MacArthur’s courage to speak Scripture’s truth, no matter the audience, should be commended.
This is an excerpt from Remembering Your Baptism: A Sinner Saint Devotional (1517 Publishing, 2025) by Kathy Morales, pgs 74-77.

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As far back as I can remember, even as a small child, I have desperately tried to understand what God’s expectations or requirements are regarding my behavior.
Lenten meditation is the one time Luther might advise us to be turning in on ourselves--and taking a cold, honest glance. For only in the shadow of the Cross can we look honsetly into the cause of the death of the man from Nazareth, the second person of the Trinity.
As you preach this week, you’re at it again, announcing the free forgiveness won by Christ, handing over the inheritance of eternal life, and distributing into their mouths the blood of the covenant and the foretaste of the Feast to come. The Father’s arms are wide open. His promises are irrevocable.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a familiar story. This creates a challenge for the preacher.
He looked me straight in the eye and said these words, almost in a challenging way, “I hate God. I do."
The other day a prominent Evangelical pastor tweeted, “My life’s commitment is to talk about the Bible in such a way that fake Christians feel fake — so that they can be saved.”
To be textual in our preaching, we ought to do as Paul does, and drag our people through the Old Testament narratives. We ought to let the Holy Spirit do the illustrations. Of course, Paul’s illustrating too, but he’s doing it in the Spirit and using the Holy Spirit’s own vocabulary.
We’re tempted to try and connect the dots. Something bad happens to someone and we can’t help but wonder about the cause. Even if we don’t say it out loud, we are tempted to think they must have done something to deserve it. They must be guilty of something. God must be punishing them for something we don’t know about. But Jesus stops this thinking in its tracks.
With these words, Jesus at the same time acknowledges that earthly government is both divinely sanctioned and, at the same time, not to be conflated with the kingdom of God.
Our enoughness before God cannot be earned by our piety or bestowed by our neighbor. Our righteousness and our justification come from Christ and His work for us
Is there ever a time in a Christian’s life when there is less need for grace? Think about it.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy works for me, not because it substitutes a temporal and flimsy antidote to my problems but because it points me to the God who has adopted and baptized me