{"id":1216492,"date":"2022-01-14T13:04:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T18:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1216492"},"modified":"2022-01-14T13:04:45","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T18:04:45","slug":"interview-john-macarthur-on-fair-weather-friends-criminalizing-evangelism-defying-caesar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/interview-john-macarthur-on-fair-weather-friends-criminalizing-evangelism-defying-caesar\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: John MacArthur On Fair-Weather Friends, Criminalizing Evangelism, Defying Caesar"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Finterview-john-macarthur-on-fair-weather-friends-criminalizing-evangelism-defying-caesar%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1216492&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Modern culture tends to think of a prophet as someone who predicts the future, and the Scriptures have plenty of stories about such seers. But more often, prophets in the Bible simply spoke the truth to the nation, calling it and its leaders to repent and live by God\u2019s standards.<\/p>\n<p>The prophet Nathan rebuked David on the Lord\u2019s behalf for his sexual sin with Bathsheba. Elijah spit fire, as the kids say, at the people of Israel and their false teachers for distorting the word of God and following the example of pagans. John the Baptist didn\u2019t shy away from boldly addressing Herod\u2019s indecency in marrying his brother\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n<p>Grace Community pastor John MacArthur, the California Bible teacher behind one of the largest radio ministries in the world, is no stranger to this kind of prophet work. His plain-spoken condemnation of the social justice movement, which has taken deep root in American Protestantism thanks to the influence of left-leaning church leaders, has been known to ruffle more than a few political and ecumenical feathers. More recently, he <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/johnmacarthur\/status\/1313879694031241216?lang=en\">led the charge<\/a> against unconstitutional government mandates to close churches.<\/p>\n<p>At 82, MacArthur is speaking truth to what could become the greatest threat to religious freedom of our time: How the Left is using so-called \u201cconversion therapy laws,\u201d which are deceptively marketed as bans on coercive and abusive medical treatments, to silence the Gospel and stop the spread of Christianity.<\/p>\n<p>A few weeks ago, MacArthur heard from Canadian pastor James Coates, a fellow renegade who made headlines in his own country when he was jailed for defying authorities who ordered his church not to meet. The two were brothers-in-arms in fighting for the right of Christians to gather, but this time Coates was sounding the alarm about a new Canadian law that ostensibly bans conversion therapy for homosexuals and people who believe they are transgender. But the real effect of the legislation, Coates warned, is to outlaw the preaching and teaching of biblical sexuality, to criminalize evangelism.<\/p>\n<p>The language of C-4, as the law is known, is so broad, it could apply to almost any context. If a pastor preaches a message from the pulpit about sexuality and the authorities interpret it as trying to convince someone not to be gay or trans, they could arrest him. Same with a teacher at a Christian school. Or a lay minister offering church counseling. Even if an individual <em>wants<\/em> to leave a gay or transgender lifestyle, any Christian, be it friend or family, advising them on how to do so would be breaking the law. As MacArthur, with characteristic bluntness, has stated, C-4 represents an \u201cattack on the Word of God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When he received Coates\u2019 SOS, the 82-year-old immediately went into action, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gracechurch.org\/news\/posts\/2307\">issuing a call<\/a> to his fellow ministers to preach on the subject of God\u2019s design for gender and sex on January 16, in a show of peaceful defiance against a power-drunk Canuck Caesar. It must be noted, though, that the issue hardly stops at the northern border. Fourteen states including California, New Jersey, and Washington, already have similar bans, though more limited in scope. And Indiana recently introduced a bill of its own. At its last convention, the Democrats made advancing conversion therapy laws an official part of their party platform.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, MacArthur is standing, like his Puritan heroes, against the government. Unable to do otherwise. But while many lesser-known, faithful pastors have responded to his call to preach on biblical sexuality on January 16, when it comes to high-profile, large platform leaders, he is, much like the prophets of the Old Testament, once again mostly standing alone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How to Lose Friends But Influence People<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When I ask MacArthur why he thinks so many of the men he has shared pulpits and stages with over the years have gone silent, he starts with the most charitable explanation. \u201cMaybe they\u2019re busy doing something else,\u201d he says. But then he acknowledges that preaching boldly against LGBT orthodoxy isn\u2019t exactly a popular maneuver in the seeker-friend church culture of today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFew pastors want to tackle this,\u201d he concedes, \u201cbecause their strategy is to give the unconverted, degenerate sinner what his fallen heart wants. You don\u2019t confront anything, you don\u2019t offend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>MacArthur\u2019s right-hand man, Grace To You executive director Phil Johnson, tells me he, too, thinks the silence from old friends stems in part from the fact that evangelical leadership is currently dominated by men who lack courage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not that most of them would be in favor of softening the church\u2019s stance on sexual morality,\u201d Johnson explains. \u201cBut they are embarrassed to be outspoken on an issue that sets them apart from a world that is passionately determined to eliminate from our culture all rules about sexual immorality. They can\u2019t stand the conflict and persecution they know will come if they speak out against LGBTQRSTU&amp;%.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet Johnson points out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Modern culture tends to think of a prophet as someone who predicts the future, and the Scriptures have plenty of stories about such seers. But more often, prophets in the Bible simply spoke the truth to the nation, calling it and its leaders to repent and live by God\u2019s standards. The prophet Nathan rebuked David &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}