I'm Doing Self-Studies on Expository Preaching By Reading John F. MacArthur's Sermons and Books

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I remembered how often I enjoyed taking passages and desiring to expound them. I thought about John F. MacArthur's sermons and books. I remembered picking the book "Fool's Gold" and I started drinking whole ocean of truth in the second chapter called "Plexiglas Preachign: The Devastating Consequences of a Watered Down Message". I can't forget how angry that chapter made me when it stated the truth that watered down preaching is becoming more and more popular. I was further irritated at the prevalence of watered down preaching and I'm seeing the consequences unveil before my very eyes. I'm seeing how watered down messages are really more popular with a crazy world.

I thought about how I used to berate MacArthur without any investigation. Many charges were like he supposedly doesn't believe in the blood or that many people miss the point. Another controversial issue is whether or not MacArthur thought that receiving the mark of the Beast as "unforgivable" meant that it's no great treason. There were also charges concerning first edition of "Hard to Believe" which turned out to be editing error. Then I thought of how my old mentor Pastor Armando C. Borja was actually reading through MacArthur's books as a reference to expository preaching. 

So what's with learning expository preaching from MacArthur's sermons and books? It's all because MacArthur does one thing: expound the meaning and explain hard sayings. Perhaps some of his books are topical like "Hard to Believe", "The Gospel According to Jesus", "Worship: The Ultimate Priority" or my favorite "The Jesus You Can't Ignore" but there's some exposition. When I start listening to a series of MacArthur's sermons or two if I feel too bored I decide to read through the transcripts and make notes out of them. When I listen to the series of lessons by MacArthur I thought that it's a new way of learning expository preaching. Sure I have learned through Charles H. Spurgeon's sermons from GTY.org's Spurgeon Archive but I still find myself liking MacArthur's methodology. Me and MacArthur both have  futurist view of Revelation in contrast to the historicist view done by Reformed theologians or by the early Reformers who called the Pope as the Antichrist.

Whenever I read the transcripts I thought about this one. How does MacArthur prepare his sermon? I take a look at how often he divides the lesson in parts. A good example is that he expands a topic to make sure people get a deeper view of the Scriptures. I got a deeper view of Hebrew and Greek idioms and word usage. While I'm personally a King James onlyist (and I still want to warn pastors to stick to it) and he isn't but I still feel he's been of help in learning expository preaching. I've learned a lot of exegesis reading and listening through his works for years.

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