Did John MacArthur Preach a False Gospel to President Donald Trump?
Earlier this month, Pastor John MacArthur had a phone conversation with President Donald Trump regarding the legal battle that Grace Community Church is having with the County of Los Angeles over whether the church can continue to gather to hold Sunday Services. Pastor MacArthur recounted part of his conversation with the president…
I said [to Trump] ‘any real, true believer is going to be on your side in this election,’ because it’s not just an individual, it’s an entire set of policies that Christians cannot in any way affirm. -John MacArthur
Now, it is important to note that Christians should not be voting Democrat, and I would go so far as to say that they would be sinning, because of the stated anti-God, pro-abortion platform of the Democrat Party. With that said, Pastor MacArthur’s statement is extremely problematic on several levels.
One serious aspect of this is simply that his claim that “any real, true believer” is going to vote for President Trump in this election is simply not accurate. I guarantee that there are going to be “real, true” believers either voting for Joe Biden, going Third Party or simply sitting out of the election. Even though no Christian should vote Democrat in this election, that doesn’t mean that they won’t. To say that no true Christians will vote Democrat is simply not true.
However, the more serious concern here is that JMac had the audience of the President of the United States of America and he chose to attach voting in the upcoming election as a litmus test of whether someone is saved or not. This is a serious misrepresentation of the Gospel!
Your salvation is not dependent upon anything except your faith in Jesus Christ. Far too many Christians make the Gospel much more complicated than God intended, adding works and extra conditions. I’ve heard far too often that, “No Christian would ever commit THAT sin” or “If he was truly saved, he wouldn’t have done THAT!” This is simply showing a lack of understanding of the one true Gospel.
We are saved IN SPITE of ourselves, not BECAUSE of ourselves. Ephesians 2:8-9 reminds us that, “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Also, Paul tells us in Romans 5:8 that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In both of these passages, we are told that our salvation is given to us in spite of our sin.
So when you have the opportunity to preach the Gospel to the most powerful man in our country, who clearly needs to place his faith in Jesus Christ, you have to make the Gospel crystal clear. You cannot place added conditions upon salvation and turn the Gospel into a political tool of manipulation.
Side note: it wasn’t that long ago that Pastor MacArthur and his right hand man, Phil Johnson, was saying that it was wrong for Christians to vote for President Trump.
MacArthur & Co have now gone from being Never Trumpers to full-on endorsers of President Trump, taking things so far that they place voting for the man a condition of salvation. This is EXTREMELY dangerous territory and needs to be clarified and/or repented from. Telling our unsaved President that if someone is a true Christian they will vote for him is missing the opportunity to clearly proclaim the saving power of the Gospel to a man in need of salvation.
It’s more important today than ever before to CLEARLY proclaim the Gospel for all to hear, and that includes the President. We can vote for the man, support him and even think that he’s our only shot at saving our country from the evil Marxist Left… but if we fail to preach the one true Gospel that has the power to save us from the wrath of God, “I count everything as loss.” (Philippians 3:8)
The Gospel: We are all sinners who deserve the penalty of eternal punishment. There’s nothing that we can do to earn salvation. However, because God loves us, He sent His only Son to earth to live a sinless, perfect life so that He might be the Perfect Sacrifice and pay our penalty in full for our sins. The only thing that we must do to receive eternal life is to place our faith in Christ and Christ alone, spending the rest of our life following after Him.
I pray that if you have not placed your faith in Jesus Christ, that you will do so today!
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