The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-23, titled "Questions and Answers--Part 51."  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. Copyright 2001 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

Answer

Well, I think that’s essentially what it is. Now the question is, to what degree and is it recoverable? If you read II Chronicles 7:14 the principle: “If my people, called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, then I’ll restore them.” Psalm 81: “If my people will listen to my Word and walk in my ways, then I will deliver them from their enemies and I will feed them with honey from the rock” and all of those kinds of things. I think there’s every reason in Scripture to indicate that even when a nation is under that judgment of abandonment, when the nation has had restraining grace removed, that if there is a wholesale repentance--turning to God--and obedience, that that certainly can be restored. I think that that’s indicated in Scripture.

Otherwise there would be futility. I mean, why would God call Isaiah, for example, to go out and preach--after having anointed him in chapter 6, why would He tell him to go out and preach unless there was the possibility that there was a remnant who would hear and believe and be saved? God knows how large that remnant might be. I don’t know what the future of America is, but God is not obligated to sinful people. If God deemed it to his glory and if it is his eternal plan to do so, God could bring about a great revival in America and people could turn to God. Any sinner who turns to God ever, at any point in his life, and honestly, genuinely prompted by the Spirit of God repents and believes will be saved! If that happens in a large scale and many people are then saved and God begins to bless those people, then there will be a spillover of blessing (as I was saying earlier) that falls on the rest of people. Such is the principle of I Corinthians 7.

I think that this is the time--this is the greatest time to preach, the greatest time to proclaim the gospel, [and] the greatest time to call for repentance. The sad reality is you have somebody like I mentioned earlier, like Franklin Graham, who stands up and says “Islam is evil” and the MSNBC people say, “…and no Christians agreed with him!” It’s not what the world is doing, to me; it’s what the church is not doing. I mean, this is what is so grievous. At the same time that we need to step up and deal with these issues, the church becomes more trivialized and marginalized by its desire to be popular.

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

Tony Capoccia
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