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 Brenda Rivera of Orlando, Florida from the tape, GC 1301-S, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 21."  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. ©1982. All Rights Reserved.

Question

Are you familiar with an article in this Saturday’s Times in the calendar section entitled, “Spices of Life at the Erotic Film Awards"? Did you happen to see it? The beginning paragraphs, the writer is Lee Grant, I don’t know anything about him, but he was writing about Christians standing outside this awards ceremony, and some of them yelling “Repent perverts” another one calling himself Jeremiah Christian, he was yelling “Repent adulterer, fornicator,” etc. They quote a lady that is part of this festival as saying, “Those people outside shouldn’t judge me, I don’t judge them. I’m sensitive, they seem so tormented and condemning, a lot of bitterness when you throw stones at others...” My question is, are you supportive of that type of evangelism? Do you think, it’s effective or detrimental?

Answer

I think if the guy is speaking the truth, boy that’s about the best place I can think of to be saying it. I mean I know people are going to write you off as a fanatic, but that’s exactly what they did to the prophets and Jesus. They stoned them and killed them and then they crucified the Son of God. I think we are not in the marketplace enough. I mean I think if you want to go down to where they are and do that I mean you got to be willing to risk whatever is going to happen, but I think that’s the right message given to the right people at the right time and the right place.

Now obviously somebody can be so bizarre or fanatical that they’d be thought of as some kind of maniac, raving maniac. Within reason, and within biblical accuracy...the prophets did more wild things than that, they did object lessons: rolling around on the ground, laying on one side for days and flipping on the other side for days, and all kinds of…you read Jeremiah and see all the crazy…the people thought he was out of his mind, and they finally throw him in a pit and said, “We’ve had it with you,” and shipped him to Egypt.

So you know there’s not enough of that in our sophisticated society, that kind of confrontation. I mean I’m not saying you’re going to have a great revival and everybody’s going to repent, but it is the right message to those people. So go to it, wouldn’t that be exciting? I used to preach on the street corners and I mean it’s tough. I used to go to the bus depots and preach on repent and all that and people would just go by and say, “Poor kid, he’s young, he’s so demented.” But I don’t think we are confrontive enough. Bless their hearts, I’m excited that people have the courage to do things like that. I sometimes think that some of them are misrepresenting the truth because their message is kind of clouded up with some kind of aberration, but if it’s really on target it’s good.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
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