The following message was delivered by John MacArthur Jr., of Grace 

Community Church in Panorama City, California.  It was transcribed from the 

tape, GC 70-11, titled "Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be 

obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or 

by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.



I have made every effort to ensure that an accurate transcription of the 

original tape was made.  Please note that at times sentence structure may 

appear to vary from accepted English conventions.  This is due primarily to 

the techniques involved in preaching and the obvious choices I had to make in 

placing the correct punctuation in the article.



It is my intent and prayer that the Holy Spirit will use this transcription 

to strengthen and encourage the true Church of Jesus Christ.

                                                      

                                                          Tony Capoccia







                          Questions and Answers #6

                                     by

                             John MacArthur Jr.

                               Copyright 1990

                             All Rights Reserved





Question #1



What does hate mean, when God says He "hates Jacob?"  Does He actually hate 

the person or does He hate what the person does?



Answer #1



You remember in Romans, chapter 9, God says, "Jacob have I loved and Esau 

have I hated."  It doesn't say He hated Jacob, as the question indicates, but 

He says, "I love Jacob and I hate Esau."  Now the question is, "Does God hate 

the person or does He hate what the person does?"  Well, what does John 3:16 

say, "For God so loved the whole world."  So we know that everyone falls 

under the general category of the love of God, but there are a number of 

times in Scripture when God is expressed as "hating."  I was thinking of 

Psalm 5:5 where it says, "The boastful shall not stand before Thine eyes; 

Thou dost hate all who do iniquity."  Then over in Psalm 11:5, "The Lord 

tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul 

hates."  Then over in Psalm 26:5, "I hate the assembly of evildoers."  In 

Proverbs, an even more extensive statement is made in that familiar text of 

chapter six, verse sixteen, "There are six things which the Lord hates, seven 

are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed 

innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to 

evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among 

brothers."  And then, of course, in Proverbs 8:13, you probably have 

something which makes it very clear.  It says, "The fear of the Lord (or true 

worship of God) is to hate evil; pride, arrogance and the evil way, and the 

perverted mouth I hate."



Now in all of these cases you can see clearly that what it is that God hates 

is not the individual but--what?  The sin.  He even lists the sins that He 

hates.  When a person persists in those sins, it is the sin in the sinner 

persisted that God hates.  Even God says, "I have no pleasure in the death of 

the wicked."  The New Testament says that "The Lord does not desire that any 

should perish."  And so it is the sin that He hates.  In Jeremiah, I was just 

thinking of chapter 44, verse 4, it says, "I sent all my servants the 

prophets again, and again, saying 'Oh, do not this abominable thing which I 

hate.'"  It is the deed of the sinner that the Lord hates.  It is the act of 

sin that the Lord hates.  But, it is also true that the sinner who does not 

repent, who continues in the sin will feel the fury of God's hatred.  In 

Malachi 1:4, it says that, "The Lord," towards people who sin, "is indignant 

forever."



So God hates the sin, but if the sinner persists in the sin, then the sinner 

feels the hatred of God.  With regard to Esau, I might just say as a 

footnote, nowhere in Genesis does it say that God hated Esau--it doesn't say 

anywhere that He hated Esau.  It was only after Esau had chosen sin and 

abandoned God for many, many years--over a thousand years before God would 

look back and say, "Esau have I hated."  By that time it was clear to all 

where Esau stood.  So once the sinner is inexorably and finally identified 

with the sin, then the sinner feels the hatred of God.  





Question #2



How would you reply to a believer, in the Charismatic movement, who agrees 

that revelation [new] cannot be added to Scripture, but would still argue 

that God still gives "Words of Knowledge" in the church, for direction as 

long as it falls in line with the Scripture?



Answer #2



In answering the Charismatic there are a number of ways, my book on the 

Charismatics goes into that in some detail, but revelation is revelation.  If 

a person says that "I am getting direct 'Words of Wisdom, Knowledge, 

Revelation' from God," then that equates with Scripture, in the sense that it 

is the pure, unadulterated, true revelation of God, and so it confuses the 

issue.  We have, according to what Jude said, "A faith once for all delivered 

to the saints."  We have, according to what John writes in Revelation, a 

revelation which does not permit addition, "If anything is added, it shall be 

added to the person, the plagues that are written in the book."



The idea that God is giving revelation, and that it is somehow not equal to 

Scripture, or not on a par with Scripture poses some difficulty.  If it is 

absolutely true and divine and from God, then it is divine revelation.  God 

reserved divine revelation for special times which were encompassed in the 

written Word, and since that time revelation has ceased.  Let me give you an 

illustration of that.



At the end of the Old Testament era there was a 400 year period in which 

there was no revelation, and then God spoke again in the New Testament.  So 

having a time period in which there is no revelation is not new.  When God 

completed the Old Testament He stopped speaking, and then He spoke again in 

His Son, Hebrews one says.  I believe that when He completed the New 

Testament He ceased to give revelation and we have the "Once for all 

delivered to the saints faith."  



Furthermore, I would say to a Charismatic the same thing that they say to me 

all the time, whenever I have talked to them, "How do you know it's from 

God?"  And inevitably they will say, "Well, we think it's from God," because 

they can't know.  Why?  Because it was very, very clear in the New Testament 

era who the prophets of God were--who the Apostles of Christ were.  The Word 

came through recognized authorities.  Today, anybody and his brother might 

get a revelation from God, and on what basis are we to assume it's from God?  

Is it attendant with "Signs and Wonders?"  Can they heal the sick?  Can they 

raise the dead?  Can they cast out demons at a word--authoritatively like 

Jesus and the Apostles did?  Those were the signs of an Apostle.  See anyone 

who had the ability to give revelation had to be accredited, and the 

accreditation was, according to 2 Corinthians 12, "the signs of an 

apostle"--and it was known to all who these people were, or the fact that 

they were Apostles or that they were those who were associated with the 

Apostles.



So I think that it is very, very important to understand that:



1.  Revelation ceased.



2.  Even when it was being given, not everybody got it.  It never was 

something that God just passed out indiscriminately to all kinds of people.  



So I think that those would be the approaches that I would take.



I remember reading a book that was published by one of the Pentecostal 

presses in our country, in which it said this pastor was pleading for people 

to stop standing up in churches and saying, "I have a Word from the Lord!"  

He said, "We know that these are from the Lord or they are not, but we don't 

know how to know which."  It is very confusing.  This pastor gave an 

illustration of a church that was in the process of calling someone to be 

their pastor, and some lady stood up and said, "I have a Word from the Lord, 

'This is the man.'"  Immediately it through the church into chaos because 

they didn't know whether it was from the Lord or not.  That's very typical.



I know very well a man who took me into his office, a very well-known 

Charismatic pastor, and said, "God had given him a vision," and he showed me 

on a board the vision that God had given him for an area of the city which 

the Lord had set aside for him.  Within five years that vision was gone, that 

board had disappeared in a trash barrel somewhere and he had a new one.  This 

would be a man that everyone would assume, if anybody was going to be able to 

know when he got a revelation--he might.  Again, it is very whimsical.  



It is very frightening, also, to say that you have a "Word from the Lord."  

In the Old Testament if you said you had a "Word from the Lord" and it was 

tested and found to be not from the Lord--you were killed!  That's how 

important the issue is, because you can't have people running around loose 

saying, "God told them this" and "God told them that."  So before anyone 

would ever say anything like that, they would want to take very careful stock 

of the issues at hand.



Furthermore, are we to assume that somehow the Spirit of God can't do His 

work unless He gives revelation to some people?  Unless He gives revelation 

indiscriminately to all kinds of people?  I think not.  



Furthermore, it seems to me of grave concern that those people who are 

getting revelation tend to be in a movement which is the most Biblically 

illiterate--to be real honest with you.  They don't know theology, they don't 

know doctrine, and they don't know how to interpret the Scripture very well, 

and because of that lack of content they fall into a mystical category.  

Because they are not able to really carefully exposit the Word of God; 

without that content orientation, they fall into the category of "looking 

for an experience."  I'll give you an illustration of it.



I was watching the television program "Today" from "Church on the Way," and 

there was a guy singing a song and the song went like this, "When there are 

no answers, there is Jesus," and he went on to say, "When there are no 

answers, there is Jesus."  And I thought to myself, "What in the world does 

that mean?"  Does that mean that you can either go with a cognitive approach 

and find answers to questions, or you can just junk that and grab Jesus?  You 

see that is a very mystical approach to truth--"Where there are no answers, 

there is Jesus"--wait a minute!  That's abandoning the search--for an 

experience!  The song should say, "When you are looking for the answer, Jesus 

has it"--the Bible has the answer!  But there is a very experiential kind of 

milieu in which many of those dear people exist, and I think they substitute 

those revelations, very often for understanding.



So I think that there are a lot of ways to approach that.  I don't say that 

with unkindness, I say it because I believe that it is true and that it is 

correct.





Question #3



I have been reading, or I have read in the past where Spurgeon, and Luther, 

and Whitfield were all drinkers--they were all imbibers of the "Fruit of the 

Vine," if you will.  And, I have always been taught to pattern my life after 

godly men and so on.  My question is, and I have heard a lot of. . . .heard 

this and that about what you believe on this issue.  I would like you to 

answer the question in light of this, and that is, Psalm 104 and Deuteronomy 

28, and Proverbs 3, all talk about wine, and it is the context of a blessing, 

and the way that I understand it, is that the same Hebrew word in Psalm 104 

and Proverbs 3 and Deuteronomy 28, that same Hebrew word is the same Hebrew 

word used for the wine that Noah drank and that Lot drank.  So you are 

reading and think, "Aw, that's grape juice," and you would throw it out, but 

the way I understand it, at least the way that I do, is that it is wine--it's 

real wine, and it is a blessing, and it is from God, "And wine makes glad the 

heart of man and God."



Where do you stand on the wine issue and why?



Answer #3



First of all, I don't know about Spurgeon, Whitfield, and who else?  I don't 

know what the source is, and I don't know how accurate it is.  I don't know 

what they [Spurgeon, Luther, and Whitfield] did, but what they did was 

between them and the Lord and their understanding.



Personally, there is a lot involved in this--let me see if I can give you 

just a couple of brief statements.  First of all, I don't drink wine.  I 

don't drink anything with alcohol in it.  The simple reason is--I don't need 

to, so why would I put myself in a position to be controlled by something, 

when it is not necessary.  In other words, I live in a culture where it 

doesn't have to be that way.  The reason that there are so many strong 

warnings about drunkenness in the Bible is because they were living in a 

society where everybody drank the "fruit of the vine," and without 

refrigeration process everything fermented.  So in Biblical times, when you 

talk about wine, you are not talking about grape juice, all of it would have 

been wine, in effect, because it wouldn't take very long for it to ferment.  

So the process of fermentation (and I don't want to go into all of this) and 

the process of purging and separating out the vinegar and pouring it from bag 

to bag, to bag, to bag, and all of that (bags of skin) to get as pure a wine 

as possible did not preclude the fact that it could be alcoholic.  



But the best indications and the best evidence continues to be that there 

were two kinds of drinks: one was called "strong drink" and one was "wine," 

and you will see those two distinguished words in the Old Testament.  "Strong 

drink" was unmixed, and "strong drink" is not commended.  "Wine" was mixed, 

"strong drink" unmixed, and the mixture of wine with water was the common 

means of dilution of the alcohol so that that which had to be drunk would not 

make you drunk.  Now, if you are living in a culture like Palestine where it 

is hot, and you have this very dry and arid kind of climate, obviously there 

would be a major thirst problem, and if you are working in the heat of the 

day and you just keep drinking straight wine all day because you can't drink 

water because there were not the purification processes necessary. . . .In 

those days, bodies of water tended to be bodies of sewage as well, and they

had problems with that.



The mixture of water with wine did two things: One, it diluted the wine, and 

two, it also purified the water because the alcoholic content of the wine 

would act in a disinfectant way on the water to purge it from whatever might 

be there.  So it was common, and you can check all kinds of historical 

sources on this--the best one was an article in CT a number of years ago on 

this very issue [Christianity Today], in which the historical data was pretty 

well pulled together and the resource material was given.  But the bottom 

line was they mixed their wine, anywhere from 3:1, 4:1 to 8:1, so that it was 

greatly diluted, so that you could not hold enough of that liquid to be 

drunk.  But the warnings against drunkenness are repeated in the Old 

Testament and the New Testament because it was so easy to fall into that 

pattern, because basically that was all you could drink--the "fruit of the 

vine."  There was, I supposed what we would call, "artificial drinks," you 

know, there were no "Coca Colas" and "7 Ups" and that kind of thing.



So, I believe that out of necessity they would drink real wine which would 

ferment, but they would mix it with water so that it would not be full 

strength.  After all, a glass of wine has the same basic alcohol content as a 

can of beer, which has basically the same alcohol content as a shot of 

whiskey.  The reason you get drunk faster on whiskey is because you can 

consume so much more of it than you can the volume even of wine or of beer.  



I believe what the Scripture was indicating was that you want to avoid 

anything that can have an undue influence on you.  Certainly drinking mixed 

wine for the quenching of your thirst, and drinking a pleasurably tasting 

drink would bring pleasure, would bring joy to you and joy to God, just as 

God would rejoice when you ate the food that He created in the world.  But I 

don't think that there was any joy on the heart of God, at all, for a person 

who drank something that affected their thinking.  That is really made clear 

in Proverbs 31 where He says, look when it comes to the role of leadership, 

spiritual leadership, there has to be a different standard.  It says in verse 

4, "It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for 

rulers to desire strong drink, lest they drink and forget what is decreed, 

and pervert the rights of all the wicked.  Give strong drink to somebody who 

is perishing."  



Give strong drink to somebody who in such physical pain they need some 

atheistic.  And give wine to one whose life is bitter.  Not to get him drunk, 

but to give him a little of the joy of what God has provided in the good 

things of life.  



So when you come to the New Testament it talks about Elders and Deacons.  It 

says an elder, well, let me just point you to the text, 1 Timothy 3, and it 

says that, "he is not addicted to wine," or "not to be beside wine."  That is 

true of an elder; that is true of a deacon--he is not someone who is beside 

wine--who sits and consumes wine, for obvious reasons, because in positions 

of spiritual leadership it would be too easy to become skewed in your 

judgment.



So I think that God knew the danger of it; the system of mixing it with water 

took care of that danger, but we live in a time when wine is not mixed today 

and can cloud someone's thinking and someone's judgment, and I don't want to 

have part in anything that does that.



Furthermore, the principle of Romans 14 and 15 enters in.  I don't want to do 

anything in my life that makes somebody else stumble, and I will tell you 

right now, if I drank wine, a lot of people would say, "John MacArthur drinks 

wine--I can drink wine," and they would become alcoholics and destroy their 

lives.  I don't want to set that kind of pattern.  



So I think from the standpoint of making sure you don't set a pattern that 

others follow and stumble, that I would abstain from that as well.  That's my 

own position.



Recently, somebody at a certain institution in this country announced to the 

students that they don't think John MacArthur drinks, but a lot of his staff 

members do--a lot of the pastors do.  I would just affirm to you that none of 

our pastors or elders do.  We collectively take the same position on that.  

So in case anybody wonders about that--that is the case.  So I hope that 

gives you a little bit of input into that.



Question #3 (Continued)



If you saw somebody drinking wine, you couldn't actually point your finger at 

them, if they are drinking it in moderation, you couldn't point your finger 

at them saying, "You're in sin."  Is that correct?  Because, it was 

diluted--it had some alcohol in it, so obviously you can't say somebody is in 

sin for drinking some alcohol because they did it then, if they are doing 

that in moderation now.



Answer #3 (Continued)



I think there are compelling reasons not to do it.  I wouldn't say that if a 

person happens to drink a little wine that they have committed some kind of 

sin, unless they have done that knowing that someone seeing that would 

stumble.  But I think the greater part of discretion is abstinence--that's 

the better judgment.





Question #4



I have been here in this church [Grace Community Church] for quite some time, 

and I remember back when we used to call the Sunday that Jesus rose from the 

dead "Resurrection Sunday," and I would like to know why we went back to 

using the name of a pagan goddess?



Answer #4



That's a good question.  Let's call it "Resurrection Sunday"--I buy 

that--that's good!  Put that in the bulletin--whoever does the bulletin.  

Thank you for asking--we always called it "Resurrection Sunday."  In fact, we 

used to give out little tags you can put on your lapel saying "He is Risen" 

and have everybody wear them for a week.  We might do that now, but it is a 

little more complicated, for in those days we did not have quite as many 

people, but it is "Resurrection Sunday"--let's call it that.  Good point.





Question #5



I would like you to explain the last chapter in 1 Corinthians.  I know that 

it is disciplinary to the people of Corinthians, but why would Paul, in verse 

22, say, "If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed?"  I get the 

point or the idea, but he is talking to Christians.



Answer #5



Yes, he's talking to Christians with the recognition that in the Corinthian 

assembly there is always the reality that some may not know the Lord.  You 

have that in many, many places.  I would stand in this pulpit and say to you, 

"You are the Church, you are my Church," but I would say, "If any of you do 

not love the Lord Jesus Christ--you are going to be cursed."  He is speaking 

to a wider audience and obviously there were people in the Corinthian 

Church. . . .for example, well, all through Corinthians, the Corinthian 

Letter, it is apparent that they had a lot of problems.  There were people, 

obviously, who were claiming to be Christians, but one could make the 

argument that, if indeed they were making the claim--they were lacking the 

reality.  



I am thinking particularly of. . . .chapter 10 comes to mind, where he says 

in verse 12 (1 Corinthians 10:12), "Let him who thinks he stands take 

heed. . . ."  What?  "Lest he fall."  Some of them were acting immorally, 

some of them were in idolatry, and he is saying, "You know you better make 

sure your heart is right!"  And he uses the illustration of Israel--people 

destroyed in the wilderness, never entered the Promised Land--sort of an 

analogy.  



I think also in chapter 12, verse 3, it's indicating that some people, under 

some Satanic influence were cursing Jesus!  And he is saying if people are 

standing up and cursing Jesus, it is certainly not by the Spirit of the Lord.  

So there must have been an awful lot of confusion in the Corinthian Church, 

there obviously were people confused about spiritual gifts--confusing all 

kinds of pagan ecstasies, so that it was very likely that what Paul is saying 

at the end is, "I don't care what your claim is--if you don't love the Lord 

Jesus Christ--you are going to be cursed."  I think that is the best way to 

understand that, and that could be true of any church, or any 

congregation--you don't make the assumption that because people are there, in 

that congregation, they necessarily all know Christ.  



What he is saying is, "If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ--let 

them be cursed."  That just reiterates God. . . .God would say that.  And 

then he says, "Maranatha," to indicate that Jesus is coming, so whatever you 

do, you better do, because there is an inevitability when the Lord comes in 

judgment.





Question #6



My question is threefold, 



1.  How can the Bible be read to teach "Limited Atonement?"



2.  How can the Bible be read to teach "Unlimited Atonement?"



3.  What do you believe that it teaches and why?





Answer #6



Let me qualify this, because this is a little bit of a theological question.  



There has been through the years a debate about the Atonement, and the debate 

basically is, "Did Jesus Christ die for everyone?"  In that sense, His 

atonement was unlimited.  In other words, He died to pay the penalty for sin 

for the whole world, and then the gift of salvation is generally offered to 

the world.



The second viewpoint is, that Jesus Christ died only for the elect.  That it 

is more logical to assume that if only the elect are saved--that Jesus died 

only for the elect, otherwise Jesus died for people who He knew would never 

be saved, and what's the point of that?



So this particular debate rages hot at this particular time in history.  

There are some who believe in a "Total Redemption," that is, that Jesus 

Christ provided a full redemption for all human beings, and there are some 

who believe in what is called a "Particular Redemption," that He died 

providing redemption particularly, that is only, or specifically for the 

elect.



I find in my own mind and in my own study of Scripture a strong case for a 

"General Atonement," for a "Universal Atonement," for an "All Encompassing 

Provision."  For Jesus dying as the propitiation for our sins--and not for 

ours only but for the sins of the whole world, tying it in particularly with 

John, chapter three, "God so loved. . . ."  What?  "The world"--not the 

elect.  "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that 

whosoever beleiveth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  It 

seems to me that the giving of the Son was in response to the loving of the 

world, and that the propitiation which Christ was, was sufficient for the 

sins of all the world.  



So, I would say, that I believe, and I think this is maybe one way to 

understand it--I believe that the atonement of Christ was sufficient for the 

world, but is efficient for those that believe.  I believe in, I guess what 

you could call a "Limited and Unlimited Atonement."  It is unlimited in the 

sense that it was sufficient to cover the sins of the whole world--it is 

limited, in that it is applied only to those who believe.  I don't like to 

get pushed beyond that, but I don't like to just take the title of believing 

in "Limited Atonement" or "Particular Redemption," that Jesus died only for 

the elect, because I think that that has some exegetical problems.  I think 

you would have problems explaining certain passages of Scripture, but I admit 

to you that it is a very difficult issue, because there are many passages 

that apply His redemptive work "only to the elect," "only to those who 

believe."  But I believe, compared with other passages, His redemption 

encompasses, in its sufficiency--the world.



It is no more a contradiction than the many other things that appear to be 

contradictory.  Like, how is it that people are saved by the election of God 

and damned by their unbelief?  I mean, I think that there are other issues in 

theology that are very difficult for the human mind to resolve and that has 

passages, apparently, on both sides.  For example, you have passages in the 

New Testament on "Eternal Security" that say that God keeps us.  You have 

passages in the New Testament that says that you will be saved if you 

persevere to the end.  So, I think that we can't get too threatened by the 

fact that with regard to theological issues, particularly in the realm of 

salvation, we may not be able to harmonize everything.  You can read some 

Scriptures which appear to be limited, some Scriptures which appear to be 

unlimited--a better way to understand that is in somewhat paradoxical 

terms--in some points it is limited, in some points it appears to be 

unlimited.





Question #7



I saw Dan Coram (sp.) at the Master's College and it really opened up my eyes 

to a lot of things Wednesday night.  And I had a question going away from 

that, that I was going to write to you about.   I was wondering in the Bible, 

in the Old Testament, referring to the Baal worshipers wanting to call down 

fire if they could, and Satan wanting to do that, but it didn't happen.  And 

then also, in Egypt, as Moses did the miracles the magicians counterfeited 

some of those.  And my question was, and especially a lot of areas in the Old 

Testament talking about witchcraft and all that, and stoning those type of 

people, "How do you discern between that and just a regular magician who does 

acts of delusion like Dan does as a Christian?"  Most magicians, who aren't 

Christians of course, will claim that it is powers from whatever.  So I was 

just wondering how we as Christians are supposed to discern that--whether it 

is all delusion, or whether there are some real stuff, and how are we to 

discern that?





Answer #7



You are asking a very significant question and I am not sure that I can 

discern that, so I am not sure that I can always give you the answer.  What 

you are asking me is how do you tell the difference between a guy who has a 

technique and a method, and a guy who has Satanic power?  Right?



Question #7 (Continued)



A Christian was asking me whether we should even have Christian Magicians?



Answer #7 (Continued)



It depends on what you are doing.  Magician is the wrong word in a sense, 

because that conjures up the occult, and mysticism, and all of that.  What we 

know today as magicians are not functioning with supernatural power--they 

have technique.  They have just mastered a certain technique and they deceive 

you with that technique, as Danny Coram (sp.) can illustrate to you.  He can 

stand there and tell you your name and your grandmother's name.  It is what 

is called "Cold Reading," he actually gets you somehow to say that, and you 

don't even know you said it and neither does the audience.  It is the power 

of suggestion and so forth.  That kind of "Cold Reading" is a technique.  

When they do tricks with cards that is all technique.  When they do a 

disappearing trick that is all a technique--it's all that kind of stuff.  



When you are talking about Satanic activity and how much power Satan 

has--that's a very difficult question for me to answer.  We know that during 

the time of the end, certainly 2 Thessalonians talks about it, that there is 

going to come certain powers.  Jesus in the Olivet Discourse talked about 

antichrists who would deceive, and even deceive the whole world.  You know in 

Revelation we find the Antichrist with an amazing ability to deceive people.  

Just how extensive and how that functions and so forth from a Satanic 

perspective I am not sure I really know.  The Bible doesn't really give us, 

what you could call a breakdown of how that works, but I really think, for 

the most part what we are dealing with, with magicians is just really 

technique.  It is just deception by trickery, there is a way that they do 

them.  In fact, Danny has told me in a number of private conversations that 

he knows how they do those things--it is just a technique.  But they want you 

to believe that it is supernatural.  



Question #7 (Continued)



Do you think that the magicians in Egypt were doing it by technique or by 

Satanic power?



Answer #7 (Continued)



Well, the Scripture doesn't say, but I would tend to think that they would be 

able to do it by some trickery, that they had learned how to deceive; that 

they were bright, smart people, after all they were further back the genetic 

trail towards perfection than we are, so they were more clever than we think 

they were.  And if we can come up with that kind of stuff, they probably 

could of also.  Again, I don't know to what extent Satan can counterfeit.  

There is no real indication, for example, in Scripture that Satan can raise 

the dead, which is a divine act.  I don't think that there is any indication 

that Satan can raise the dead.  I don't see any evidence in Scripture (I am 

trying to think this through) of Satan actually performing great wonders, 

that were identified as such--I don't know that there is a catalog of that in 

Scripture.  In fact, I don't know that Satan ever healed anyone.  So we don't 

have any indication of when he does what he does.  



So I would be hesitant to say that Satan is making an Ace of Spades appear in 

somebody's back pocket, you know when some magician does a trick--I think 

that it is pretty much just entertainment.  But it spills over into the 

occult at the point at which they claim supernatural power.  For example, 

these ridiculous Filipino healers who reach into a body and start pulling out 

big pieces of bloody flesh, and Danny Coram (sp.) has pretty well debunked 

that stuff.  You know it is "slight of hand," they have got all kinds of 

bloody animal parts, and they are doing all this "bloodless surgery" and 

throwing out a cow's liver and all this stuff that they have got up their 

sleeve, or whatever--it's all just deception.  The guy that he unmasked on 

national television, who was suppose to be able to make objects move and 

wave, and bend nails, and all of that--and [he] showed how all of that was 

just a deception.





Question #7 (Continued)



Were those kind of people in the Old Testament be stone though for being a 

false prophets or dealing in that kind of stuff?





Answer #7 (Continued)



Well they would if that was associated with a false prophecy or if it was a 

competing power to the power of God--Yes.  But I am sure that if a Hebrew 

father figured a fun way to play a trick on his kids, God wouldn't stone him 

because he made three stones look like two.  So it would have to be some kind 

of spiritual deception sort of built into the thing.  I am sorry. . . .the 

Bible just doesn't say anything specific about how Satan does what he does--I 

think he is much more limited than we think he is.





Question #8



In Genesis 1:28 it says that God gives Adam the command that says, "Be 

fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it."  In Genesis 9 he 

tells Noah to "multiply and fill the earth," there is no indication of 

subduing it.  Why is that not mentioned, and is that part of the whole 

kingdom?



Answer #8



Well, I think when Adam in his innocence was created, he could rule the whole 

of creation--he was king of the earth!  It was a question simply of having 

access to the whole of God's created environment, and he could be fruitful 

and multiply the earth.  He could sort of oversee that replenishing, and he 

could subdue it in the sense that he harnessed all of its assets and powers 

and all the things it yielded and control that--he was the king.  He could do 

that because the earth was a willing servant, but as soon as you have the 

"fall" then immediately, thorns, and thistles--and man in order to control a 

tiny piece of ground has to work by the sweat of his brow to even eke out a 

living.  



So by the time that you come to Noah, Noah can multiply children and 

replenish the earth, but it is impossible to imagine that he could totally 

control it, because it's cursed.  That has to do with the curse.





Question #9



I ride the busses quite frequently.  I see on these busses these 

advertisements for this guru, "Have all your spiritual needs answered!"  And 

in light of 1 Peter 3, Romans 13--I tear them down, because I cannot in my 

"being of beings" allow this to influence other people on the bus.  I would 

like your comment on that because it is something that I feel. . . .if I 

had to pull a verse out it would be John 2:17 about, "My zeal for the Kingdom 

of God."  I would just like your comment in regard to those actions in light 

of such things as "Operation Rescue" etc.



Answer #9



If you feel that, that is a blasphemy to the true God and you tear it down in 

good conscience, then you have to be ready to pay the consequence.  If you 

are willing to do that, which I think is part of your good citizenship--to 

accept the consequences for that, then that is your prerogative.  If you are 

offended, if I am offended by something that blasphemes God and I feel that I 

need to react to that offense, then I can react to that offense in good 

conscience recognizing that whatever the consequences are I must bear it.





Question #10



In the Bible, John 3:3-5, it says here, "You must be born again to see the 

kingdom of God."  Then in verse 5, after Nicodemus questioned some, it says 

"Jesus answered, 'Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of 

water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."  I always 

understood that to mean that "except in water," being accepting the Word of 

Jesus, and "of the Spirit, being born of the Spirit," being baptized by the 

Holy Spirit.  I am just curious, like the church teaches ceremonial 

sacraments, the seven sacraments, plus the Catholic Church, I think, does 

nine.  How do you relate that to the Holy Sacraments?





Answer #10



Let's look at that chapter again, OK?  Just look there.  Jesus is approached 

at night by a man named Nicodemus.  If you will notice, verse one, it says he 

was a ruler of the Jews, and he was a Pharisee.  He was therefore an expert 

in the Old Testament.  He was not only an expert as a Pharisee, but he was so 

expert that they had made him a ruler--probably meant he was part of the 

Sanhedrin, which was the seventy most knowledgeable men in Israel, so he knew 

the law; he knew the Old Testament.  



He came to Jesus at night probably because he couldn't get near Him during 

the daytime, because of the crowd, and because he wasn't too sure he wanted 

to be exposed himself to the other Pharisees, so he came at night.  He says, 

"Look, we know that You come from God as a teacher; nobody can do the signs 

You do unless God is with them, and I've got to ask you a question."  Well, 

before the guy could even ask the question, Jesus answered it--because Jesus 

could read the question before he spoke it, because he could read his mind.  

His question was, "How do you get in the kingdom?"  



So Jesus said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, 

he cannot see the kingdom of God."  Now, what must have been the question in 

his mind is something like this: "Now, I have kept the Law, I am a Pharisee, 

which means I am devoted to legalism, Law-keeping, obedience.  I am a ruler 

of the Jews, which means I live by the highest standard."  And his question 

might have been, "What more do I need to do to get in the kingdom?"  He 

obviously had a vacuum in his heart.  He didn't feel like he had arrived at 

the kingdom; he didn't have the peace of God in his heart.  He didn't have 

that confidence that he was really a child of God, that he had been redeemed, 

that his eternity was secure.  



So his question was probably like, "Now, what more do I need to do?  What one 

more step?  I have done all these good works, and kept all these laws, now 

what else do I need to do?"  Now, Jesus reads his mind and says, "I'll tell 

you what you need to do--you need to junk it all and go all the way back, and 

start all over again and be born again!  All that you have done up to now 

doesn't count!  Go be born again!"  Start all over, which was a real jolt.  

What he was saying was, "Your accumulation of good works means absolutely 

nothing."  You know Jesus didn't come to add one little touch to your good 

life.  He says, "You have got to go back and start all over again--from the 

very beginning!"  



Nicodemus says, "Wait a minute (verse four), how can a man be born again when 

he is old?"  He understands the analogy, he is not talking about physical 

birth--he says how am I going to do that?  How in the world can I go and 

start all over again?  How am I going to go way back and begin again?  Jesus 

answers (and here is verse five--I want you to look at it), "Truly, truly, I 

say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the 

kingdom of God."



It is not what you do.  It is not your good works--you must be born of the 

water and the spirit.  The immediate question is, "What is He talking about?"  

Is He talking about Baptism?  What is He talking about?  Well, let us find 

the context.



Nicodemus was a Jew.  He was a ruler of the Jews.  He knew the Old Testament, 

so Jesus was talking to him on Old Testament terms.  What Jesus has in mind 

in verse five, takes Nicodemus back into the Old Testament.  Where it takes 

him. . . .lets go together, take your Bible and turn because this is a 

great, great, and important matter.  Back to the prophet Ezekiel, and it was 

in the prophet Ezekiel that God originally laid down the conditions of the 

New Covenant--Ezekiel.  Listen carefully, in Ezekiel's prophecy, verse 25 of 

chapter 36, "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; 

I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.  

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I 

will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  

And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My 

statutes. . . ."  Now, stop right there.



Now, what God said through Ezekiel is this, "In the future there will be a 

New Covenant.  It will be a covenant of water--I will sprinkle clean water 

upon you."  What water?  The water of cleansing.  And what is the agency of 

cleansing?  "We have been washed by the water of the Word."  So the water 

there is the washing of the Word that washes the heart, and the spirit is the 

Holy Spirit that He plants within.  So what He was saying to Nicodemus was, 

"Look, Nicodemus, you don't need to just add a few things to your life.  You 

need your whole life washed and you need the Spirit of God in you."  That's 

what He is saying.  It has nothing to do with water baptism or with any other 

of the ordinances or the sacraments.





Question #10 (continued)



If you have accepted this (3 and 5), is it necessary to go through the holy 

sacraments (which I have done)?





Answer #10 (continued)



Let me tell you something--there are only two ordinances that the New 

Testament gives: one, Baptism, Acts 2:38 "Repent and be baptized," very 

clear.





Question #10 (continued)



Is it not being born of the water?  I always understood it as being baptized 

by water, by accepting the Word of Jesus?



Answer #10 (continued)



No, it means to actually, publicly step into the water to make your faith 

known, because on the Day of Pentecost 3,000 people were baptized in water, 

so that was exactly what they were doing.  Jesus Himself went to John the 

Baptist and let him baptize Him in the Jordan river.  Remember the eunuch who 

met Philip?  After he came to Christ he said, "What prevents me from being 

baptized?"  Philip took him down into the water and baptized him.  It is an 

outward symbol of an inward response.  It is the way you publicly confess 

Christ.  There is nothing in that water that's going to save you.  There is 

nothing in that water that is going to wash your sin away, but it does give 

you the public opportunity to declare your obedience.



The second ordinance that the Lord gave us was Communion--the Lord's Table.  

Jesus said, "Do this until I come."  And the early church did it every day, 

and every Lord's Day.  It is the cup and the bread by which we remember the 

death of Christ.  



So the only two ordinances the New Testament gives to us, one, when you come 

to Christ, be baptized in water to declare your faith publicly.  Number two, 

take the Lord's Table.  Those two symbols are the symbols that the Lord has 

left us, apart from that the rest aren't necessary.  They are fabrications of 

the church.





Question #11



Realizing that every church has its problems and realizing the importance of 

unity in a church, could you give some guidelines on when you should really 

work to preserve the unity in a church as a member, and when the problems get 

too great you ought to leave it.  Secondly, how you can leave a church if it 

gets to that situation and it has got to be done?



Answer #11



So many people ask me that question and I really know what's on your heart, 

and that is a very difficult question to answer because it really depends 

upon how the Spirit of God leads you.  You can struggle for the unity of the 

church for a long time, and sometimes you will see the fruit of that, and 

sometimes for some people they never do.  Some people seem to stay too long, 

some people might leave too soon, but again that is so dependent on the 

Spirit of God's leading.  I would say several things to keep in mind.



1.  If the leadership of the church, the pastor, and the spiritual leaders of 

the church, are part of the solution--stay.  If they are part of the problem 

then you have to really prayerfully consider whether you need to stay, 

because a people cannot rise higher than their leadership.  And if the 

leadership is the problem, it is very difficult to overcome that.  That is 

why when people say to me, "I am unhappy in my church," the first thing that 

I tell them to do is to go to the pastor and share your heart with them.  Try 

to get them to see the concerns you have, because if he doesn't understand 

the issues and seek to resolve those issues, you are going to have an uphill 

battle all the way, because he is going to be totally defensive and you are 

going to be fighting really a very, very difficult war.  If the spiritual 

leadership of the church, if the godly people, those in leadership are 

seeking to be part of the solution, and you really feel that they are on 

target, then maybe you can stay and be a part of the solution.  But if they 

are not, if the fight is against them, then you have to evaluate whether or 

not maybe in time they will leave and there will be new leadership and you 

want to stay and ride that out, or if you feel that maybe that's not what's 

going to happen and the Spirit begins to move your heart--you need to move.



2.  If the issues are doctrinal.  If the issues are a misunderstanding, a 

misinterpretation, or a misrepresentation of the Word of God, then you have 

to be very serious about whether you stay, because we as Christians are 

responsible to be under the sound teaching of the Word of God.  And if you 

are in a place where you are not getting the sound meat of the Word of God, 

and it is available to you somewhere else, then you need to be where that 

available Word is being provided for you.



Question #11 (continued)



Are you speaking about a misteaching or an omission of certain teachings?



Answer #11 (continued)



Either.  Either teaching error or omitting truth, because we are responsible 

for the truth, and our life is lived in light of the truth.  I function in 

response to what I know to be true.  But again it is a matter of your own 

prayer and your own discernment and allowing the Spirit of God to direct you 

in His own time, and if your heart is opened He will really do that.  He will 

give you a release, you will have a sense of release and you can just walk 

out.  I would say that many, many of the people sitting in this church 

tonight have been through that very experience.  



How many of you went through that experience and came to Grace Church?  Put 

your hands up.  Do you feel like you are among friends?  Thanks.  God Bless 

you.





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