12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering and a drink offering
for the Lord your God?15 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
16 gather the people.
Consecrate the congregation;
assemble the elders;
gather the children,
even nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
and the bride her chamber.17 Between the vestibule and the altar
— Joel 2:12-17, English Standard Version
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep
and say, “Spare your people, O Lord,
and make not your heritage a reproach,
a byword among the nations.[a]
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”
You would be hard-pressed to find a better and more interesting preacher than John Macarthur when it comes to explaining the beauty and the power of the Gospel:
I don’t go to church. I should, but I don’t.
Why?
Because I can’t find a church around here that is NOT completely without spine, balls, and love for the Word. And I’m not about to listen to the blasphemous heresies of some denomination that thinks we can and should embrace the world, with all of its sin and corruption, simply for the sake of “going along to get along”. That does not work. We as Christians are set in enmity against the mortal sins of this world, and that is how it should AND MUST be. We are not here to be nice or kind to anyone – we are here to love the sinners and the broken, Fallen, flawed Creation around us. That is an altogether different thing than to be “nice”.
Pastor John Macarthur doesn’t do “nice”. He does truth. That is why he is such a great resource for true Christians who just want to understand the Word of Our Lord.
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