do that.” That’s why it’s with Moody Press instead.

But I don’t know how well qualified I am to answer the other because I don’t have the national exposure and opportunities these other men do. But as that book does reflect, my commitment is with the local church and that’s where I think we need reformation. That’s why I think because we’ve not had that, we’ve seen the proliferation with the parachurch situation, with all the good that there is. But that’s my great burden right now.

John Piper: I’m not sure what the issue is as far as your mind goes. I personally think Paul’s band of missionaries was something like a parachurch effort. He and Silas and he and Barnabas took off and planted churches. To me, it’s just not a big issue. I hope that all the ministers within InterVarsity and Navigators belong to local churches and are held accountable in those local churches by elders and people who would discipline them if they were sinners and that the people they win to Christ will join churches. So what’s the issue?

Questioner: I think maybe some of the issues might be doctrinal accountability, lack of training, and things like that. There seems to be an increasing distance in ecclesiology in particular. I was with the parachurch for a number of years and then moved to a local church, so I saw some of those things firsthand.

Piper: Those are issues for how they should be done, but whether they should exist or not to me is another question. In other words, if InterVarsity starts doing things and believing things that it shouldn’t, to me, they should be called to account for that and that would be a good thing. But I personally wouldn’t want to die on the hill that says, “Let’s shut down all the campus ministries and all the faith-missions and all the other things.” I’m glad God has raised all those things up.

Questioner: In light of our message this morning in the personal decision-making situation we’re going through, how much can we cooperate together with other groups or denominations for the sake of the conversion of the loss and winning the world to Christ and his lordship without compromising doctrinal purity?

MacArthur: Well, first of all, I think this may have come up already in some discussion, but as I said last night in the question and answer, you can’t be linked with unbelievers in spiritual enterprise and honor the Lord in that link. I don’t know what you’re talking about denominationally or what, but that’s where the line is drawn. I preached recently in my church on fellowship and I preached on the basis of fellowship. Fellowship is the sharing of common spiritual life and ministry, simply. The sharing of common spiritual life and ministry. The basis of that fellowship is conversion, period, right? I mean, if you’re saved, you’re in the fellowship. If you’re saved, you’re in Christ, you’re in the fellowship. Whatever your theology is, you’re in the fellowship. Now, part of my responsibility in the fellowship is to use my gift of teaching to try to help those folks who maybe are a little off-base on their doctrine or a little weak in some area of learning, but they’re in the fellowship.

So the primary question you want to ask yourself is, one, are they in the fellowship? Is this light and darkness or is this light and light? And that’s easy to answer in some ways personally because we can deal with people and there are not a lot of implications personally. Now, when they ask you to cooperate with some large entity, then you have to ask the question, how much freedom is there going to be and how much support is there going to be when I launch a ministry that’s going to take issue with their theology or their emphasis or their doctrine? And being a person who really would choose to avoid conflict, if I had any options not to do that, I would take them because I don’t think anything is to be gained by going in and thinking that you’re just going to take your licks at them and see what happens or by creating trauma for people.

So if you have an option where there’s more unity and more commonality of thinking, I think I would pursue that rather than lock horns with somebody that’s not going to change in some structure or some organizational form.

Wilson: If I could speak to a practical illustration, when we first went to Afghanistan, only tent makers could get in. After we had been there 15 years, we saw the country was ready to receive medical missionaries, especially eye doctors, eye nurses, and also teachers of the blind. There were 10 missions working on the borders of Afghanistan praying that they’d be able to come in. And we thought how wonderful it would be instead of them coming in at cross purposes if we could have them come in on a unified evangelical basis. So we had a conference and all of them came in on that.

Now, when they came in, then liberals heard about this and they wanted to come in too. We said, “No, this is only the ones who have worked on the border of Afghanistan who have gone through the heat of the day.” In that way, we limited it to evangelicals. And at the present time, there are 28 missions both denominational and interdenominational missions working in partnership. They call it strategic partnership with the International Afghan Mission. We chose that name because the name of Christ “I Am,” which now is the International Assistance Mission with the same letters. And God has blessed this in a mighty way.

Yet we have Plymouth Brethren, we have Anglicans, we have Presbyterians, we have Methodists, we have team missionaries, we have Interserve, and 28 Youth With A Mission people — all of them are working together. And here again, I think in the essentials there is unity, that’s what’s so important, even as Dr. MacArthur mentioned, but in non-essentials diversity, and in all things, charity. Just last March I was at a conference in Cyprus. We had over 70 evangelical organizations working in Central Asia cooperating. This is thrilling to see instead of them fighting each other, they are now fighting against the devil and fighting for the Lord.

Questioner: What constitutes a call to the ministry?

MacArthur: Well, I work with that a lot because we have so many young men who have come through our church and ask the question. I think I’ve drawn up four aspects to a call.

The first is subjective — that is, a passion, a longing in the heart. First Timothy three says, “If a man desires the office of an overseer, he desires a noble work.” I think it rises out of the passion of the heart. Obviously, we’re not going to have Pauline experiences. We’re not going to hear voices and all of that. I don’t think it’s simply that you got under conviction in some revival meeting and the preacher said, “Everybody who wants to preach, come forward,” and in the emotion of the moment you charge down there and now you feel obligated. I think it’s a passion. I think it’s something in you that is a restlessness until you find yourself fulfilling that. That’s the subjective, the working of the Spirit of God as he moves in your heart and plants that longing for ministry. And it better be there because sometimes it’s going to be the only thing that holds you to it.

Second thing would be objective, and that would be the giftedness which the Spirit of God has given to you, which is measurable, visible, and can be heard and experienced.

Thirdly would be collective. So it’s subjective, objective, and collective. The affirmation of the leadership of the church, of your godliness, your character, the fact that you fit the qualifications of 1 Timothy three, or at least you’re on the track to develop into that.

And the fourth would be effective. That is when you exercise the gifts, people say, “Yes.” They don’t say, “You think you have the gift of preaching, but we’re here to tell you, ‘Get another job.’” And as you look at Timothy, you see all of that. You see Timothy with the subjective desire, you see him with the objective gift which is announced from heaven in his case, the collective affirmation of the laying on of the hands of the elders, and then the tremendous impact of his ministry. And when it fell into disuse, Paul said, “Stir up the gift of God which is in you.” Those four areas I think come together.

When anybody comes to the Masters seminary, we do the best we can to see that those are there and that we have to ask the local churches to help us to discern that. We also have a program where the local church helps support the man who comes because that indicates the reality of their commitment to his giftedness and calling.

Questioner: Dr. Piper, you talked a great deal yesterday about expository preaching, and I’m just curious as to how that commitment to expository preaching is fleshed out in your week. What does the process look like for you? Do study leaves play a part in that in terms of studying ahead? How many times a year are you in the pulpit?

Piper: Provided you don’t assume any of this is normative for anybody else or even advisable for anybody else, I’ll answer. And as I heard, or read, in the back of John MacArthur’s book, it changes over the years. It really does. I’m 16 years into this and had the great advantage of teaching the Bible for six years in college doing book studies semester after semester. So I came standing on notebooks full of stuff. So I’m not typical in that regard. But I don’t do any focused sermon preparation until Friday because as I began the ministry thinking, having read books on how to do it, I found I did nothing but sermon preparation which I didn’t think was good stewardship of my time.

So I set aside Friday and Saturday to sermon-preparation and seldom now do I use it all for sermon preparation because there are so many other things like pastor’s conferences and other speaking engagements. I would say almost identical to what you did in the back of the book, John, that early on it was 15 to 16 hours on a sermon. It was two days’ worth, and now it’s more or less one full day. I can prepare a sermon if I have all day Saturday, and when I say, “All day,” I mean morning till bedtime. I don’t do anything else on Saturday, but sermon preparation. Except I take one of my children to Pizza Hut over lunch.

For me, it’s digging and scraping and studying and writing and taking notes on Friday if I have time. And it is that plus composing on Saturday until bedtime. And then I get up at 4:45 a.m. and pray and pray and pray for about an hour or more over the word. And then I sit at that sermon for another 45 minutes or so praying over it and asking that it would become part of me, and that’s it. And I’m ready to go twice. However, every pastor knows that all life is sermon preparation. I mean, it’s just ridiculous to talk in terms of hours.

Last Sunday’s message, a bunch of you were here, it began with an introduction on Star Wars, which just happened to be a collation of all the stuff I’d been hearing all week long about this release and how it’s a religion for kids, and how you find your myth there, and some find them at church. I said, “I can’t let this go.” I mean, this is in Minneapolis Air right now that kids find their myths at Star Wars and traditional Christians find them at church. Well, that was 10 minutes of my message. Well, that wasn’t a piece of the Friday preparation. That was all week-long thinking and brooding and wondering how that relates to Hebrews 9:26, which says, “He has been manifested once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” That’s just a mythological construct for certain writers in the Star Tribune.

So sermon preparation, if you’re a preacher, is just all the time. You’re just thinking, life is just one big thought about how the word of God fits together with this. So maybe that’s enough. That would be interesting to hear all of these guys talk to.

Regarding study leave, I take time away in August and then again in January, and then I’ll do it again in May and try to plan out by putting down texts, titles, and a little sentence if I can so that a worship leader can get ahead of me and think it through. I’m about three times a year planning that far out. And I’m willing to interrupt that. If I have to interrupt it, fine. If I didn’t guess right at how long it would take to preach the text, I mess it up for the worship leader, but I feel free. But I do try to plan that far ahead.

As far as study leaves, I never have taken a study leave to do what I would call sermon preparation. All my study leaves have been either just broader reading or focused on a writing project. But I think one of the reasons for that is because I still have books that I taught at Bethel that I’ve not preached through, that I’ve done a lot of spade work on. So you didn’t get a chance to do that. Your Bethel experience, if the church would give it to you, would be a month, and once you’ve earned your spurs and they trust you and value your ministry, ask them for a month to understand Isaiah, to tackle a big book of the Old Testament that you’ve never done a comprehensive study of. It’s an incredibly daunting thing. We’ve all have a few favorite Isaiah texts that we could preach on, but to say, “Here’s what the first 40 chapters of Isaiah are about. Here’s the coherency. Here’s the flow.” You have to have some time to work on that.

Questioner: Dr. Wilson, I appreciate so much the words you had to say this morning, and I appreciate your emphasis on encouraging work with international students as well as mission work. In light of that with so many Muslim students and so many Muslims in our nation now, at the end of Ramadan, could you give us some recommendations from your studies in Islam how we can help and use that time to witness to our Muslim neighbors and friends?

Wilson: I appreciated Dr. MacArthur telling the story of talking with this Muslim who was on the airplane, and this is so important. It used to be that you had to go to the other end of the world to reach Muslims, but God has brought Muslims right to your doorstep, right to your churches. In relation to this, I think it’s not only important for us to pray for Muslims, but also to pray with them. They are very anxious to have you pray with them. They believe in prayer, they pray five times a day if they are earnest Muslims facing toward Mecca. But they do not know answers to prayer. Therefore, as you get to know them, you’ll find out problems that they have. It may be a financial problem, it may be a visa problem, it may be a job problem, or it may be a family problem. Whatever it is, you say, “Would it be all right if I pray to Jesus about your problem?” And invariably I found they say, “Oh yes, please do.” Then you pray to Jesus in the name of Jesus about their problem and the Lord answers. And this is the first time they’ve ever seen an answer to prayer because their prayer toward Mecca is a repetition of the first chapter of the Quran in Arabic over and over again. It’s like a mantra, and it’s not wanting an answer to prayer. It’s wanting to earn their salvation. They do that for that reason.

And therefore, when you can pray with them in the name of Jesus and they see the Lord answer, many Muslims have come to Christ because of this. And that’s what I would encourage during this time of Ramadan, when they fast from early in the morning as soon as it starts to get light until sunset. They are trying to earn their salvation. Well, the Bible says, “By the works of the law, no one will be justified.” It’s so important to pray with them and to share with them about Jesus, even as Dr. MacArthur shared with this friend on the airplane. They love to talk about religion. Here we think that it’s not politically correct to talk to people about religion. No, they love to talk about religion. Therefore, it gives a marvelous opening.

Questioner: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. And God is also glorified by displaying the justice of his wrath upon unbelievers, so that in the words of the catechism, “All will glorify God forever, but some will not enjoy him forever.” How do you as the champion of Christian Hedonism preach on the wrath of God on those who will glorify him, but not by enjoying him forever? How often do you preach on that? Does that run through all of your preaching? Secondly, now that Dr. MacArthur has left and can’t defend himself, he said, “God is just as glorified by his wrath on unbelievers as he is by his grace on those who believe.”

Piper: I would not say that. The answer to your first question is that it does not run through all of my preaching as a theme, nor does it through yours or anybody else’s. There are dark and frightening truths that must find their way into our preaching, like they find their way into the Scriptures periodically. Romans 9:22–23 is not a frequent truth in the Bible. It’s a truth. It’s an awesome truth that God wills for his power and wrath to be made known through the destruction of vessels prepared for destruction. Therefore, my sentence, “God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him,” is a slogan catchphrase that applies to any given believer or any person who’s willing to become a believer. I don’t mean to absolutize it and say, “Therefore God has, in ordaining a hell, set up a universe in which his glory does not reach the degree to which it could have had he not had a hell.” That is not what I’m saying, because I believe that when all is said and done and the mosaic of redemptive history is fully painted, including all the dark colors of unbelief and hell, that the beauties of God’s perfection will shine forth with the most glory possible and everyone will confess that this has been the best of all possible worlds.

That’s the seventh point of my Calvinism. This is the best of all possible worlds, including hell and horrible pain and suffering, because God will somehow turn all of that in his providence for his glory. I cringed at the paralleling that Dr. MacArthur three times expressed and I thought maybe he would stop and say both-and, but not equal. They are not paralleled exegetically in Romans 9:22–23. There’s a hina clause that moves from the demonstration of the glory in wrath, so that the vessels of mercy might know and appreciate the glory of God. Hell exists as a subordinate secondary means of the glory of mercy. They’re not coordinate. Hell is subordinate. Yes, God is glorified in the damnation of sinners, but not coordinately with the glory of God in the mercy and salvation of the elect. The ultimate biblical answer for why there’s a hell is so that Christians will love mercy more.

Questioner: Dr. MacArthur mentioned in the introduction to his second message, the doctrine of imputation. I believe what he said was, “Having Jesus doesn’t make you righteous, but God treats you as if you are.” I’d be interested in hearing you speak to that, especially in the context of Philippians 3:8–9, where the apostle Paul longed to be clothed in the righteousness of God. In what way is righteousness imputed to us?

Piper: I’m sure that he was simply articulating at that moment the nature of justification, not making comment on sanctification, because he has written very good books on sanctification and The Gospel According to Jesus is a good book. I liked it. When I read it, I could hardly put it down. Of course the whole book is about the statement that you better become like Jesus or you’re not going to heaven. You’re not going to heaven if you don’t become like Jesus. But justification is the foundation for that development and it is a treating of us ungodly sinners (Romans 4:4–5) as if we were righteous when we aren’t. Then progressively by trusting in that finished imputed work, we develop a character like Christ and the development of that character is the evidence that we are really satisfied by the God who justifies. It is essential for salvation in the end. That’s me talking. I don’t know how MacArthur would say it, but I believe he believes that.

Questioner: It was interesting hearing you talking about your dinner last night because last night our conversation turned around a number of different areas. One of the areas that came up in my mind and in our conversation was talking about the peddling of the word of God and Paul’s rejection of the cleverness of speech in 1 Corinthians. Those things were brought up and the thing that came to my mind into another’s mind was Apollos and thinking how do we take someone who was eloquent and if I can turn back, he was both eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures. Where do we draw the dividing line between human eloquence and the ability to speak and having an improper use of cleverness of speech?

Piper: I love that question and it relates to our little discussion of “First Things” and “Credenda Agenda.” I mean, there are a lot of ways to approach the answer to it. I tremble at reliance upon the arm of the flesh. Let him who speaks speak as the word of God, let him who serves serve in the power that God supplies that in everything God may get the glory. That’s the root of my question from MacArthur about liberal education. I think about it almost every week, because I’m a highly educated person. I went as far as you could go and I want to train people here. I think about starting a grade school here and a high school here someday. I think about an institute. Every time I think about it, I say, “Now what am I trying to produce? What do I want to make in teaching them to learn Greek and Hebrew and read books and use language? Is that flesh? Can that even be flesh?” The answer is yes.

It is a dividing line that is drawn not through any line of education, as if to say, “Don’t go beyond high school, or college, or seminary, or graduate school.” The line is never drawn there. It’s not drawn over, “Don’t use stories, don’t use Star Wars, don’t use poetry.” It’s never drawn there. The line is drawn by the Spirit in the spirit, in the heart, so that right now God knows if I’m using language in a fleshly way. I’m not even sure. Right now at this very moment, am I in the Spirit or is pride ruling in my heart and this language is being used to get you to like me? The line is drawn moment by moment in a message, or in your conversations around a table whether you’re starting to speak for the approval of men.

Jesus said, “Don’t pray for the approval of men. Don’t fast for the approval of men. Don’t give alms for the approval of men.” Yet he said, “Let your good works be done so that men may see.” Wait a minute now, “Don’t let your alms to be seen by men, but don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing, but do your good works and be a city set on a hill and let your light shine, so that men will see and give glory to your Father.” The line can’t be drawn therefore any other way than in the heart. You’re good with words and most of you like words and you just have to pray like crazy that you don’t begin to use language in order to curry favor or to win praise from men, but continually are submitting it to Christ and to the spirit that spiritual ends might be achieved by spiritual means. We interpret spiritual truths to spiritual people.

Now let me just relate it to this issue of cleverness. How many read “First Things” magazine? It’s one of the best magazines out there and nobody in this room knows about it. It’s political and religious stuff. Richard John Neuhaus is Catholic. Maybe that’s why nobody in this room reads it, but he’s clever. How many read “Credenda Agenda”? Credenda Agenda is a Reformed version of “First Things” and they both are masters of satire, which I find of limited spiritual usefulness, because of the way I am wired. I can do that. I can make people feel like a fool. I can make almost any viewpoint I don’t like look absolutely ridiculous with certain turns of phrases and certain language and certain understatement. I don’t need to be encouraged in that.

I need to be mellow to love. I need to be mellowed to be like a lamb. Wise as serpents and meek as doves. I got the serpent down. I need a lot of work on the other one. There are people who are clever with language. Richard John Neuhaus is a master of understatement and satire and so is Doug Wilson and Doug Jones. I find it as far as sanctification goes of very limited helpfulness. It’s just a warning. I still read it, but I have to be careful.

Whitney: Knowledge puffs up and yet we are to love God with all the mind and so forth. There are things on both sides of the line, but as with any method in communicating the gospel, I think the same would hold true with our use of the gifts God’s given us. I think it would be false to not use what God has gifted you to share the gospel with. But as with any method, I think it holds true for our language, one of the measuring sticks is does it call attention to itself rather than the message? Does it call attention to ourselves rather than what we’re trying to say if we use our gifts to call attention to ourselves and make people like us and all this? Then we’ve crossed the line. But to use our ability with language, for Spurgeon to have been anything less than what he did with his language would’ve been as poor stewardship of what God had gifted him with. Or for him to use those same gifts to make himself known and all this would’ve been something else. But in humility he used those gifts for the glory of God.

Piper: There is a sentence we quoted and I have it in the preaching book. James Denney said, “No man can at the same time give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save.” That’s speaking about the point of drawing attention to the language so that when people leave they say, “Oh Pastor, that was such a good illustration,” or, “Pastor you had such a good turn of phrase.” Those kinds of statements don’t encourage me, because I’m not hearing, “God is great.” I’m not hearing, “I met Jesus.” I’m not seeing the tears of repentance. I’m hearing admiration for this guy’s language and that’s not encouraging.

Questioner: Several times throughout the conference, I’ve heard the use of the word “Reformed” and I’m curious if you can answer this question. In light of those who are Baptistic Premillennialists and those of us that may be Sublapsarians, where do you feel that we fit in within that phrase or that definition of Reformed historically today and perhaps in the future?

Piper: The “you” is me. I am Baptist and Premillennial and Reformed as I use the word. You fit in gloriously, just read Baptist history.

Questioner: Hallelujah.

Piper: Start in the early 1600s and read your Baptist history. Get Tom Nettle’s book By His Grace and For His Glory. Do you know that book? Get it. Now, there emerged the general Baptists, who were known because of the general view of the atonement, but the dominant, main, early strain of Baptists were Reformed. I’m just using the word “Reformed” there soteriologically. In other words, not in terms of church government and not in terms of the understanding of infant baptism, but rather the five points of Calvinism. That is what I generally mean by Reformed. To be a Baptist is to be a completed Reformed person.

Karl Barth discovered it late in life and others have been late. I’ve never had a conference on baptism and probably never will, because I don’t want to lose my clientele. This is not a Baptist conference and most of my best friends are not Baptists, because people in my denomination are not really theologically driven. I have to look elsewhere for heart fellowship. But you fit. I mean, you’re the end of the line.

Questioner: I have a question for Dr. Piper regarding Jonathan Edwards. If I were to share the gospel with someone and tell them to believe in the Lord Jesus and they would be saved, and that person were to say, “I want to, I just feel like I can’t,” my understanding has always been to tell that person to seek, read the Bible, and pray and ask that the Lord will give you a sight of his glories and grant you that faith. I also have given that person the promise that if they’ll seek the Lord, he’ll show himself to them. Seek and you will find. I read a sermon by Edwards, “Pressing into the Kingdom of God,” where he goes into shocking language saying that you can seek tremendously. He describes a seeking in great proportion and yet the Lord will still not reveal himself to you, even though you are seeking in that way. Can you reconcile those two in my mind, or tell me to reject one of them? And can you tell me what the sixth point of your Calvinism is? We’ve got the five and the seven.

Piper: The sixth point is simply to be willing to be explicit that there’s a reprobation as well as election. That’s all. Double predestination. With regard to Edwards on waiting and seeking, that sermon is a frightening sermon and is probably not the one you should preach very often. Jesus said many things you should not say very often. He looked the Pharisees right in the eyes and said, “The reason you do not believe is because you are not of my sheep” (John 10:26). You don’t say that very often to people. That’s true. That’s putting election out where it shouldn’t usually be. The election is back here and you put gospel invitations out here. You don’t look people in the face and say, “The reason you’re not believing is because you’re not elect.” How do you know that?

There are things that we shouldn’t say very often and shouldn’t say in some contexts, though they’re true. That sermon was intended to show people they cannot manipulate God. He’s sovereign. It’s Hebrews 12 and Esau with tears was seeking the blessing and not able to repent. That’s my paraphrase. He’s not able to find it and the “it” is feminine, and I believe refers back to metanoia (repentance). He can’t find repentance. He’s crying his eyes out, “Save me, save me,” and it’s over. God is finished with him. He’s gone. That’s the unforgivable sin. It’s so resisting the Spirit that he departs and never will take you again. Now, my answer to your question ultimately is that there is a seeking which is carnal. It is not a true Spirit-given authentic, sincere seeking and therefore it will not find.

When you say, “Seek and you will find,” I give people the same advice. Keep on doing that. Keep on saying that. I think Edwards would say that too. If somebody says, “I want to believe, but I can’t,” I think I’d press them even at that moment and say, “What do you mean you can’t? You can. You can because God is here. God is able, God is willing. Let’s ask him. You can.” I would just become God at that moment. I think the New Testament presents evangelism as a pressing and an urging and a wooing and a swaying people in. You stand in the place of Jesus saying, “I beseech you in the name of God. Be reconciled.” That’s the way Reformed people should talk. My prayer is that when we have the 20th anniversary of this conference, it’ll be known everywhere for producing evangelistic Reformed people who tell stories about people getting saved.

I hope I stop hearing stories about Reformed churches who don’t have anybody come to Christ or who don’t ever give any kind of practical ways that people can close with Jesus. Your question is on my front burner, and I think the way you described is the way I’d want to do it. We shouldn’t say to somebody, “You can’t. Maybe you’re not elected, see you later,” and move onto somebody else. Let’s just never be like that.

Questioner: A while back, Ralph Winter wrote an article in “Mission Frontiers” predicting the crisis coming where the gospel is going to have to get out of its Western clothes. He said Paul’s main ministry was to free the gospel from its Jewish clothing, and Luther from its Roman clothing. And my question is, what Western things are we going to have to be willing to give up as the center of Christianity moves to somewhere else in the world outside of the West?

Wilson: This is a very good question. We have the essentials of the gospel and in Jude 1:3 it says that we earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. There are truths of the gospel that don’t change and are the same for every culture and every people group around the world. On the other hand, there is, as you mentioned, what Ralph Winter calls “cultural clothing,” which differs in different parts of the world. One is language. People hear the gospel in their own language and then the Lord speaks to them through the Holy Spirit and this was the reason for the Holy Spirit giving the gift to the apostles at Pentecost so that they miraculously were able to speak the languages of the people there because the Holy Spirit wanted people to hear the gospel in their own language. The most important part of any culture is language.

Dr. McGavran, the great missionary statesman, said that language is 60% of any culture and language is not against the gospel because the Bible is translated into all the languages and therefore the most important part of any culture is language. And that’s why it’s so important to reach people in their own language the way Wycliffe is doing, by putting the New Testament into the languages of the people. Another thing that we need to recognize is that not only is language culture, but for instance, my wife and I went to mainland China in 1982 to study opportunities for tent making. We went to a three self-patriotic movement church that had been opened in Shanghai, the Hoover Memorial Church. It looks like a European gothic church parachuted from Germany into Shanghai. It has flying buttresses, it has architecture that is gothic, which is completely foreign.

People were sitting in pews, the pastor had a robe, the choir all had robes and they were singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” with a piano with Chinese words, but it was Western European culture. And no wonder the Chinese thought that Christians were foreign devils. It’s so important to use the music of the people, the instruments of the people, the language of the people, and the music of the people. Then they feel at home with Jesus. And that’s why when, as you were mentioning, we see other parts of the world coming to the fore, they bring their culture and they are reached through their culture and that’s why Dr. Ralph Winter said that we need to get the Western clothing off for these various cultures so that they can be reached.

Steller: I think the way to do that or a key way to do that is to help people become indigenous readers of the Bible so that each culture learns to read the Bible for themselves. We should help encourage them to have tools so that they can come to their own conclusions about those things rather than accepting the Western way of building a church building. Through their own exegesis, they can see that the church is not the building, it’s the people of God.

Questioner: I’m wondering if the panel would consider two questions about fasting. Number one, what part might fasting play in our churches in connecting more fruitfully with missions? Are we not advancing in missions as we might because we’re lacking some dynamics of fasting? Secondly, I’m having a lot of trouble maturing in this because fasting is tough for me. I don’t know if I’m normal or not in that. It’s hard and I find myself slipping into what I think is a subtle legalism. I find so many important things around me in the ministry that seem to call for the earnestness expressed by fasting. But then I think to myself, boy, if I don’t fast about this, nothing is going to happen or not as much will happen or God won’t bless it. And then I think to myself, that’s not right. Then I get confused and then I get sour on fasting and I get kind of in a fix. Can you help us with that so that we have freedom as well as earnestness?

Wilson: Muslims put Christians to shame with their fasting. Our Lord taught fasting. Our Lord fasted 40 days before he started his ministry and he said in The Sermon on the Mount “when you fast,” he didn’t say “if you fast.” And he said that his disciples didn’t fast while he was here because it was like a wedding and you don’t fast at a wedding. But when the bridegroom is taken away, then will my disciples fast. The Scripture teaches fasting and the best book that I’ve seen on it is by Wallace called God’s Chosen Fast. Now in relation to this, I’m so glad that evangelical Christians are recapturing the importance of fasting and praying. The two go together and it’s thrilling to see how many are doing this. Right now is the Muslim month of fasting, which is about 30 days. They’re not sure when the new moon’s going to come or start. And youth of the mission in Australia has published a little book called 30 Day Focus on Islam, and over 4 million Christians now are praying for that.

Well, I wrote a suggestion which they adopted and I pointed out how if Christians will fast from supper to lunch the next day, they are fasting longer than Muslims do, who do from early in the morning until sunset. Just giving up breakfast is a wonderful way to fast and pray for the Muslim world. I don’t understand it, but when we fast, God works in a mighty way. And the Bible teaches it, Christ did it, Christ taught it, and especially in relation to prayer it’s a great aid for power in prayer.

Piper: I’ll add one other thing maybe. I think it would help practically perhaps to try different seasons of fasting and different kinds instead of getting stuck on one. The essence of fasting it seems to me is a physical exclamation point behind a heart hunger for God and his work. And it is a mystery. It’s part of the larger mystery of prayer why God should say, “If you will seek me with all your heart, you will find me” (Jeremiah 29:13). Well, all your heart. You mean there’s kind of a quantitative condition here, and somehow there is. A half-hearted seeking may find a half-hearted response and fasting is a part of that “with all your heart.” And yet clearly as you’ve articulated, it can become, “Well, every day I should fast and over every decision I should fast, and the reason my church is failing is that I don’t fast enough,” and pretty soon you’re psychotic. You’re so sick you can hardly move.

And I think you break that by backing off and asking the Lord, “Now in the next season of my life, say between now and Easter, what this year might you call me to do to feel my hunger for you, to lift my heart to you, to draw my people into seeking you.” And see what he brings to mind this year. It’ll be a little different. Let’s just be very practical. Many of us here at Bethlehem often pressed fast during prayer week. All week we don’t eat anything for seven days. This year as I looked at my schedule and what I had to do, I had to speak in Austin, Texas. I had to speak in Indianapolis. I had my son Benjamin Holm, and that was prayer week. I’m going to wreck a lot of lives if I do this. A lot of people are going to be unhappy. We’re talking about birthdays and people saying, “Why is daddy not eating? That sort of thing.”

So I said, okay. And we talked as the Desiring God staff, I said, “Let’s fast every Wednesday up to the pastor’s conference for the pastor’s conference.” So that’s what we did this year. Many of us didn’t fast for seven days. We did it Wednesdays up to the pastor’s conference. Now here’s the pastor’s conference. What’s next? I don’t know, but I’ll ask now and I’ll pray and then we’ll talk about it perhaps as a staff. We’ll say, here comes Easter and Lent is on the way. I know that some people are already telling me what they’re doing. So I think the variety in the freedom of God is just to say in this next season, how shall I do it and ask him to guide. Then you don’t feel stuck like not doing that thing that we’ve always done or whatever.

Whitney: It’s between you and the Holy Spirit really because the Bible does not tell us how often we are to fast nor how long and God made us for the norm to be that we eat. He made us to be beings that have to eat to live. So fasting is the exception. So to say, as you said, “My church is not doing well.” I mean, you could put that on everything and you’re fasting all the time. Well, that would be violating the way God made us. Now, people who would look at that and say, “Those are the loopholes I’ve been looking for,” that’s the wrong attitude. That’s trying to find an excuse not to fast. But ultimately, it does come down to the leadership of the Holy Spirit and I think there ought to be some conscious sense of not guilt but leadership.

This is what God would have me do. And as a result, as John said, of seeking for God’s leadership. We can pray, “Lord, would you have me fast and if so, when?” And that’s very different than thinking, well, I’m not fasting so I’m really not up to where I ought to be. Because in the Bible it’s the exception, not the norm. It is common, but it is not the norm. The Bible doesn’t use terms such as “partial fast” or “complete fast” but there’s what I call the “normal fast,” which is no food, but you do drink liquid or water, most of the time primarily. Some would have fruit juices or whatever, but I find people who had 20 cans of V8 during the day so they don’t feel hungry and all that. So I think a normal fast is water, no food.

But a partial fast — and that’s for those that are hypoglycemic or diabetic or pregnant and for medical reasons — is that they limit their diet in some significant ways so that they’re still feeling hunger, but they’re meeting the nutritional demands that are absolutely necessary. Or maybe they eat a few simple foods, they just eat some rice or just some bread or they eat a little bit of a balanced meal, but very small portions. And there’s a sense in which that can be called a partial fast. And you have the total fast where you have nothing.

Questioner: This is kind of a big question. It doesn’t seem to me that many evangelical churches are having the impact on diverse socio-economic cultural groups around them in this country the way we would like to. What do you attribute that to? How can pastors take the lead in changing that?

Wilson: As one who is working with international students from the church here, I was so thrilled to find out about your ministry. In relation to his question, churches, evangelical churches need to wake up to the tremendous opportunity that God has brought to them. One example, Park Street Church in Boston that Dr. Ockenga has been a pastor for so long, they have a regular pastor for internationals. Joe Sebunji is a wonderful Christian from Lebanon, Syria, his mother tongue is Arabic. He’s a full-time pastor to internationals on the church staff. He invited me to speak at an international banquet. There were 50 countries represented. They had 49 countries and just before dessert, a Saudi Arabian arrived. So he was in the 50th country. Imagine this opportunity right there in the center of Boston to reach key students from all over the world with the gospel.

Another thing they do is that they have wonderful English programs. They’re teaching English as a second language, helping international students brush up on their English, and they have baptized many students through their English program. These are opportunities and as you mentioned Jim, our churches need to wake up to the fact that God has brought the world to our doorstep. We have the opportunity that the Holy Spirit had at Pentecost, but we need to have openness to the Holy Spirit the way the apostles did in order to be able to reach people from all around the world that are right there. I mentioned a man and what he did as an international student. He started over a thousand churches by coming to Christ in Winnipeg. And therefore, it’s so important for our evangelical churches to wake up. It’s not just sending missionaries, but God has brought the world right around us and we’re all cross-cultural missionaries with the opportunity that we have with internationals right in our midst.