With great sadness I learned that John MacArthur, preacher at Grace Church and teacher at The Masters Seminary had died at an age of 86.
John started his ministry at Grace Church in 1969.
Right from the start John used verse by verse expository bible preaching to bring the love for Christ and His Word back into the church.
Unlike the liberal Christianity that overtook the western world during his ministry, John brought the teachings and teaching styles of the puritans and reformers back into the pulpit.
John not only taught the Word, he also urged the church to act according to what was preached.
In James 2:14-20 the bible calls us not only to profess to be faithful but also to live our faith, and not in an attempts to earn our way into heaven, but out of love for our Lord and Savior, wanting to follow in His footsteps.
faith, if it has no works, is dead by itself.
But someone will say, “You have faith; and I have works. Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”
You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?James 2:17-20 (Legacy Standard Bible)
John urged the church to put into practice what the Bible teaches.
Of course, this offended many false Christians, because their way of thinking, their interests, and their lifestyle did not reflect what they claimed to believe.
One of Jesus’ commandments, in Matthew 18:15-20, is to confront brothers and sisters with their sins in an attempt to win them back from their sinful ways.
John called sinners and false Christians to account for their unbelief, and his conservative, orthodox, and biblical style of preaching met with much resistance.
But because John and his church were faithful to God’s Word, the church was blessed and experienced tremendous growth.
John took the biblical command to go and make disciples in all nations seriously and Grace Church continually trained church members for all the tasks that arose in the growing church.
In 1986 John founded “The Masters Seminary”, a graduate school that equips man for their work as pastors or in the missionary field.
Most famous are John’s online sermons and radio broadcasts and through different forms of media he shared biblical truths with millions of people.
Fortunately almost all his sermons are stored and they can be listened at gty.org.
More then 3000 of his sermons are categorized per bible verse and per topic.
The Grace To You radio broadcast team already promised that more recordings are going to be digitalized.
John got a lot of attention during Covid, when he opened the church to fulfill the command to gather weekly, as given in Hebrews 10:25.
The liberal government of California at that time allowed liquor stores, abortion clinics and hardware stores to be open but forbid “non essential” entities such as churches from opening their doors.
John and most of the elders saw through the lies and despise huge resistance from governments and many other churches, Grace church opened it’s doors again and chose to be obedient to the highest authority, the Lord of lords and King of kings.
John is a huge example as ambassador and soldier for Christ, who didn’t back down to share the gospel truth.
It must have been a glorious moment for him when our Lord and Savior welcomed him into heaven with the words:
Well done, good and faithful slave; enter into the joy of your master.’
Matthew 25:23 (Legacy Standard Bible)
Although we grieve having lost one of the sparse Christian hero’s of our time, we are happy that John can now spend eternity with our Lord and Savior.
I wish his wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren much strength in coping with their loss, and Grace Church and The Masters Seminary God’s guidance and wisdom in continuing the work that John began.