A great sermon

I listen to several preachers but most often I listen to John MacArthur. I quote him a lot, as you know if you are a regular reader of this blog. MacArthur is one of only a handful of preachers, if that many, who preach through the bible verse by verse. He doesn't speak topically and apply or overlay a few verses to make a point. He takes a verse or two or maybe three, and he spends 50 minutes teaching it.

He is the only preacher in the world now, I believe, who has preached through the entire New Testament, verse by verse. He started 43 years ago, and he finished in June. It was a poignant moment and I watched and celebrated with him and with his congregation via internet.

He isn't going to go verse by verse through the Old Testament, he said. But he did do a wonderful series on the 7 days of Creation, here. You can listen or read the sermon. It is a fantastic and very uplifting series. He is now beginning some Old Testament sermons by using the verse from Luke 24:27, "And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." This means that in all the books from Moses and all the books where the Prophets spoke, Jesus is present. He is in the Old Testament, everywhere from beginning to end, in actuality. Jesus is in Genesis 1:1 and He is in the last book of the OT, Malachi. But MacArthur is beginning his series limited to Jesus through the Old Testament akin to the Road To Emmaus, the place where He said he "expounded on these [Old Testament] things concerning Himself." MacArthur's begins with Jeremiah, here.

His aim is to show the parallels of Jeremiah the man and Prophet in his time amid an ungodly nation to our time here in this ungodly nation. Judgment came in Jeremiah's life, and we who are burdened with the spiritual pregnancy of imminent labor feel judgment will come in ours too. Knowing that and listening to MacArthur's preaching that won't mean it'll be a feel-good moment but it does give context and meaning to why and how God worked through this very human man, so sorrowful, and the doomed nation, but preserved in a remnant! Just as it is today.

I recommend the series to one and all.

Comments

  1. I love when pastors go verse by verse. That's what my pastor does, too.

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  2. I love Jeremiah and yes not a feel good time but so needed! I started to study Jeremiah last fall and it's amazing on how things were then to how things are today.
    Studying God's word verse by verse, to me, is like getting the meat on the dinner table. Learning about God and His ways, desiring and wanting more!

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  3. My pastor goes verse by verse through the whole Bible, on Wed. night it is the Old Testament and on Sunday's he teaches from the New Testament. I believe Chuck Smith has taught through the whole Bible something like 8 times verse by verse. I think John MacArthur is an awesome pastor and I have his study Bible. But we do need more who teach the whole counsel of God and much less of seeker friendly church growth, do not offend someone junk out there.

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