双语：麦克阿瑟牧师：为什么福音被人拒绝？（音频|视频）

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文 | 杰克

一周前，本刊曾经报道加州洛杉矶太阳谷“恩典社区教会”接到洛杉矶郡公共卫生部门警告，因为该教会违背了州长的疫情期间禁止教会聚会的命令，可能会遭到罚款的处罚，81岁的主任牧师约翰·麦克阿瑟（John Macarthur）面临逮捕（请参阅《面临罚款和逮捕，麦克阿瑟牧师说：“我们将顺从神，不顺从人。”》以及7月26日证道全文《麦克阿瑟牧师斩钉截铁掷地有声：顺从神，不顺从人，是应当的》）。然而在我们报道的当日 —— 8月9日，恩典社区教会靠着主的恩典依然照常聚会，向满有恩典怜悯的神献上敬拜、感谢和赞美！

麦克阿瑟牧师一上来就风趣地称这是一次“和平的抗议”，会众会心地笑了。因为左派政客和媒体一向把充满了打砸抢的“黑人生命宝贵（BLM）”暴力抗议称为“和平的抗议”。

麦克阿瑟牧师在这次的证道中，基于圣经真理，深刻阐释了为何福音被这个时代的人所拒绝。请阅读以下证道全文，或在中文最末处收看全程视频。

上周五，洛杉矶法院对恩典教会诉洛杉矶郡政府干涉信仰自由案做出裁决：恩典社区教会拥有在室内聚会敬拜的权利（请参阅《加州历史性裁决保护了麦克阿瑟牧师和“恩典社区教会”室内敬拜的权利》）。

麦克阿瑟牧师8月9日证道

大家早上好，我很高兴欢迎你们参加恩典社区教会的"和平抗议"。

你们来到这儿高兴吗？对我们而言，一切都是基于神的话。是的，这意味着我们在主耶稣的教会中是生命，家庭，法律和秩序的支持者。

恩典教会的定义是对圣经的投入和承诺。对于真正的基督徒来说，圣经是我们最大的财富。它对我们来说比黄金，比纯金更珍贵，比蜂房中的蜜更加甘甜。我们可以和诗人一起念《诗篇》119中的诗，其中至少有六处提到：哦，我多么喜爱你的律法，终日思想，我喜爱你的命令。使徒保罗说，那些属于神的人拥有真理的爱。约翰记录说，那些爱主的人要遵守祂的诫命。诗人在《诗篇》第40章第8节说：“我的神啊，我乐意照祢的旨意行。祢的律法在我心里。”

借用彼得的说过的话，我们渴望神的话就像婴儿渴望奶水一样。

在《约翰福音》6章中，许多跟随耶稣的人都是肤浅的跟随者，他们抛弃并离开了祂。祂对留下来的门徒说：“你们也要去吗？” 他们的发言人彼得回答说：“主啊，你有永生之道，我们还归从谁呢？”

真基督徒的标志就是对圣经的热爱。无论是因为诺言还是命令的缘故，都热爱圣经。神的真教会一直都是人们渴望圣经中真理的场所。这就是为什么我们会来到这儿，这就是为什么我们每次来到这儿都是在这里。保罗在《帖撒罗尼迦前书》第1章第4节中称赞该教会说：“被神所爱的弟兄啊，我知道你们是蒙拣选的。” 然后他接着说：“因为我们的福音传到你们那里，不独在乎言语，也在乎全能和圣灵，并充足的信心。”

您总能看出谁是真正的信徒，他们受神的话语的感动超过受任何其它事的感动，他们转向充满爱心而喜乐的顺服和敬拜。保罗在第2章第13节中，对同一群会众说：“为此，我们也不住的感谢神，因你们听见我们所传神的道，就领受了，不以为是人的道，乃以为是神的道。这道实在是神的，并且运行在你们信主的人心中。” 真正的基督徒就是这样看待神的话语。如果这个讲坛不是宣讲神的话的地方，那么这里将变得空无一人。

这就是为什么你们要到这里来。人活着不是单靠食物，乃是靠神口里所出的一切话。那是主可以通过使徒保罗给教会的最大的称赞，作为你们多年的牧师，这是我对你们的最大称赞，对我来说很明显，你们爱神的话。这就是为什么你们会在这里。而且你们也爱说这些话的神。可悲的是，以谨慎、周到而殷勤地在圣经中下功夫，去发掘其中的宝贵财富，如今即使在教会中也不受欢迎了。

1978年，我有幸在“国际圣经无误理事会”中任职。100名参与者中只有2名是牧师。在100名学者中，98人来自教育机构，2名牧师，我本人和我珍惜的吉姆·博伊斯（Jim Boyce）。吉姆·派克（Jim Packer）也在该委员会中为圣经无误而战。后来在1994年，我与吉姆·派克有了个人的联系。那时在佛罗里达州，我们六个人一起努力将福音弄清楚时，我坐在他的旁边有七小时之久。还有比尔·布莱特（Bill Bright），查克·寇尔森（Chuck Colson）和吉姆·派克。桌子的另一边是吉姆·肯尼迪（Jim Kennedy），我和我亲爱的朋友斯普罗（R. C. Sproul）。我们花了七个小时去研究福音。现在他们都走了，我是最后一个仍然站着的人。这是一群了不起的人。

吉姆·派克享年93岁。即使在他那个时代，吉姆了解教会里发生的事情。听听他在《基督教目录》序言中写的内容。《基督教目录》是由理查德·巴克斯特（Richard Baxter）于1600年代的清教徒时代撰写。派克在他的介绍中这样描述福音派：“自我中心，玩世不恭，简单化，堕落，半魔咒地胡说八道，这就是全世界观看宗教电视，或直接观察自称是福音派的族群时，所见到的一切。”派克继续说：“我们有许多的‘如何’，如何拥有一个美好的家庭，更好的性生活，以基督徒的方式取得财务上的成功，如何应对悲伤、生活经历、危机、恐惧、令人沮丧的人际关系，还有其他一切提供给我们的解决办法，然后我们按步就班地执行一系列应该是简单的动作，去‘按数字绘画’（我喜欢这个名词）。”他把那些与巴克斯特的伟大著作做了比较，他在牛津大学的博士论文就是以巴克斯特为题。巴克斯特就是那个说我向垂死的人宣讲垂死的人的人。作为一个垂死的人，派克将当代福音派与理查德·巴克斯特进行了比较，后者仅在《基督教目录》中就写了一百万个词汇来解释和运用神的话。派克说，这本书是高水平的，基于圣经的，基于神学的综合性智慧，具有坚定不移，无比的清晰度，在头脑里令人目不暇给。人们到哪里去得到对圣经进行令人目不暇给的解释呢？他们去哪里得到具有高准确度的智慧，神学性丰富，综合性听起来很清晰，耀眼的真实性的圣经教学呢？

我的另一个朋友斯普罗于2017年12月去世。他说：我们的文化植根于自豪的平庸中。这对每个人都应该是显而易见的。他说：尽管在科学和技术领域仍然有勤奋的学术思想，仍然有研究人员在该领域中进行艰苦而乏味的研究工作，但总体上来说，如今的文化已经适应了快速廉价的垃圾音乐，垃圾艺术和垃圾思考。我们的文化很容易让人满足和取乐，而卓越、真实和真正的美是美德的铁三角，如今已被逗趣、酷炫和可娇宠所取代。斯普罗曾说：“我们变得平庸是因为我们想要它，我们实际上渴望它。” 保罗曾预言会有一天人们想要听软话的情况发生，现在真的发生了！

显然有一种趋势，就是要消除超越时空的价值，消除圣经，除掉神学，以及深刻和高水准的经文真理的要求，并向对平庸饥不择食的人群提供平庸的信息和平庸的讲台教导，以便教会接受并将人们想要的肤浅合法化。时尚文化形式的基督教为非信徒服务是绰绰有余的。人们并不想对圣经认真。那为什么教会要认真看待圣经呢？牧师看到的是精明的点子，而不是要求严格的经文学习。我们已经落后了多远！我想回到16世纪和17世纪的清教徒。之所以称强有力的传教士为清教徒，是因为他们的目标是要忠实地净化英格兰的教会，以至于在1662年，他们全部被教会排斥，这就是所谓的“大排斥”。有各种各样讲述他们是如何被处决的故事，这都是因为他们向一个对神的话没有任何兴趣的环境，忠实地宣扬神的话。

我要用向吉姆·派克致以最后的敬意来纪念他。我想引用他写的一些话：“似乎不可能否认，昔日的清教徒最坚强，而今天的福音派基督徒最软弱。在那里，具备杰出知识能力的人，将清楚的学术所养成的意识习惯，和对神有如火一般的热忱并对人心的细致认识联系在一起。他们的所有工作都揭示了这种恩赐和恩典的独特融合，在那里清教徒呼吁秩序，纪律，深度和彻底。我们的态度是一种随随便便，马马虎虎而无耐心的浮躁不安。我们为特技、新颖和娱乐性而祷告。我们已经失去了扎实的学习、谦虚的自我省查、训练有素的默想，以及在呼召和祈祷中不引人注目地辛勤工作的滋味。在清教徒主义以神和他的荣耀为统一中心的地方，我们的思想围绕着自己旋转，好像我们是宇宙的枢纽。”

这就是今天流行的讲道方式。他说，难怪如此多的自称悔改信主的都失落了。然后在教导基督徒生活时，我们的惯用方式被描绘成是一种激情而非信仰的实践、超自然的干预而非理性的公义，并且在处理基督徒的经历时，我们不断地沉浸在喜乐、和平、幸福、满足，而没有与《罗马书》第7章里说的“神圣的不满”达到平衡。这一代人渴望神的话，但是却不想要神的话。教会不断地向世界提供其想要的东西，因此它变得肤浅。对于我们来说，似乎神的话语变得越来越稀少。不信的世界不想听神的道。虚假的基督徒也不想听上帝的话。他们想要除了圣经以外的一切的东西，而且在许多情况下，他们甚至从所谓的教会那里可以拿得到。

那些坚持认为圣经是神的神圣启示的人，是那些清醒认真，并且勤奋的学生和传教的人士。那些忠心的人被嘲笑多于被尊重。我们还为什么要坚持？当圣经在世界甚至在教会中不再受欢迎时，我们为什么还要在这里逐节，逐节，逐节地讲圣经？如果你们打开圣经，《哥林多前书》第一章，你们可以在我稍早读过的文字中找到该问题的答案，在圣经中有关神所做的工，没有比这里解释得更丰富了。在座那些认识我的人更能充分理解这一点，我通常不会在一篇讲道中涵盖两章，也许会涵盖两个字。

但是我从第1章第18节到第2章第16节读的经文是关于神圣智慧的。“聪明”或“智慧”一词使用了20次，而相反的，“愚蠢”只用了6次。整个部分说明了恩典教会为何存在于这个地方，以及为什么我们接受圣经中的福音和十字架的好消息所启示的神的智慧。顺便说一下，在上下文中，你们会看到短语“十字架的道”，然后你们会看到短语“神的智慧”，然后再看到短语“神的见证”。“十字架的道”、“神的智慧”和“神的见证”这些都是一样的。这就是经文所启示的福音。

现在有一种简单的方法可以把这部分细分，我承认我们只能稍加触及，但我想你们会明白其中的重点。我在几周前说过，我们了解到，非信徒不相信圣经，不能够相信圣经，对圣经不感兴趣。这不仅对他们来说不清楚，而且晦涩使他们无法理解。所以他们不了解我们，我们如何能如此热心地致力于神的话，如此热爱它，并且为了对一个为我们而死并复活的人的爱而爱它。他们不明白。在表面上，我明白为什么。让我告诉你一些非基督徒为什么不相信圣经的原因，好吗？让我们回到第1章的第18节：“因为十字架的道理，在那灭亡的人为愚拙。” 愚拙！信息的第一点是不合理的，这是愚拙的，是希腊语听起来很熟悉的：“白痴。”

这是毫无意义的愚拙：神，那个真实而永恒的神，成为活在以色列的犹太人，被神的子民拒绝，被罗马人钉死在十字架上，从死里复活，是世界上唯一的救主的想法是不合理的！那是在整个罗马世界传道的早期基督徒所传讲的。一位被自己的子民拒绝，被罗马人排斥，并被当作普通罪犯处决的被钉上十字架的犹太人，是永恒的神和世界的救世主，这是不合理的！那是愚拙的。你们如何能说服人相信？假想自己是一个一世纪的信徒进入异教徒当中说：“我想告诉你们，一个名叫耶稣的人，祂是神的化身，出生在一个完全卑微的马槽里，住在一个名不见经传的叫做拿撒勒的村镇，当时祂本国像对猎物一样地完全排斥祂，认为祂是假冒的救世主，并把祂交给罗马人，而且处决了祂。但祂却是永恒的神，是唯一的救世主，祂将统治整个地球，永远统治祂的王国！” 这是白痴，它的信息是不合理的！

以下为视频英文字幕的记录：

Why the Gospel is Rejected?

Rev. John MacArthur

Good Morning Everyone!

I'm so happy to welcome you to the Grace Community Church peaceful protest.

Are you glad to be here? Everything for us based on the word of God. Right, and that means we are pro-life, pro-family, pro-law and order in pro-church of the Lord Jesus.

Grace Church is defined by its commitment to holy scripture. For true christians, the Bible is our greatest treasure. It is more precious to us than gold, than much fine gold. It is sweeter to us than honey from the honeycomb. We can say with the psalmist in Psalm 119 at least a half dozen times. Oh how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. I love your commands. The apostle Paul said that those belong to God posses the love of the truth. John records that those who love the Lord, keep his commandments. and the psalmist said in Psalm 40 and verse 8: "I delight to do your will ..."

We desire the word like a babe desires milk, to borrow Peter's words. in John 6, many of the followers of Jesus superficial followers had abandoned Him. And He said to the remaining disciples: " Will you also go away?" to which their spokesman Peter said：“To whom shall we go? You and you alone have the words of eternal life.” The mark of a true Christian is love for scripture, love for scripture whether it's promises or commands.

God's true church has always been a place where people hunger for the truth from the Bible. That's why we're here. It's why we're here every time we're here. Paul writing in I Thessalonians commended that church in chapter 1 verse 4:"Knowing brethren beloved by ... because of you." Then he goes on to say:" Here's the evidence that God truly chose you and redeemed you. For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the holy spirit and with full conviction."

You can always tell who the true believers are. They are moved more by the word of God than anything else. They are moved to loving joyful obedience and worship. In chapter 2 verse 13 Paul says to the same congregation: "For this reason we also constantly ....which also performs its work in you who believe." That's how true Christians approach the word of God. If this pulpit was not the place for the proclamation of the word of God. This place would begin to be empty.

That's why you're here. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That is the greatest commendation that can be given by the Lord to a church through the apostle Paul. And as your pastor of these many many years, it is my greatest commendation to you. It's clear to me that you love the word of God. That's why you are here. And you love God of the word as well. Sadly serious careful, thoughtful, diligent labor in the scripture to bring up its rich treasures is not popular these days even in churches. In 1978 I had the privilege of serving on the International Council for Biblical Inerrancy. There were only two pastors out of a hundred. There were 100 scholars, 98 from educational institutions and two pastors, myself and the precious Jim Boyce. Jim Packer was on that council as well, fighting for the inerrancy of scripture. It was 1994 that i had personal connection with Jim Packer.

I sat beside him for seven hours down in Florida, as six of us worked to clarify the gospel. There was bill bright and Chuck Colson and Jim Packer. And on the other side of the table, there was Jim Kennedy, myself and my dear friend R. C. Sproul. For seven hours we went at it over the gospel. They're all gone. I'm the last man standing. This was a remarkable group of men. Jim Packer died at the age of 93. Jim Packer understood what was going on in the church even at his age. Listen to what he wrote in a preface to the Christian directory. Christian directory was written by Richard Baxter back in the 1600s, the puritan. In his introduction Packer characterized evangelicalism this way: "Egocentric, zany, simplistic, degenerate, half magic spell nonsense, which is all the world sees when it watches religious tv or looks directly at the professed evangelical community."

Packer went on to say: "Our How to's: how to have a wonderful family, better sex, financial success in a Christian way, how to cope with grief, life passages, crises, fears, frustrating relationships, and whatnot else gives us formula to be followed by a series of supposedly simple actions on our part in the manner of and", I love this, "painting by numbers." He compared that to the great work of Richard Baxter. And he had written his Ph.D dissertation at Oxford on Baxter. And Baxter was the one who said I preach as a dying man to dying man. As a man to dying man, Jim Packer compared contemporary evangelicalism with richard baxter who in the christian directory alone, one book, wrote more than a million words on the interpretation and application of the word of God. Packer said that book is a high level of intelligent Bible-based theologically integrated wisdom with unfailing, unimpaired clarity that is dazzling to the mind. Where do people go for dazzling interpretations of scripture? Where do they go for Bible teaching that is highly accurate intelligence, theologically rich, sound integrated clear, and dazzling in its truthfulness？

My other friend R. C. Sproul died in december of 2017. He said our culture is embedded in proud mediocrity. That should be obvious to everyone. He said while there are still hard-working scholastic minds in science and technology, and researchers doing hard and tedious labor in the fields, the culture has in general settled for what is quick and cheap junk music, junk art, and junk thinking. Our culture is far too easily satisfied entertained. Excellence, truth and real beauty are the great triad of virtues that are now replaced by funny, cool and cute. R. C. said: "we get mediocrity because we want it, we actually crave it." Paul predicted this would happen that there would be a time when men would want to have their ears tickled. There is a lot of that now!

There is clearly a trend to eliminate the transcendent, to eliminate the Biblical, to eliminate the theological, the profound, the demanding truth of scripture, and feed the mediocrity-hungered crowds with a mediocre message and mediocre preaching, so that the church accepts and legitimizes the superficiality that people want. Pop culture christianity serves non-believers just fine. People don't want to take the Bible seriously. So why the church take it seriously? Pastors see cleverness creativity style rather than demanding and rigorous study of scripture. How far we have fallen! I'd like to go back to the puritans 16th and 17th century. Powerful preachers called puritans, because their goal was to purify the church in England so faithful that in 1662. All of them were rejected from their churches in what is called The Great Rejection. There are all kinds of stories of how they were executed for their faithfulness to the word of God being proclaimed to a religious environment that had no interest in it.

I want to make one final tribute to Jim Packer in memory of him. I want to quote something he wrote: "It does not seem possible to deny that the puritans were strongest just where evangelical Christians today are weakest." Here were men of outstanding intellectual power in whom the mental habits fostered by sober scholarship were linked with a flaming zeal for God and a minute acquaintance with human heart. All their work reveals this unique fusion of gifts and graces, where the puritans called for order, discipline, depth and thoroghness. Our temper is one of casual haphazardness and restless impatience. We pray for stunts, novelties and entertainments. We have lost our taste for solid study, humble self-examination, disciplined meditation and unspectacular hard work in our callings and in our prayers. Again, where puritanism had God and His glory as its unifying center, our thinking revolves around ourselves, as if we were the hub of the universe."

That's the popular kind of preaching today. No wonder, he says, so many professed conversions fall away. Then in teaching on the Christian life, our habit is depicted as a path of thrilling feelings, rather than working faith and of supernatual interruptions, rather than of rational righteousness and in dealing with the Christian experience we dwell constantly on joy，peace，happiness， satisfaction with no balance to the divine discontent of Romans 7. This generation is desperate for the word of God, but it doesn't want the word of God. The church continually gives the world what it wants, and so it becomes superficial. For us, it seems the word of God is becoming more scarce. The world of unbelievers doesn't want to hear the word of God. False Christians don't want to hear the word of God. They want everything, but the scripture and in many cases they are getting it, even from so-called churches. Those who hold to the fact that the Bible is divine revelation from God. Those who are sober and serious and diligent students and preachers of holy scripture. Those who are being faithful are not honored so much as they are ridiculed. Why have we held on? Why are we still here going through the Bible verse by verse by verse when it's not popular in the world, or even in the church? The answer to that question is found in the text I read earlier. If you will open your Bible to I Corinthians chapter one, nowhere is the issue of the work of God in the scripture more richly presented than this. Those of you who know me know that I don't normally cover two chapters in one sermon, two words maybe.

But the text that I read you from chapter 1 verse 18 to 2 verse 16, is about divine wisdom. The word wise or wisdom is used 20 times. And it's contrasted with foolishness, which is used six times. The whole section explains why grace church is here, and why we accept the wisdom of God revealed in scripture, the gospel, the good news of the cross. By the way, in this text you see the phrase, the word of the cross, then you see the phrase the wisdom of God, and then you see the phrase the testimony of God. The word of the cross, the wisdom of God, and the testimony of God are all the same. This is the gospel revealed through scripture.

Now there is a simple way to break this section down. And I confess that we're going to touch it somewhat lightly, but I think you'll get the main point. I said a couple of weeks ago that we understand that non-believers don't believe the Bible, can't believe the Bible, have no interest in the Bible. It's not only unclear to them. It's obscure they have no ability to understand it. So they don't understand us, how we can be so passionately committed to the word of God, and love it so much, and love obeying it for the sake of the love that we have for the one who died for us and rose again. They don't understand it. And on the surface, I understand why. Let me give you some reasons why non-christians don't believe the Bible, okay? Let's go back to verse 18 of chapter 1: "so the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, foolishness." Foolishness! the message first point is unreasonable. It's foolishness, the Greek word is this will sound familiar, moron.

It's stupid pointless. The idea that God the one a true and eternal God became a Jewish man lived in israel was rejected by His people, crucified by the Romans, rose from the dead, and is the world's only savior, was unreasonable! That was the early Chrisians preaching throughout the Roman world. A crucified Jew rejected by his own people and rejected by the Romans, and executed as a common criminal is the eternal God and the savior of the world. That is just unreasonable! It's foolishness. How do you convince somebody of that? Put yourself in the position of a believer in the first century going into the gentile world and saying I want to tell you about a man named Jesus who is God incarnate born in absolute obscurity in a manger laid lived in a nondescript town called Nazareth, was totally rejected by his own nation as a prey as a false Messiah, handed over the Romans and executed. And he's the eternal God, only savior, and he is going to reign over the earth, and his kingdom forever. This is moronic, its message is unreasonable!