Christ actually paid the penalty, suffered the wrath of God, was a perfect and satisfactory atonement for the sins of those who believe. In the end, of course, as you study the elective and unfolding purposes of the decree of God, it is clear that those who believe believe because they were chosen before the foundation of the world. Their names were written in the Lamb's Book of life, and the Spirit of God came and regenerated them. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.
How old does a child need to be in order to be accountable for his sin before God? For whose sins did Jesus Christ die? And why does Scripture say that Jesus had faith when he was on the earth, even though he knew everything already? Those are some of the questions John MacArthur is going to answer in just a few moments here on Grace to You. Today on this Independence Day in the United States, we're breaking from our regular schedule for a practical Q ⁇ A session.
Perhaps John will answer a question you've had.
So now follow along as we jump into the questions. Yes, could you uh please explain Biblically, for whom Christ died and whether or not, or whether all of them will be saved. In other words, just for whom Christ died and whether all of them. that he died for will be saved. Yes, uh the answer is In terms of Scripture, that Christ died for the world.
Um The scripture talks about the world, but I think the way you have to define that is to define it as humanity. Humankind. The question is. Whose sins within humanity did he actually atone for? Right?
Whose sins did he actually pay? the price for. Whose sins did he actually expiate? Whose punishment did he actually bear, and thus eliminate them from. ever being judged.
And the answer is only those who believe.
So Christ actually paid the penalty, suffered the wrath of God, Expiated sin was a perfect and satisfactory atonement for the sins. of all who would ever believe.
Some people want to say that he actually paid the penalty. for the sins of all who ever live. We have some problems with that. You have a number of passages in the New Testament that indicate he died for his own. He purchased his own.
With his own blood, he purchased the church. Um And those kind of statements, I think, take the humanity or the world and narrow it down more specifically to who it is referring to.
So, in the end, if he died and paid the actual penalty for the sins of all people who ever lived, then hell would be double jeopardy. Then, how could you send people to hell when their sins have been paid for?
So you can't really have a complete expiation of the sins. of everybody or you you you're going to end up as a universalist.
So in reality, Christ actually expiated the sins of those who believe.
Now, in the end, of course, as you study the elective and unfolding purposes of the decree of God, it is clear that those who believe believe because they were chosen before the foundation of the world. Their names were written in the Lamb's Book of life, and the Spirit of God came and regenerated them. By the sovereign purposes of God.
Okay?
Okay, in Matthew 6 it talks about Giving alms, or when you give alms, and in Matthew, and then it further on down it says when you're praying or when you pray, and then it says when you fast. Um It looks as though that Fasting should be just as regular as praying and giving alms. And I was wondering: how should we be applying fasting? in today's day and age.
Well, I think fasting is a very important Part of Christian experience. He's talking about verse 16 of Matthew. Um six Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face, as the hypocrites do. A couple of things to say about fasting. First of all, fasting is never commanded.
Prayer is. Pray without ceasing. praying always with all prayer and supplication. Watch and pray. Repeatedly, we are called to pray.
We are commanded to pray. We're never commanded to fast. In fact... Fasting is obviously identified with unique circumstances. And the best way to illustrate that is that when the disciples of Jesus were confronted by the Jewish leaders.
The Jewish leaders said to Jesus, why don't your disciples fast?
Now, it was typical of devout traditionalist Jews to fast twice a week. And you remember the publican in Luke 18 said, I fast twice a week.
So he was following not the biblical prescription, but the traditional prescription that if you wanted to be spiritual, you fasted twice a week. You deprived yourself of food twice a week, and to them that was emblematic of holiness.
So the Jews came to Jesus and they said, your disciples don't fast. Why?
Well, that's very interesting. Jesus' response was, When the bridegroom is with you, you don't fast. In other words, this is not a time for fasting because this is a time of joy. And Jesus was telling us that fasting Is a unique experience that's identified with times of grief and sorrow and pain. And isolation, loneliness.
Fear, those kinds of times that would not exist while you were walking around in the presence of Jesus Christ.
So the first thing to remember is that fasting and least in the teaching of Jesus. It was for those times. of great concern and great sorrow, great anxiety, great prayer. All of that kind of issues in prayer and fasting is always associated with prayer. It's not isolated from prayer.
It is a part and parcel of Times of prayer. And so I think that. The time to fast is, of course, those times when we are swept up in prayer to the degree that we. are so somber, so serious.
So engulfed that we have no desire to eat, no desire to satisfy any of the cravings of the flesh. And in fact, in times like that, it may be that the flesh doesn't have such cravings because one is so overwrought with prayerful concerns. I think that's all that we can really say in the New Testament about fasting. That there are times when it wouldn't be appropriate to fast because you're enjoying the fullness of the presence of God and all of his blessing. There are times when it would be appropriate to fast, and that would be associated with times of importunity, which means times of relentless prayer and concern about those matters that are on our hearts.
I can give you some personal experiences from my own life when great crises come into my own life. Fasting is a somewhat normal response to those kinds of exigencies. I can think back to the longest time of fasting that I ever experienced in my life was a nine or ten day fast in which I ate nothing. It was a time when I was in great concern and prayer over the fact that my son Mark had been diagnosed as having a brain tumor, which could be fatal. And immediately, of course, he was in his last year of college at that time.
I think it was his last year. And of course, there was a tremendous amount of concern over that. And there was just a very, sort of a very immediate response to fast and pray on behalf of that kind of serious situation and come before the Lord. And God was so.
So tremendously gracious during that time. I remember when the doctor told me, the neurosurgeon at Cedar Sinai, that it could be fatal, it was just immediate that I wanted to come into the presence of the Lord and beseech Him. First of all, naturally, you pray for the well-being of your son. You ask the Lord, You sure you got the right kid? This is a good one.
You know, you can use Him, you know, down the road. And I prayed and fasted. Of course, Patricia was aware, and Mark was not aware of the seriousness of his tumor situation. But during that time, I can honestly say I spent nine days taking him back and forth to the clinic while they were doing non-invasive techniques to determine what this tumor was before they drilled a hole in his skull and went in and actually got inside because the implications were so severe because it was near the optic nerve and the pineal gland and things like that. They didn't want to do any invasive things, and so those were times of intense prayer.
And you could see a flow going from. Lord, you know, spare his life and so forth and so on, to a sort of a middle ground in a few days where you're saying, Lord, whatever your will is, whatever your will. And by the time I got to the end of it, I was saying, you know, this world isn't a fit place for anybody. He belongs to you. Take him out.
And, you know, you go through the whole process. And, you know, I conducted his funeral about a hundred times, you know. Just Going through the process of yielding up to the Lord, this young man. And I remember being up in my office on a Wednesday night. It was the ninth day.
The next day, the doctor was going to tell me the results of all the tests, and they were done at the Frank Norris Clinic over at the USC Medical Center by the finest cancer specialists around and the pediatric tumor specialists and all of that. And I was waiting for the next morning. For the first time, I was actually hungry. It was the first time I actually felt any hunger pangs. And I actually got hungry sitting up there.
It was on a Wednesday night. It was between the end of the day, and the offices closed, and Wednesday night services were going to start in an hour or so. And I was up there, and everything was locked up, and I was just. Just praying and thanking the Lord for the perfect peace that if He was going to take into heaven, wonderful, glorious for him, and we would rejoice in that. And there was a knock on my door, and I was so surprised because everything else was closed in the office, and I went to the door and opened the door, and there was a lady standing there who had been in the church for many years, but had never been in my office ever.
And I greeted her and said, Hi, how are you? And she said, Well, she said, Pastor, I saw your light on up here as I was going by, and I thought you might be hungry. And I. Brought you a sandwich. And I think I said something like, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I don't think it was any more coherent than that. It might have been less coherent than that, actually. And that woman had never given me a cookie. That woman had never done anything. She had never been in the office.
I didn't even know she knew where my office was. But somehow the Lord had impressed upon her heart to make me a bologna sandwich. And I I took that sandwich in a little bag and I went back to my desk and I said, So, Lord, you're that involved in my prayer life that when the fast is over, you deliver the sandwich. I mean, that was a pretty profound moment for somebody who's not very mystical. And I just rejoiced that God had...
Concluded the fast in a most appropriate and gracious way. I mean, I just couldn't bring myself to going down to In N Out or something and sort of seemed too. It needed to be something more.
So I I only say that Uh to give you that little recitation to to say that There are great times of fasting that come along with great times of prayer. And the next morning, the doctor called me and he said, We're happy to tell you this is a benign epidermoid. It's a piece of misplaced skin tissue. It is not any problem at all. It is not even anything to worry about.
We're just rejoicing down here. We really like your son. We're so happy for him. And we just want to let you know that all the news is good and we don't think it's a problem and never will be a problem. I was so thrilled.
I went to the college where Mark was and I told him. And then I told him the whole story, and he hadn't known all the Behind-the-scene details about the potential fatality that they had told me about. He said to me, You know, why do you think the Lord put me through that? And I said, Put you through that. You.
You didn't know what I knew. The question is, why did the Lord put me through that? And of course the answer to that is in order that the Lord might Accomplish his purposes in our hearts and draw us to himself.
So God put himself on display and was gracious in that regard. You know, Patricia had a car accident, broke her neck, gave her less than 5% chance to live. That was another time. When um Prayer just kind of takes over your life. You just go into instant communion, unrelenting communion with God.
And uh food has no place as uh as other kinds of indulgences and things that entertain us. Don't.
So I think fasting needs to be associated with times of prayer. And I say that carefully because I think some people think that if you just arbitrarily don't eat, that there's some spiritual virtue in that. The fact of the matter is, we ought to fast more because we ought to be more concerned to pray more. Strongly about more things, right?
So the real issue, I think, is in the prayer area, okay? Thank you for that question.
Okay. Um my question, I have um Uh been thinking of l lately again to be reminded about an aspect of salvation for children and the whole concept of an age of accountability and what the scriptural basis is of that.
Well, to die young. Sure. I think the best way to answer that, John, is to say this: there is no age of accountability identified in Scripture as such. There is nothing in the Bible that says, here is the age, and from here on you're responsible. And I think the reason for that is because children mature at different paces.
That would be true from culture to culture and from age to age in history.
So the Lord in his wisdom didn't identify a specific Moment. God knows when that soul is accountable. God knows when real rejection has taken place. when the the love of sin exists in the heart. When um Enmity with God is conscious and willful.
God alone knows when that takes place. Also, it is It is important to say this. There is no Indication anywhere in Scripture of the salvation of a child. There is no illustration of it. There is no way Jesus never had an encounter with a child and led him to faith.
He encountered a lot of people, preached to a lot of crowds, and a lot of people believed, but there's never any indication about a child believing.
So consequently We have to assume then that a saving commitment to Jesus Christ comes only after A child has reached the conscious reality of rejection and the conscious awareness of iniquity. As to when that is, As I say, it varies from child to child. The Jews, as you well remember, had identified about the age of 12 And that's, you remember when Jesus was taken by his parents to... Jerusalem for the Passover and the feast, and there was in the temple questioning the doctors. And I think you have a good illustration there.
If there's anything, if Scripture says anything, it sets that one. One illustration. And Jesus was asking the kind of questions that were actually profound questions to the doctors. We can assume then that that was the age at which those kinds of questions begin to be personal.
So I've always felt that somewhere around that Period of time, the transition from childhood to adulthood takes place. It's probably not totally disassociated from puberty. Where there is a consciousness of one's own impulses, feelings, drives, desires, and therefore. Sinful attitudes and and passions and whatever else, it starts to emerge.
Now, as to how you deal with that, and I was just talking to a parent about that the other day. I believe it is absolutely essential. all the way along with a child. That every time they desire to make a commitment to Jesus Christ at whatever age they're at, you encourage them to do that. Because you don't know.
We can't know when that is a saving commitment. I mean, if I go into a class over here of five or six-year-olds or seven or eight-year-olds, tell them a story of Jesus and ask how many want to put, want to ask Jesus into their heart, they'll all say we do. Because the story of Jesus is compelling. Because uh That's what you want from them. And if they love you and you're their mom and dad, obviously that's what's going to happen.
So, when a child, say at the age of six or seven or whatever it might be, says, I want to invite Christ into my life, you need to encourage them to do that. Every one of those I see is a step toward God. At what point that becomes saving faith, God knows. I don't know. But I also believe that up until That point of real saving faith.
God in His mercy Would save that child should that child die. I've been doing some study on that very issue because when I was at a conference and that question was asked, of a panel of very astute theologians, no one gave an adequate answer. And I thought, how can we have theologians who don't know the answer to that Question: What about the children before the age of accountability? When they die, do they go to heaven? And I think the answer is yes.
And I think it's a strong yes. Based upon the confidence of David, who said, when his little baby died, He cannot come to me, but I shall go to him. And David knew where he was going. David knew he was going to heaven. He knew that.
There wasn't any question in his mind about that. And when he said, I shall go to him. In those words was the anticipation, and the hope, and the joy of reunion.
Some people have said, well, all he meant was I'm going to be buried next to him. Be any reason to say, he can't come to me, but oh, I'm so glad I'm going to be buried next to him. There would be no joy in that, that wouldn't satisfy anything.
So I think at that point, he was expressing the confidence that he was going to heaven. He knew that, and that's exactly where he would find his. is silent. who had died before The age of accountability. Another interesting thing, and this occurs numerous times in the Old Testament, is the children who die are referred to, or children are referred to, and those who die as well, as innocent.
And the Hebrew word That is used for innocent is used in numerous times in the Old Testament referred to not being guilty, literally, to being taken to court and found not guilty. In fact, you remember that it refers to the babies that were passed through the fire to Moloch as the innocents.
So I believe that God prior to the age of accountability treats them As innocents. Doesn't mean they're not fallen, doesn't mean they're not sinful. It does mean that God mercifully. Treats them as innocent in spite of that. And he has to exercise grace to do that, just as he exercises grace to save those who believe.
But that age of accountability is not clearly identified. I just think it's up to parents. Every time a child wants to respond and open the heart to Christ, you need to encourage that all the way along until they come to that point where it's genuine and the Lord knows that, and you may not know that.
Okay. Who's next? Today, there are many groups that present the gospel very well. But it seems to me That's what they ask the hearer to do once they have heard the gospel gets very cloudy. Many times the people are told who have said, I believe the gospel, they're told to do something else to receive Christ, as if it is a two-step process where you believe the facts, then you receive Christ, and receiving Christ is often explained as.
a personal invitation to have Christ indwell you. John 1.12 they'll go to in Revelation 3.20. I don't see John explaining receiving Christ in his gospel as someone personally inviting Christ to indwell them. Could you talk about the proper place for the sinner's prayer? Perhaps as.
I guess I understand it as a demonstration of faith, but not equal to faith. And can you explain the dangers in the misleading use of the sinner's prayer and receiving Christ, and perhaps touching on Revelation 3.20 as well? Let me start with Revelation 3.20. In the technical sense, Revelation 3.20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open, I will come into him and sup with him and he with me.
The context of Revelation 3.20 Is that Jesus is knocking? Uh on the door. of the church. Um It's not really A specific illustration of how to evangelize somebody. Jesus is speaking to the church.
He is concerned about the character, or if you will, the lack of character of this church. Just to put the context together for you, so you'll remember, I'm sure, the church at Laodicea, lukewarm, I'll spit you out of my mouth. You say you're rich and you have wealth and don't need anything, and you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, and all of that. And then he says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. I want to get in the church, is what he's saying.
I want you to receive me as Lord of the church. He wants to come into the church and. It's not really the human heart that is the issue there. And that, although I think you can extrapolate and say the Lord wants entrance into the life of a sinner, he wants to come in and cleanse that sinner. He wants to come in and wash that sinner.
And that does take you to John 1:12. And John 1:12 is a very clear verse. It says, as many as received him. To them he gave her right to become the children of God. What does it mean to receive Christ?
Well When you talk about saving faith, You're basically talking about three things. There are three components. First, is to comprehend The facts, the truth of the gospel. Second, is to believe that they are true. And third, is to engage yourself in appropriating them for your life.
So what it would be to say I understand the gospel. I understand Jesus died. I understand he rose again. I understand that he is a member of the Trinity who came into the world through the virgin birth, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death, rose from the dead, and the Father approved of his work so perfectly, he raised him, gave him a name, Lord, seated him at his right hand, from which he now reigns over his church, interceding for them, and will return and establish his kingdom. I believe that.
That's true. You say, I understand that. I comprehend that. Secondly, you say, I believe that. I believe that is fact.
That is spiritual reality. Third, I place my life. And my eternity on the reality of those facts by acknowledging Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. I think there is an element of reception at that point. It's a receiving of the truth.
as the truth. It is believing it. and it is appropriating it in a personal way. I don't think it's inappropriate to say I want Christ, I want you to come and... Take command of my life.
I want you to be my Savior. I want you to forgive my sin. I acknowledge you. I confess you as my Lord. I want you to save me.
I want you to come and indwell me. Because you have the promise of Acts 2:38 that when someone hears the gospel and when they repent, It says You shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. or the Spirit of Christ.
Well, you could pray and say, Lord, I want you to save me. I confess you as my Lord. I believe in the gospel. I believe you are the Christ who died for me. I acknowledge that.
I want you to save me. I want you to be the Lord of my life. And I want the Spirit of God to take up residence in my life. But all of that must be cast in a very important perspective, and this is, I think, maybe the best answer I can give to your question as to how you approach someone. In the end, salvation is a work of God, is it not?
And I think the best illustration in the New Testament of a sinner. Coming and praying the sinner's prayer. Is the publican again in Luke 18 who said, God be what? Merciful to me a sinner. And I think we always have to understand that salvation is God's prerogative.
It is not automatically mine because I articulate a formula with my lips. It is mine because God graciously grants it to me. And in the end, I must ask for that gift to be given. What I do when I'm talking to someone about Christ and when I want to lead them to Not only understanding the truth, but believing the truth is the truth, and then making a personal commitment to it, to receiving Christ, to appropriating it, to confessing Him as Lord, is at that point to say to them, I encourage you. If you believe the gospel and you believe it is the truth, and you're ready.
Should be Put your life in the hands of the Savior. that you ask him now to save you. rather than telling him you're qualified. That you ask him to save you. Pray that that to me is the sinner's prayer.
That's how I approach that. Rather than saying to somebody, here's a little prayer on this page, pray it, and you're in. It's not like, okay, I prayed the prayer, I'm qualified. It's like, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, isn't it? And I think that's the way you approach it, okay?
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Now, for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Gracie TU Television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378, and then be back next week as John shows you how you can be prepared to face the most cataclysmic time in history: God's great day of wrath. It's another half hour of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.
