MacArthur stresses need for convictions during address at CBU

Riverside, Calif. (Nov. 2, 2016)—Pastors need to have convictions like the Apostle Paul in order to say they fought the good fight and they kept the faith, Dr. John MacArthur told an audience at California Baptist University.

“Convictions are what control your life,” MacArthur said. “The fewer convictions you have, the more vulnerable you are.”

MacArthur is pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and president of The Master’s College and The Master’s Seminary. He spoke at the School of Christian Ministries Lecture Series on Nov. 1.

MacArthur stated that Paul, despite hardships and persecution, remained faithful in his ministry until the end of his life. Paul lived by certain convictions and gospel certainties that protected him, and today’s pastors need to do the same, MacArthur said.

One of Paul’s convictions was in the superiority of the New Covenant, MacArthur said, adding that pastors today need to live in awe of the gospel.

“You have to be so overwhelmed with the reality of what God has done in your life that you wouldn’t even think of doing anything other than live to proclaim the glory of that gospel,” he said.

Another necessary conviction, according to MacArthur, is that results depend on God. If someone does not believe the Gospel, pastors are not to change the message, he said. The power to make someone believe is not in their hands.

“What is in your hands is to preach Jesus is Lord,” MacArthur sad. “That’s where you’re done and God steps in.”

MacArthur said Paul also had a conviction of his own insignificance, referring to himself as a jar of clay in II Corinthians 4:7.

“The power is not in the pot. That’s why God gets all the glory,” MacArthur said. “Our weakness, our smallness doesn’t not prove fatal to the work of the gospel.”