In 2021, John MacArthur preached a message to his church addressing how to think about Christianity’s decline in America. It starts out like this: “Hey, we tried. We honestly did. I think you did. I think I did. I mean I took interviews, I responded to questions I think we tried to have an influence on our nation last year.” He goes on to talk about how the world isn’t interested in Christianity and then he says this: “We don’t win down here. We lose. You ready for that? Oh, you thought because you were a postmillennialist, you thought we’re just going to go waltzing into the kingdom because you took over the world. No, we lose here. Get it? They killed Jesus, they killed all the apostles, we’re all going to be persecuted. If any man come after me’, let him what, ‘deny himself’. Garbage of prosperity gospel. No, we don’t win down here. Are you ready for that? Just to clear the air – I love this clarity – we don’t win. We lose on this battlefield, but we win on the big one – the eternal one. “

His response is a good example of why we’ve been doing more episodes about eschatology lately and why we think it matters. Because those verses he quotes and references about persecution and denying ourselves are true, but they make absolutely no sense in the way he is using them. As much as we appreciate John MacArthur’s ministry, his teaching is really wrong on this. Even if you hold to dispensational theology, you shouldn’t think about those verses in that way. Denying yourself is not at odds with succeeding, some of the most successful people by any standard have been faithful Christians. Yes, it means you can’t pursue carnal things, but surely that’s not something a Christian would object to. And this isn’t something that’s only true in the New Covenant. Even in the Old Testament, Daniel was persecuted for his faith, he took up his cross and looked toward Jesus and he had a huge impact on the world around him. So did Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Obadiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jesus all the apostles and countless others throughout history.

So in this episode, we want to really push on this issue. How should we think about the church’s success? How should we think about persecution and denying ourself? Are they at odds with one another? And along the way, should we expect the gospel to have an impact on the world around us? These are important questions. Please join us as we consider them.

Link to John MacArthur clip: https://youtube.com/shorts/5fr6lGeDRsQ?si=AZkuhoq–KLuN2_w
Link to full John MacArthur message:
https://youtu.be/N8revRpzF9Q?si=OwRgq55OMHuczn7S

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Hosts – Dan Horn, Jonathan Sides, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

A series of exposé articles have just come out about Voice of the Martyrs. This is a group that we’ve discussed a great deal in the past, we we give our perspective on the recent revelations. We discuss Cole Richards, Jason Peters, ECFA, the dishonor of God, and the right way to clean all this up.

Our previous videos on VOM
https://persecutingthepersecuted.com/

Articles on VOM from the Roys Report
https://julieroys.com/whistleblowers-accuse-vom-president-deception-retaliation/
https://julieroys.com/former-voice-of-the-martyrs-executive-calls-resignations-time-clean-house/
https://julieroys.com/whistleblowers-voice-of-the-martyrs-president-put-optics-needs-persecuted-christians/
https://julieroys.com/whistleblowers-retaliation-sham-investigation/

Jason Peters video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdE1xS8L_wY

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Hosts – Dan Horn, Connor Swim, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – James Winstead
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson

Antisemitism has been around for thousands of years. Starting with their conflicts with Rome and the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the restrictions against holding public office in the Byzantine empire, the Catholic church’s view for hundreds of years that the Jewish people carried blood guilt and deserved punishment for killing Jesus Christ, the violent pogroms in Russia in the late 19th and 20th century, culminating in a worldwide attitude of Jewish hatred and indifference that led to the Holocaust and the Nazi’s systematic murder of millions of Jews. But even after the 1940’s racism against the Jewish people has been acceptable in America, with Nixon blaming the Jews for his problems (with even Billy Graham saying they had a stranglehold on America that had to be broken). And now, we are seeing a rise in worldwide antisemitism again regarding Israel’s response to the terrorist attacks by Hamas with many Western nations condemning Israel and in America, college students actively protesting against Israel in support of Hamas and Palestine.

With all of this as a backdrop: in this episode, we want to understand both how antisemitism is racism that Christians should not accept or participate in and, at the same time, to understand how God, who works all things according to the counsel of his will has ordained the hatred of the Jews that exists in the world. We walk through the prophecy spoken by Moses in Deuteronomy where he explains that God will judge Israel for their unbelief and pretense of holiness, causing them to become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the nations of the earth.

Production of Reformation Baptist Church of Youngsville, NC
Hosts – Dan Horn, Jonathan Sides, Charles Churchill and Joshua Horn
Technical Director – Timothy Kaiser
Theme Music – Gabriel Hudelson