The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Kathy Shortridge of Billings, Montana from the tape, GC 1301-P, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 18." 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. ©1981. All Rights Reserved.
Question
I have a next door neighbor who has a guy that's been coming over and working on
his cars with him and the guy is a real weirdo, I mean he is about as far out in
left field as you can possibly get with out getting back into right field. The
problem is that the guy has the idea that he is God, which we obviously know is
false. My question is, is there a procedure that you would recommend for me or
my family in either trying to witness to this guy or would you recommend
complete severance of any contact with him.
Answer:
I would say from your standpoint, you are well enough trained to be able to
do that. The only thing I know to do
with that, and you know you get all kinds of people like that and it's amazing to
me that people who have mental
problems somehow get God in the midst of their mental problems even if their
not very religious people, which shows that sort of residual knowledge of God that they know they have
rejected and the guilt and the sin of
their life which they have never dealt with has piled up this guilt complex that
makes them act aberrational. I really
believe that most people act weird so that you’ll think their nuts because they
want to explain away their behavior
as mental derangement rather than sinful.
The best way to deal with those people is to confront them. Now I had a guy who came up to me two Sundays ago and he says to me here, "Hi, I missed seeing you," and I said, "I miss seeing you too, haven’t been here in a while?" "No, I’ve been in jail," and I said, "What were you doing in jail?" He said, "I tried to kill myself and so they put me in a jail to protect me." I said, "Well why did you do that?" And he said, "I just wanted to die." And I said, "Well how did you try to kill yourself?" And he said, "Well I jumped in front of three cars: one for the Father, one for the Son and one for the Holy Ghost." So I said, "That is ridiculous! One for the Father, one for the..." And he said, "By the way here is my registration card, I put my other name on the other card, but I wanted to give you this as my other name, I have two names." I said, "You don’t have two names, I know you and your name is so and so, and those cars are not the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and there’s no sense in you committing suicide and you better get your life....." And I just nailed it as hard as I could straight forward, that’s the only thing I know to do. I mean, I just can’t stand there and say "Oh, well that’s wonderful. I get spaced out too." You know I don’t know how to handle that kind of thing except to say don’t play that game with me.
If I come across
a person, who thinks they
are God, there have been people like that, I mean Charles Manson thought he was
Jesus Christ and sometimes he
thought he was Satan. So the only thing you can do is say: "Stop that
foolishness!" But sometimes they're so blown
on drugs, they're so far out in their mental trip that they can’t come back to
reality. But the only thing you can do is
give it a shot. Sometimes if you’ll just confront them and say, "You are NOT God,
that is NOT true, that’s a lie,
you know who you are and if your going to get anything going together in your
life you better face who you are."
We had a situation here where a guy was in and out of the mental deal and one
day one of our counselors said to
him, "You know I’m so tired of this thing, what game are you playing?" And the guy
said, "Ah, you found me out huh? and explained the whole thing and why he did it. So the only thing I
know to do with people like that is to
confront those people and you know sometimes people will even threaten my life
and do things like that and
the only thing I know to do when I see those people is to tell them, "LOOK! you
know, stay away, be firm with
those people in a loving, but firm way.
Question (continued)
Right, well this is the thing I have been concerned about because he has tried
to confuse my children and
I’ve instructed my children to stay away from him.
Answer (continued)
Yes, that’s the right thing to do, don’t expose your children to him.
Question (continued)
And I appreciate one thing, as I said I love the ministry and the way the kids
have been taught here. The
other day he came over and I wasn’t there and he began to spout at my wife and
tell my wife that he was
God and my little eight year old looked up and says your not God, Jesus is.
Answer (continued)
Amen...right on target.
You know we have a guy who comes here dressed like a lady all the time and wants to be counseled and I mean, what do you tell the guy? I baptized a woman one night, I mean she came in from the lady’s side. I found out later it was a man I baptized it, or him, it was a him, and he said he said he’d had surgery and I said, "I don’t care if you’ve had surgery, you were made a man and you are still a man." Well he said, "I’m going to live as a woman." and I said, "Leave this church! God made you a man. If you have to go through life as a castrated man, you’re a man, you’re not a woman!" "But I was a woman in a man's body!" I said, "You are a man! and whatever you did to yourself you are a man!" And, when he came into be baptized and I hadn't talked to him and he came up and said, "My name is Alice," you know that was the end for me, I thought Whoa! Whoa!" That’s really true isn’t it? Some of you guys remember that and I was dumbfounded. [he said] “And I came to the Lord” and I was just dying back there, but later I found out what was going on.
So those things happen in a church and I think you just
have to confront that kind of
thing, but it's a hard problem though. Bless their hearts, your heart reaches
out to them, you love them.
You know the first day I was ever at Grace Church, this is the first day I ever
got here. My first day as a pastor.
Right? I’m sitting in the office over there and I’m asking the Lord....and all
of a sudden....to help me get started,
and this knock on the door and this guy walks in--all in white, my first day.
He’s all in white everything. White
shirt, white pants, white shoes, white coat, white everything, and you know
that’s a dead giveaway, that the guy
has got sin in his life and is trying to look pure and he’s playing a game in his
mind. That’s right. So he comes in and
he walks over with his wallet, and he goes, like this--"FBI". He didn’t even
knock. He just walks right in. I’m
sitting there studying and he comes in --"FBI," and I looked up and I thought,
what is going on? Am I under arrest?
and he looked around the room and said, "Is this room bugged?" and I said, "I just got
here man, you’ll have to tell me,
I don’t know." and he flips out that thing again and shuts it real fast. I don’t
even know what was in his wallet. It
was a game he was playing and then he says, "If you got a minute I’ll show you
the map" and so he reaches in his
pocket and he pulls out a map and he says, "You see they’re over there
and were over here," and I don’t even
know what’s going on, you know. I don’t know if this guy is the chairman of the
elders, I don’t know what he is.
Well, we tried every way we could to love him and care for him and we believe he
committed his life to Christ. He
was a brilliant guy, graduated from UCLA and time went on. But that was my
first introduction to the pastorate.
And all through my years here there have been those kind of people in my life,
always. You work hard and that
young man took his own life. But that’s something you just have to struggle
with, and those people are around
and you know, how do you deal with them? I’m sometimes am at the end of my rope in
trying, but God gives us grace
and if we extend love to those people, but firm love. Firm, we need to affirm to
them the truth to them about
themselves, even though they deny it.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and
Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
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