John MacArthur: A Life (1939-2025)

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

I may give a series on this in October, just the idea that I think the most devastating thing that's happened to the culture in which we live today is the destruction of manhood.

00:11

That has destroyed everything, everything. And you see it everywhere. Men are basically relegated to the trash heap, and we're dealing with, you hear the language, dealing with a culture of snowflakes who don't want to be offended by anyone.

00:30

And there's a hostility against men who have been, in the patriarchal past, supposedly guilty of all the atrocities imaginable and unimaginable, and caught up in the feminist agenda along that line are evangelicals who don't want to offend people because they're pragmatic and they've sold their souls to pragmatism in ministry.

00:54

And so they become part of the me too, or you too, or this race, or that race, or this identity, or that identity, and they lose the fierceness that is required in defending the faith.

01:09

I hope and I trust that you will be able to come to the end of your life and feel like the

01:16

Apostle Paul that you've been fighting the entire time. I have fought the good fight.

01:23

It will never end. The characters change, the scenes change, but the battles never change.

01:32

And they're always over the Word of God and divine truth. I don't think

01:37

I really understood in seminary how relentless this battle would be, and how much discernment it would take, and how it would affect relationships.

01:50

How many relationships eventually look like they're going in the right direction, but are sacrifice to an unwillingness to do battle.

01:58

And you wind up sort of at the end of your life having been stripped of people who at some point gave in to the other side, and the ranks get thinner and thinner.

02:10

I'm sort of living in that era. I'm living in an era on one hand as a shepherd and a pastor where I have 50 years of loving people who have filled my life with so much love and so much kindness and so much affection that it's just beyond comprehension.

02:28

And that's Grace Church, and that's the people who hear the Word of God and believe it and follow it.

02:34

But on the other hand, I watch my life as it comes to an end being stripped of relationships with many, many evangelical leaders.

02:42

Because at some point they're unwilling to stand where I stand. They will call up and ask, how do we re -engage with MacArthur?

02:53

What did we do? And it really comes down to whether or not you're a faithful soldier.

03:04

You know, the old quote I suppose from Luther that if you fight the battle everywhere but where it rages the hottest, you're unfaithful.

03:12

You've got to go to the point of the highest and fiercest conflict, and that's where you take your stand.

03:18

It's not enough to take a stand where there's no battle. Where the battle is is where you demonstrate your faithfulness.

03:26

So life has been that for me. Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast,

03:33

I'm your host John Harris. That was a clip of John MacArthur in the Master's Seminary Chapel from 2019.

03:41

It has since been taken down unless they put it back up because I played it on the podcast back in 2019 when it was first uploaded.

03:51

And it was a message, I listened to the whole thing that made a difference in my life.

03:58

And I'm sure many of you out there have similar stories. If you are familiar with the ministry of John MacArthur, there's a particular message that maybe you heard from him that made an impact on you.

04:09

There's a few of them for me. That was one of them. And I think the reason it was taken down, this is only speculation on my part,

04:16

I don't think it was John MacArthur probably, but it was at a time if you remember when the social justice battle was heating up.

04:25

And there was a lot of speculation as far as who was going to be speaking at the

04:30

Shepherds conference. Is Al Mohler going to come back? Is Lincoln Duncan going to come back? Is Mark Dever going to be back?

04:37

And what's their relationship like with John MacArthur since he signed the social justice statement, the

04:42

Dallas statement, and they didn't. And he was friends with them.

04:47

He said that on the stage in 2018. And and then, of course, this was aired on the live feed for the chapel at the seminary not long after all of that controversy.

05:03

And people like myself were playing the clip, I think probably more than just me and saying, look, he's telling you what's going on in the most gracious way he can.

05:15

And I still believe that. I think that is what he was doing. But this is something bigger than just that one particular conflict.

05:21

This is something that marked the life of John MacArthur. He was defending the truth.

05:27

It seemed like at every point and every few years there was another threat. And his ministry is characterized by that.

05:35

I was looking, I was reading, actually, Ian Murray's book on John MacArthur. He actually wrote a biography of John MacArthur in 2011.

05:43

And it obviously is incomplete because John MacArthur lived till 2025.

05:50

But in that particular book, he goes through some of the controversies. And John MacArthur was so much bigger than that.

05:58

I mean, his life, he just wanted to be a faithful pastor. He has a rich heritage, a rich family.

06:05

His father was a pastor. His grandfather was a pastor. I'm going to give you a full bio sketch in a moment. And anyone who tries to live for Christ, though, anyone who's attempting to live a faithful life, is going to be pestered.

06:19

They're going to have the armies of the devil come against them. And whether they want to fight or not, that's when your character is tested.

06:27

Are you going to give in for the sake of peace, for the sake of serenity and maybe financial satisfaction and that kind of thing?

06:36

Or are you going to actually pick up your sword and are you going to fight? Are you going to fend off the wolves like a real shepherd?

06:43

Sadly, so many fail to do this. I can't think of hardly any that I know of when

06:50

I get a closer glimpse in the upper ranks of evangelical Christianity that are willing to pick up a sword and fight when it counts, when it costs.

07:01

John MacArthur wasn't one of those people. He was willing. He was in it for the right reasons. I was in a chat with a few people.

07:09

Megan Basham was one of them last night. And I just said, it feels like in a way the adults have left the room.

07:21

John MacArthur was the last of the adults who functioned at that level. And if you think of the past few controversies that we've had in evangelical

07:30

Christianity, whether it's the Steve Lawson situation or the Josh Bice situation, it just seems like there's so many grifters out there.

07:38

There's so many people that maybe they're not even Christians. Maybe they're just in it for clicks and money.

07:48

That has become more and more obvious to me. I'm a little slow at figuring people out sometimes.

07:55

I'm a little quicker with ideas. But when it comes to interacting with people and that perception of their character and their, or I should say their, that emotional intelligence angle,

08:08

I tend to maybe at times assume the best.

08:13

My father's like that. Actually, I think John MacArthur was like that too. And we'll talk about that in a little bit as well.

08:19

But something just doesn't feel right at times. You can't put your finger on it and then, oh, the truth comes out.

08:27

This person was a technical specialist in the word of God.

08:33

This person was using the word of God as a means for gain. This person was characterized by selfish ambition, as James 3 condemns in two places.

08:43

This person wasn't in it for the right reasons. But John MacArthur was. John MacArthur was in it for the right reasons.

08:48

He actually wanted people to know Christ. He actually wanted to understand the word of God and communicate it to others because he thought it actually made a difference.

08:57

He believed in its power, not the power of image and fashion. He didn't curate an image of himself.

09:04

One of the amazing things about the story of John MacArthur is the fact that all the things that you see today grew up organically around him.

09:13

He didn't set out to have an empire of any kind. He wasn't thinking, man,

09:19

I'd really like to have a seminary and a college. I'm going to do whatever I need to do to make those things happen.

09:25

I would really like to have a worldwide radio ministry. I would really love to send missionaries throughout the world, although I think most pastors would love those things.

09:33

He just set out to be faithful to the word of God and to the calling that God gave him, to preach the word.

09:41

That was the only thing that he knew that God said that he would bless. And then wherever God took it, that's where he was going to go.

09:47

And it was volunteers around him who started doing things like recording his sermons and making the tapes available, and sending the tapes to radio stations, and everything else you see.

10:00

That's how it bloomed. How many guys can you say today are like that? I can't,

10:06

I can think of hardly any, I can think of hardly any. You get a closer glimpse and you realize sometimes how ambitious some of these people are.

10:16

MacArthur wasn't like that. That's one of the reasons I have so much respect. I'm going to get into more details on his character, on his virtue.

10:23

I think virtue is the main thing I'm thinking about today that characterized him.

10:30

He had a maturity about him. He was in it for the right reasons. He knew when to open his mouth, when not to open his mouth generally.

10:39

And I was privileged to kind of watch him from a very close distance. And I was thinking about this yesterday.

10:48

I'm going to get the personal things behind me, and then we'll go through the biography. But I just want to say a few personal things.

10:54

There's a lot of people with pictures of John MacArthur. Because if you go to Shepard's conference, or if you were at any of the events that he was at, he would gladly take a picture with you.

11:04

And of course, everyone wants to do that. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, by the way. I'm not that kind of person, really.

11:12

There's a lot of people that I've met that I have no evidence I ever met them. There's no picture. I don't know,

11:18

I just want to talk to them. I don't really, I don't think about it. I don't think about it. But I've noticed in my own life, and I'm nowhere near the status that MacArthur had.

11:31

But I've noticed there's people who the first thing they want to do is take a picture with you, right? And maybe that's the reason they wanted to be around you.

11:38

I don't really, I don't know all the time. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. But there's a lot of people with pictures.

11:46

And he wrote, of course, he would sign Bibles and that kind of thing too. But I don't have a picture with him, right?

11:53

I could have it so many times, I'm sure. I just, it was never, I don't know, he's a man.

12:00

And I always knew that he was, he's a great man. I never viewed him as a celebrity.

12:06

And I think the reason for that is partially my family's from Los Angeles. I have a grandmother who worked in the movie industry.

12:14

She managed the financial accounts for movie stars. And I think on my mom's side, and I think part of, we live in LA, it's just celebrities are people.

12:27

And famous pastors are people. Every person is a person. Maybe that's part of it,

12:34

I don't know. But MacArthur himself played such an instrumental point in my life in a way because without his ministry,

12:46

I would not be here speaking to you. Because I wouldn't exist. My parents never would have met, very likely.

12:54

My parents met at Grace Community Church. My dad was a leader in the college career ministry.

12:59

He led a Bible study and a deacon at the church. My mom also served there.

13:05

And they met at a college career group. And that's why I even exist.

13:11

It's because of the ministry of John MacArthur and my parents meeting. And my parents come from different families.

13:18

I don't know whether they would have met and had the opportunity to hit it off if they had not been both attending that church.

13:25

It's very possible it wouldn't have happened. And I've gone back with my dad.

13:31

My dad goes to Shepherds Conference every year. My dad was on the executive committee for the

13:36

IFCA, which is the body, the institution that actually ordained

13:43

John MacArthur. He was ordained in the Independent Fundamental Churches of America. Now it's

13:48

IFCA International. But my dad was on the executive committee for that organization for a short period of time.

13:53

And he's been the regional director for New York for I don't know how long. But he's a graduate of the Master's Seminary.

14:00

Graduated in 1988, which is the second graduating class. Very close with some of the professors there.

14:06

And John MacArthur wrote him a note. I think it was in the 90s.

14:11

It was a controversy. I can't even remember which one this was. My dad defended him, though, in the IFCA. I think it had something to do with,

14:18

I don't even remember. I don't even remember. But MacArthur wrote him a note thanking him for defending him and that kind of thing.

14:25

And I guess the tradition carries on because then I've defended him I don't know how many times, especially on social justice stuff.

14:31

But a few years ago, this was I think maybe 2021,

14:38

I sent a book. I think it might have been Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict.

14:46

I can't remember if it was that or Social Justice Goes to Church. But I sent that to him just and it wasn't for an endorsement.

14:55

It just it was after the book was published. Obviously, it wasn't for me to use his name or anything. I never asked for any of that kind of thing.

15:02

But it's just to encourage him because I just felt bad. The clip that you just saw at the beginning here.

15:08

I really felt like he had been abandoned by his friends. He had taken a stand.

15:14

He had not just because he signed the Dallas statement, but he was willing to take a lot of bold stands.

15:22

He called out Governor Gavin Newsom. I don't know how many times. There's the we will not bow.

15:28

There was the COVID stuff. Then there was the abortion issue and the billboards across California advertising abortion.

15:34

I'll play that clip for you at the end here or near the end. But he he just took a lot of bold stands on social justice related issues that the people that he had associated with in the sort of young restless reformed.

15:49

And I don't know that he wouldn't have. He wasn't that. But some of the people riding that wave, they just they couldn't go with him on that.

15:58

Ian Murray, actually, in his book in 2011, talks about this. It's one of the second.

16:04

It's the second to last chapter. He talks about this new reformed theology resurgence, kind of ends the book on a high note that look,

16:10

MacArthur's part of this and look and you look back and you read it and you're like, man, if he only knew what happened after he wrote those words, it kind of fell apart.

16:19

And the social justice issue is probably the main reason I was at the seminary in 2011. I did a semester at master's.

16:26

I did not leave master's seminary because of anything related to John MacArthur. I it was more personal reasons and kind of where I was with my life and job situations and that kind of thing.

16:40

But but I was there for a semester. So he I mean, for for a semester and a summer also because I was out there working.

16:46

He was my pastor, at least one of them. And I remember him mentioning that book because that was the year

16:52

Ian Murray had written the book. And and it was he's kind of like, I'm not dead yet. Are you writing a biography?

16:58

But by that time, there was so much that you could say about him. He already had such a full life and had made so many contributions, whether it was on inerrancy or on the lordship salvation issue or on charismatic theology.

17:14

So many things that you you did have enough material there for a book. And now you have even more.

17:20

I'm sure there'll be biographies coming out. But anyway, I digress because I need to get to this bio sketch.

17:25

But this was in twenty eighteen or sorry, what did I say? Twenty twenty one.

17:31

I think I sent him Christianity and social justice. And what I got back in the mail were these two little pamphlets.

17:37

So and I've kept them on my shelf ever since then. And they're both I realized this last night.

17:43

I was looking at this and I thought, you know what? This was in the providence of God. He sent me two books on virtue and I've been on a virtue kick lately.

17:52

I've seen so clearly that the problem the problems in our church would be so cleared away if we had virtuous leadership.

18:01

It's not even male leadership in the sense of like it's not enough to just have males in charge, which it seems like some people think it's like, oh,

18:08

I just need men, real men. No, you need virtue. You need virtuous men. That's what you don't have.

18:13

You can get the burly, supposedly manly men, and oftentimes they don't have virtue.

18:20

You need virtue. It's not it's not aggression either. It's a it's a holistic kind of you feel the weight of the person's character and maturity because they've experienced so much and they've been with God through those things.

18:34

It's rounded them out and made them a complete that the scripture talks about this so many times a complete or a perfect man that it's not just one thing.

18:43

It's not just like amp up the masculinity tone down the femininity. Uh, although I think in general that should happen, it's it's just it's a richness that can only be found when people are on their knees and in fights and in the day to day, prioritizing the right thing, spending time with the

19:03

Lord, letting the word shape them, discipling others, being discipled, following the spiritual disciplines.

19:12

That's the only place you find it. There's no shortcuts. He sends me these. The man of God remaining faithful in ministry.

19:20

Two books I'm sure now I'll value the rest of my life. And he wrote some notes in them. And although I don't have a picture, which which is totally fine.

19:30

I'm not not insecure about it. I'm actually I'm just grateful. He said to John with gratitude, you know, it's a little note on this one.

19:40

And then this one meant a lot to me because I knew I knew what he meant. This was during the height of the social justice stuff.

19:46

And he said to John, a faithful warrior. And if I can, the camera will focus.

19:52

You can see it. There you go. So I've had these on my shelf now.

19:58

I haven't said anything about them publicly, and part of the reason for that is I respect

20:03

John MacArthur so much. I just didn't want to. I didn't want any baggage or anything that I've said, you know,

20:13

I've criticized many of his former friends, I think, or maybe they're still on friendly terms in some way.

20:20

I've I just didn't want any of that to fall on him. I've been very careful about that, even when I would.

20:26

There was an attempted cancellation on me. And I even had a former professor at Master Seminary come out and make a statement against me.

20:35

I held my tongue. And the reason was was because I respected

20:41

John MacArthur so much. And I knew it wasn't him. And I knew, you know, once you get to an institution at a certain scale, you can't control the people under you.

20:49

You don't know all that's happening. And in institutions and managers are going to do what they do.

20:55

But I know the man, John MacArthur, the man had virtue. The man had character because there were so many situations where it was tested and he came out with flying colors.

21:05

And so we're going to go through some of those and hope this will encourage you. And that I'm glad I got the personal stuff kind of out of the way.

21:13

I'll remember a few other things, but I really just want to focus on him at this point. And I'll be willing to take questions and also take stories from you.

21:23

I'm sure you have things, whether you were as close as I was or distant or, you know, most of the influence that I received was really through my father.

21:32

He influenced my father profoundly. And I realized so many of his attributes and even some of the sayings that he had, my dad has.

21:40

And I was realizing that as I was reading the Ian Murray book. But, you know, you may not have that.

21:47

You may just listen to him on the radio. And you know how meaningful that is to hear that voice, especially if it's every day.

21:55

You get to know the person to some extent. You really do. And even if you're not seeing him on the day to day, his preaching was not just technical, even though he's known as the great expository preacher.

22:09

He would bring in personal examples. You would get to see a glimpse of who he actually was.

22:14

And you know what? Just like R .C. Sproul, he did not take himself that seriously. That's one of the things I love about him.

22:19

And that speaks so highly, so much to his character. So many of the preachers who want to emulate him take themselves way too seriously.

22:28

They take him and they try to make him a formula. We're going to do all the things. We're going to be anti -charismatic.

22:34

We're going to have expository preaching. And you just got to be forceful. You got to shoot the wolves and be. And it's like it's like this artificial thing.

22:40

It's like MacArthur was just himself. Just be yourself. Let the personality that God gave you shine through. You're not going to be him, but learn the things from him.

22:49

And the things you can learn from him are mostly virtue. There's teaching there, but it's mostly going to be the character stuff.

22:56

If you want the gravitas, it's going to be the virtue. So I'll give you some glimpses of that as we go through this, a life of John MacArthur.

23:05

I have a slideshow prepared for you here, and we'll just start with some of his contributions.

23:13

He helped bring back church discipline. This is such a short list. I probably I'll add to this as we go.

23:20

He helped popularize modern expository preaching, which is the verse by verse kind of preaching, whether there's a spectrum there, but whether it's all the way from Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith types that that would be considered expositing, you know, to I don't really

23:37

I was going to say Steve Lawson, but can I name him anymore? You know, probably not because he was like hyper technical, you know, the very technical kind of Greek Hebrew guys.

23:47

It's this idea that you go verse by verse. You don't just add in your own stories.

23:55

You don't just launch off of a story that you had in your personal life or some illustration.

24:01

It's not just a topical. You actually go through books so people understand the broad sweep of Scripture. That's expository preaching.

24:09

He popularized Lordship Salvation and helped fade out the altar call and fundamentalist circles. I want to say just a brief word about this.

24:15

There's still controversy over the Lordship Salvation thing, and I can understand why.

24:20

One of the things you have to realize with all of the controversies that MacArthur was engaged in, they're all situational.

24:27

They all depend on circumstance. Just like when you read about the early church and a new heresy arrives, what do we do about this?

24:34

And there's a correction made. John MacArthur was correcting things that he saw in his real tangible everyday world.

24:41

That is one of the things about him you need to respect. I think if you're going to be like, if you want to take on his good attributes, his virtue, he wasn't in love with abstractions.

24:50

He wasn't in love with image and fashion. He wasn't the kind of person who just was a theological egghead who wanted to go stir up trouble or take a stand just because it was the correct stand.

25:02

He wanted to take the stand, not just because it was correct, but because it actually mattered in the real world. And in the real world, there were all kinds of people making professions of faith who weren't

25:14

Christians. Easy -believe -ism was so prevalent at the time John MacArthur wrote the gospel according to Jesus, and he wanted to correct that.

25:24

So whatever you think about the Lordship Salvation issue, you need to understand the conditions in which he was writing this book.

25:30

When you had people who were just saying words, marching forward in a altar call situation, and then being told that they were

25:39

Christians, even if they live like the devil, and there was no evidence of fruit ever. That's what he was writing to correct.

25:44

You can't just mutter some words. That's paganism, right? So the

25:50

Lordship Salvation issue was an issue that he obviously was involved in. He was a leading critic of charismatic theology in evangelical circles.

25:59

I think some of the more powerful critiques come from John MacArthur, at least some of the more popular critiques.

26:05

He, and of course, was instrumental in fighting the social justice movement, as I mentioned previously, and many, many more things.

26:16

So I want to give you a few quotes. These are all from the Ian Murray book, and I had to give them to you, and I'm going to comment on them.

26:26

People sometimes point out to me, MacArthur said, that what I've said on one tape doesn't agree with what

26:32

I said on a later tape. My response to them is that I am growing. I did not know everything then, and I do not know everything now.

26:41

One of the things that John MacArthur often said, and I've heard my dad say this almost verbatim many times as well, is if I knew the problems in my own theology,

26:50

I would correct them. I just don't know where they are, and there is a humility that you see in someone who's willing to say that, and say it repeatedly, and live it, and say, go to the word of God, don't just take my word for it.

27:07

It was very centered on the word of God. You could say MacArthur has a cult of personality.

27:13

People respect him. People like him, all that kind of thing, but that's not ever what he intended.

27:19

He wasn't trying to build that. He wanted people to just go back to the word of God. That was it, and I think the pastors who have been able to follow that example of getting yourself out of the way, not trying to be the limelight, and just letting the word of God speak, knowing that you have errors, the word of God doesn't, those are the ones that are going to be the most successful in the spiritual economy.

27:42

John MacArthur knew that he was a fallible man. He didn't take himself too seriously, and he knew that there were non -essential areas in which he likely had issues himself, and he grew himself.

27:55

He was sanctified over time. I've pointed this out before on the podcast, by the way, not in a condemning way, and every time

28:03

I do this, which has been maybe two or three times, I've always had people mad at me.

28:09

People that are strong MacArthurites, sometimes people call them, but very strong MacArthur guys reach out and say,

28:15

John MacArthur never contradicted himself, and I'll say things like, look, he was more of an

28:21

Amarillian, a four -point Calvinist, four -and -a -half point, whatever, back in the 1980s. If you look at the

28:27

New Theology book that came out a few years ago, he's five points now. It's one of the reasons he's not associated with the

28:32

IFCA any longer, and that was a mutual, that there was no bad blood there, but you start saying those kinds of things.

28:40

You say, well, he changed his position, or he modified or grew in a way, which I agree with the five points, and then you get people upset at you.

28:53

From March to whatever it was, June, or I forget, April to June, he went from, we need at least publicly, even though I think

29:04

I've heard he's never wanted to do it, but we're going to do this. We're going to shut the church down. We're going to obey the authorities.

29:11

This may be a threat, too. We're opening up. We're not going to bend, and I applaud that.

29:17

I praise that, but you mentioned that, and people will come to you and just be like, John MacArthur never contradicted himself.

29:22

I remember I was in the parking lot at the Master's Seminary in 2011, and I got into an argument with a guy.

29:29

I kid you not. You will think I'm making this up. There are people like this. He told me that they should only use

29:37

MacArthur books at the seminary, and I was like, what are you, crazy? What do you think,

29:42

John MacArthur was just reading MacArthur books? No, those books came out of his influence. He was reading Martin Lloyd -Jones.

29:47

He was reading Puritans. He was reading all kinds of other things that influenced who he was. What do you mean? This guy was just, he said, look, everything

29:55

MacArthur says is what the word of God teaches, and I said, MacArthur wouldn't even say that. The standard is the word of God.

30:02

It's not him, and this guy, I still remember. I'll remember as long as I live. He goes, yeah, but everything

30:08

MacArthur says about Scripture is true, and I was like, dude, and it was an argument.

30:18

I was just like, this guy is really, really putting way too much faith in a man. MacArthur wouldn't have wanted that, though, is my point.

30:25

That's not who he was. That's not what he wanted. He wanted your confidence to be in the word of God, not himself.

30:32

I think it takes tremendous humility when you have so many people who look to you as a father figure, as a stability in their life, as a spiritual leader.

30:42

You could take advantage of these people, and yet John MacArthur stayed married to the same woman. He was faithful when it came to finances.

30:52

I'm going to give you a story related to that in a moment. He was someone who didn't take himself too seriously.

31:02

He still kept encouraging people, go back to the word, go back to the word. Don't just take my word for it.

31:08

Here's another quote. You cannot be faithful and popular, so take your pick. You cannot be faithful and popular, so take your pick.

31:16

Now, you might think John MacArthur was really popular. That's true, but when you get to that level, there's always people who are way more popular, especially in the charismatic world.

31:27

You have your Joel Osteens. You have your guys on TBN. Then you have guys who might be at your level, but they're at the cool kids' table.

31:37

They're invited to all the cool, hip, reformed conferences, and they're not seen as a pariah when they show up.

31:43

There's a lot of people who wanted to use MacArthur for their platform. That just happens when you get to a certain status.

31:50

If he wasn't as big as he was, they never would have. He was not the popular guy.

31:58

There were many statements that he wouldn't sign. I know over the years that many other evangelicals would, or vice versa, it seems.

32:05

It's like popularity didn't even factor into it for him. What was it?

32:11

The statement on marriage. I'm trying to remember which one that was from maybe 15 years ago. He didn't sign.

32:18

Obviously, he didn't do evangelicals and Catholics together. There were many things he opted out of. He just didn't do it.

32:23

Then he'll sign the Dallas Statement, which none of these other guys will. You just get used to being the oddball because you're not using a metric of popularity.

32:35

He became somewhat popular, but it wasn't because he was pursuing it as an end in and of itself.

32:40

He was just pursuing faithfulness. If he had 100 people, he would have been happy. If he had 1 ,000, if he had 10 ,000, he would have been happy.

32:48

I must ascribe, he says, our church's numerical and spiritual growth to the will of our sovereign God. He doesn't take credit for it.

32:56

He doesn't think it was him. He doesn't think it was his personality. He doesn't think they had the right formula. Guess what?

33:02

Almost everyone today thinks that there's a formula. They think that it's a personality.

33:08

It's a show. Curate an image. What do people want? That's this, this is,

33:15

I don't care if you're right. If you're left, if you're riding the patriarchy thing, if you're right, if you're writing the feminist thing, if you're right, this goes, gets cuts across all theological layers.

33:26

I'm telling you, this is ingrained. People just think this. It's part of the media age.

33:32

MacArthur did come from another era, but remember he's in Hollywood. He is in Hollywood and there's

33:38

Hollywood connections that he has. I mean, it's so, so goes Los Angeles, you know, the nation follows

33:45

Los Angeles, right? Like Los Angeles is that's where the new hip, cool things happen. And they were happening.

33:51

He had the people in the orchestra at Grace Church are people who their day job was in many cases going down to the

33:58

Hollywood studios and playing for soundtracks and movies and that kind of thing.

34:04

Uh, MacArthur didn't let any of that get to his head and he didn't, he wasn't tempted to, to curate things to match a certain image.

34:14

Even the fact that they still use the hymnal, they don't need to do that, right? There's convictions that run counter to many of the, the hip popular things that are supposed to grow your church and make you more popular.

34:30

He says you were always quick to believe, or sorry, this is Tom Pennington. So Tom Penny, I don't think he's there anymore.

34:36

He was there when I was there. He's a, he was a pastor at the church. You were always quick to believe the best about people and the last to believe anything negative, sometimes to a fault.

34:45

I was so glad I found this quote because I have said this about John MacArthur for, I don't know how long someone reaches out to me with the insider scoop.

34:54

And believe me, I have many insider scoops about the inner workings of the politics of Grace Community Church and Master's Seminary and the

35:02

Master's College and Grace, Grace to you less so. Phil Johnson runs a tight ship. He's a good guy.

35:08

Anyway, there's other places though. You know, if you're, you're not even looking to hear an earful and you'll get an earful because people, since I go after social justice guys and I've gone after compromising the church, um, there's an assumption that I will take any story.

35:26

I don't know how many stories I've had to say, look, I, I can't verify this, or there's not enough sources, or if you're not willing to come out and risk your neck, why would

35:35

I, uh, I'm not even part of the situation. You know, you have to be very judicious and wise.

35:40

And you can pray for me that for wisdom, because, uh, you know, even with this last documentary about J .D.

35:46

Greer and, uh, the takeout, the attempt to take over a first Baptist night I've had like 15 people be like, you need to go look at this church,

35:54

John, you need to go. I, I can hook you up. We can do, and I, I, you know, part of,

36:00

I'm always listening to see where the Lord would have me direct efforts, but I am not about to get into situations that are just, just to stir them up or, or are, uh, unverifiable.

36:14

I mean, I, I mean, that's the academic background too. I have, I suppose, like I want the primary sources and I want them there.

36:20

And if they're not there, then we're not doing it. And anyway, I, that, that's happened so many times at grace community church.

36:28

And when you have an institution that big, you're going to have drama. But one of the things I've said to people who are torn up about something that happens is

36:35

I can't believe a pastor at grace church would say this or do this, or I can't believe that. How does John MacArthur, how would, how can he,

36:42

I'm thinking John MacArthur, he probably doesn't know about many of the things that happened there. I remember I sat in an elders meeting at grace community church when

36:50

I was a student at master seminary and John, John MacArthur was a few feet away from me and I'm watching him and I'm watching everyone else.

36:56

He has the respect of every man in that room. And he, I mean, he's just a normal guy though.

37:03

He just shares what's on his heart. He doesn't, I never sensed that he ruled with an iron fist.

37:08

In fact, the COVID situation seems to make that clear. He wanted to open up before the rest of the elders. And since they're, uh, they, they make decisions unanimously.

37:15

They had to wait for everyone to be on the same page. And anyway, I can tell he has the respect, but look at the scale of the room.

37:24

How many elders are there? I don't even know. There was like, you know, I'm sitting there's like 30 elders or something. I mean, it's like,

37:30

I'm like the scale of this magnitude. And for a guy who spends 30 hours a week, just studying, there's absolutely no way you can know about everything that happens.

37:39

And you're going to have grifters. You're going to have coattail riders. I met some of them were sat next to me in class, you know, um, that, and that's at every institution

37:49

I've been at that people are attracted to power. They want to ladder climbing.

37:55

People want to be next to the person in charge. They want the picture. They want to be known. They want their name out there.

38:02

That nothing's that's human nature. Nothing's going to be different at a place like grace community church.

38:09

Uh, or at least there's not going to be an exception. Those kinds of people are going to be there too, is what I'm saying. And so that's what

38:15

I tell people. I say, look, why was this person hired? Why did MacArthur rubber stamp this? Why did he fire this person?

38:21

Why did he say, I don't know. I don't know the answer, but one thing I do suspect because my dad's like this,

38:27

I'm a little bit like this. He probably assumes the best about people. He has thinks that people are in ministry for the reasons he's in ministry.

38:35

He's in ministry because he loves the word of God. He loves God himself and he wants to help people. And that's it.

38:42

And if he makes a name, if his name gets elevated, that's up to God. There are people in ministry and it might be the vast majority at these higher levels, at least at this point, my estimation, it's pretty bad guys.

38:56

And they are in it for the wrong reasons. And you know what they're going to do if they don't have virtue. If they don't have a platform, if they can't build something themselves, they will look to a guy like MacArthur and they'll say,

39:06

I will just curate my image. I will go to him and I'll, I'll say the right things. I'll do the right things.

39:13

You can't weed all of that out. And I think that's something you need to understand for those. Cause I've seen a few people already make some snide remarks about him and about certain situations at the church.

39:24

Look, you give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. He assumes the best about people and that's actually a good quality.

39:32

And yes, it can be taken too far. Yes. Sometimes our vices and our virtues are flip sides of the same coin, our weaknesses and our strengths.

39:41

I should say that can be a tremendous strength because you can encourage people who need the encouragement.

39:48

You can give people a vision to follow and they can do things they wouldn't normally do.

39:54

And it can also be an inhibitor because you assume someone is in it for the right motives when they're just using you.

40:01

So I do think that about John MacArthur and this, this quote, I was glad I found it. Cause I was like, oh, I've been saying that for years that I think he just assumes the best about people, right?

40:11

He's caught off guard sometimes when his friends don't go along with them. Cause he thinks they're faithful to scripture and stuff because, well, he just assumed they were in it for the right reasons that he was in it.

40:20

Here's another one. As a pastor teacher of a congregation, MacArthur said, I have a relationship with my people like that of a shepherd and his sheep.

40:28

I think that's a precious thing. And I think that's true no matter how big his empire grew and he wouldn't have even thought of it as an empire.

40:35

He was always prioritizing grace community church. He was always a shepherd, a pastor first, he would say no to speaking engagements cause he needed to be at his church.

40:44

He would say no to opportunities. And that's the attitude one should have. So let's go through the bio sketch here.

40:51

Early life. That's a picture of his father. That's Jack MacArthur, uh, June 19th, 1939.

40:57

John Fullerton. That's his middle name. MacArthur jr. Is born. He was a son of Jack and Irene MacArthur.

41:03

Jack was the pastor of Manchester Baptist church. His grandfather, Harry MacArthur was also a pastor and the founder of the voice of Calvary radio program.

41:12

Jack MacArthur pastored many churches, including fountain Avenue Baptist church in Hollywood. He was instrumental in the conversions of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans who became personal friends.

41:22

John said his father taught him the value of integrity. That's one of the things I was thinking too. And I was like, man,

41:28

I, I have a similar situation. So many guys come from broken households and it does affect you.

41:33

There's no doubt about that. There is a certain stability that one can have when you come from a very stable background, especially if you have a strong father figure.

41:43

And I'm like, and I'm blessed to have that. And, um, that's something John MacArthur had as well, which I think contributed to the sense of stability that he had in his life.

41:52

John got into mischief. There's a few stories in the Ian Murray book that are interesting. Like he, like one of the stories is when he was a boy, he got out into the middle of an, uh, of the road.

42:01

It's like an intersection. And he tried to start just for fun. He was directing traffic. And apparently though, then his dad pulled up and he tried to direct his dad's car.

42:11

And that's when his dad, uh, chastised him, you know, like, what are you doing? So, um, but he, he did get into some mischief.

42:19

He was actually kind of a sickly, uh, child, interestingly enough, because he became an athlete as a teenager.

42:26

He played football. He played a bunch of sports, but football was the main one. Irene, his mother was a stay at home mom.

42:31

And he lived with his parents, his three younger sisters and his grandmother, who he shared a room with after his grandfather died in 1950.

42:38

So you imagine that he's born in 1939, so 1950. So, you know, this is an 11 year old now who's sharing a room with his grandmother.

42:47

That was so common back in the day though. I mean, my own grandmother, I was telling her about how our house is so small and to have more kids would be difficult.

42:56

And she's like, what are you talking about? Your house is, uh, larger than mine. And we had twice as many people and it, you know, they would take shifts sleeping and they would, someone would have the couch.

43:06

And so, you know, that's just, that's how people lived and that's how he lived. So, uh, anyway, uh, 1957, he attends

43:15

Bob Jones university. So goes from California to Bob Jones. He got into a bad car accident though in Alabama while he was there.

43:23

And God suddenly had my undivided attention. He says in 1958 or 59, I'm not sure which year it was.

43:29

He preaches his first sermon, which was a 10 minute gospel message at a bus station. So it was open air preaching in 1959.

43:36

He continues his bachelor's degree at Pacific college in LA. He was named in an all America squad as a halfback.

43:43

And he decided though, to pursue pastoral work after being instrumental in the conversion of a paralyzed girl named

43:48

Polly. So he actually had the opportunity to make a short speech, uh, in his capacity as a football star.

43:57

And he decided to share the gospel. And someone in the audience said, could you go visit Polly in the hospital?

44:03

And she was saying, what's the point of life? And he gets there and he says, it's not what happens to your body. It's what happens to your soul, share the gospel she's converted.

44:11

And that was a turning point for him as well. And made him want to pursue full, uh, gospel ministry.

44:19

And then, uh, in 1961, he enrolls at, uh, Talbot theological seminary and begins to read theology.

44:28

His first chapel sermon was taken from second Samuel seven, the Dean, Dr. Charles Feinberg told him that he missed the whole point of the passage.

44:35

And he's MacArthur's told the story. I don't know how many times I've heard him talk about it that, um, he, so I'm trying to remember what the circumstance was from the book.

44:44

I think he, uh, was talking, he made a personal application when it was, and he missed the point that there was a fulfillment in the

44:51

Messiah. And so Charles Feinberg was like, you missed it. Feinberg influenced MacArthur to understand context.

44:56

And then a visiting lecturer, Ralph Kuyper influenced him to use biblical examples as illustrations and preaching.

45:03

And those two things are pretty fundamental to his style of expository preaching. He tends to, when he wants to illustrate a point, go to another

45:11

Bible passage and correlate the two instead of reaching out for an example from let's say, uh, the newspaper or a story in illustrations book or a personal thing.

45:23

Now he will pepper those in at times, but he is much more likely to go to a biblical passage to illustrate a point.

45:30

And he is very conscious of the context. Interestingly too, he had not really read hardly at all.

45:38

He was an athlete. He did not read theology until going to seminary. And that's when he started reading a lot.

45:44

In 1963, he marries Patricia Sue Smith. John and Patricia had four children, Matt, uh,

45:50

Marcy and Mark and Melinda. So those are their kids. Uh, 1964, he graduated magna cum laude and ordained, uh, by an independent fundamental churches of America.

46:02

He passed on an opportunity to attend Claremont school of theology. So he, he goes the ministry route.

46:11

One of the things that I think is interesting in all this is he could have gone the athletic route and his family, from what

46:16

I understand, they're still athletic. In fact, I worked for a contractor in, uh, LA area for a summer.

46:23

And one of his, one of the, uh, rooms, or I guess a house that he rent, it was a house he rented out was to John MacArthur's son.

46:33

I don't remember which one, but whoever it was, the one who, uh, I guess was the editor ran a golfing magazine.

46:40

So, you know, and MacArthur played golf obviously into his later years. Uh, I know there was a picture

46:47

I saw that wasn't that old where they're with their grandson. He's playing football and he, he was always a sports fan, but here's the thing.

46:55

Do you know how many, how many sports fans pastors? Okay. When they come into the pulpit, that's what they talk about in the south, especially in the

47:03

Midwest. A lot. Okay. In my experience, that is very common when the, the game happened the night before and everyone's talking about the game, you get up there and you start talking about the game and your jokes are about the game and your, and team rivalries.

47:17

And it just, that those become the illustrations. Those become, and I, I understand it's local pride and all that.

47:25

MacArthur never brought any of that stuff into the pulpit though. And I think that's interesting. And I don't know that he was like a super serious,

47:32

I mean, some guys it's like a religion in and of itself, but I just do find that a little interesting that sports often becomes the non offensive way of connecting with people.

47:43

And MacArthur didn't take that even though he was a big sports fan. So, uh, in 1964, like I said, he graduated with honors.

47:54

And then he served. And, oh, by the way, the reason he didn't attend Claremont school of theology was because it was basically going to be liberal theology.

48:01

So he also said no to academic prestige. So not so sports and academic prestige, both.

48:08

He said no to, cause he wanted to do ministry, actual real ministry that I think colored the rest of his entire life.

48:16

He real tangible people needing to know the word of God, not in some academic echo chamber or some ivory tower where he loves to read, but he didn't choose that.

48:28

He didn't choose, uh, going the, the glory and the fame that come from sports. He didn't pursue those things.

48:33

And I think that's also another thing to say about John MacArthur. He had many skills, many talents, many things he could have done.

48:40

And he chose to pastor. There's a lot of guys out there. Cause I've met them in seminary who don't, they're, they're not as well -rounded.

48:49

They don't have all these various skills. It's like, that's the only thing they can do. And sometimes they're hoping that, you know, churches and Christians, cause they're gracious, will just kind of accept them.

48:59

And I don't think that's, that's not a good idea to become a pastor because you think the graciousness of the church will allow you to, or, or because they're, you know, you can prey upon supposed gullibility because people are so merciful and gracious in Christian circles, uh, you can eke out a living there and get some of the accolades there that you wouldn't anywhere else.

49:21

I, I, I do tend to be suspicious. I'm not going to lie of people who haven't lived a little haven't, there aren't weren't other routes they could have pursued.

49:30

I, I even tell people have asked me before, John, uh, what, give me a suggestion or an advice about going to seminary, becoming a pastor.

49:38

What do you, what do you think I should do? And, and one of the first things I usually say is, have you worked in the world?

49:44

Have you done anything else? Is there anything you could do? Have you, uh, you need to have that experience.

49:52

I think it's, I shouldn't, I'm not creating a legalistic rule. It is preferable generally to have that experience because you can connect with real people because that's the lives they're living before you go and you try to lead them.

50:05

Someone who's only ever been a pastor or only ever been in Bible schools and seminaries. Generally they have, there's problems.

50:14

I'm just going to tell you straight up. There's usually, in my experience, there's problems. John MacArthur, it wasn't that he was someone who could have been excellent.

50:21

And I mean, he's saying too, for goodness sakes. Right. He, I was there one time when he did a solo. I remember

50:26

I was actually confused at first. I was like, why is he up there? And he's singing. And I'm like, wait, are we supposed to sing?

50:31

What, what, what's going on? And then like halfway through it, I'm like, oh no, he's actually, he can sing. Wow. Interesting. Okay. Uh, that's who he was though.

50:38

He had many skills and talents like that and could have been used for so many things. And he chose to go the ministry route.

50:44

So he served as an associate at Calvary Bible church in Burbank with his dad and assistant professor at Los Angeles Baptist college.

50:51

He also did that. And he was a representative for Talbot seminary before becoming pastor of grace community church.

50:57

And it was in his capacity as a speaking representative for Talbot that he famously assisted John Perkins in Mississippi.

51:02

Now, if you know, uh, my book, uh, social justice goes to church. I actually criticized

51:08

John Perkins pretty heavily. And I accused him of basically a heresy. I say, look, this guy, uh, he was, he was bringing in social gospel stuff.

51:17

But John, the thing about John Perkins is he wasn't full on social gospel, even though he says,

51:22

Hey, we need, uh, we need to combine the fundamentalist gospel with the social gospel to get a full, complete gospel.

51:29

He also did. I mean, at times he did have legitimate, uh, conversion gospel messages and MacArthur had gone out there.

51:38

I don't know how aware he was of John Perkins ministry before he went, but he, uh, assisted for a while in, uh, rallies or crusades,

51:46

I should say. And that kind of thing, uh, to, uh, the, uh, the people that John Perkins was ministering to mostly, uh, black people in Mississippi.

51:56

And this is where, you know, the civil rights stuff comes in, um, where he had gone to the scene of MLK's, uh, assassination and all of that.

52:05

I have to think though, later in life, this is a little bit of a speculative speculation on my part. There were altar calls and all of that involved.

52:13

And I think later on in life, he probably looked upon that experience and thought was all that right.

52:20

Was all that correct? Because he became one of the chief critics of doing that kind of thing.

52:25

You know, even though there, God probably brought forth fruit, he was preaching a true gospel. Uh, was this, what was counting everyone and considering them?

52:34

They're all, they're all believers. Look, they made up, they came forward or that kind of thing. Was that really right? Was that really biblical?

52:40

He says no later in life, right? I'll get to some of your comments, uh, after I go through, uh, some of these slides that I've prepared.

52:50

In 1968, John MacArthur preached his first sermon at grace community church in sun Valley, California while attending,

52:56

I'm sorry, while candidating rather it was an hour and 15 minutes. And his wife told him, do you realize how long you preach?

53:03

And he said, no. And I've been there and you're in it. You don't realize. And she thought, well, you were done.

53:08

We're not going to that, to that church. And surprisingly they hired him. He became the pastor the following year.

53:14

It was a church of 450 members with a secretary and a youth leader. One of his stipulations was they would allow him to save 30 hours a week to study during his first sermon there, which was called how to play church from Matthew seven.

53:28

It was revealed that one of the elders were not, was not a Christian in several couples left the church. Now this was an interesting situation because the church grace community church, uh, had pre two previous pastors.

53:39

One of them was Baptist and one of them was Methodist. And so if you know anything about Methodist and Baptists, there are differences between the two.

53:49

And this, this was a kind of a, a generic church.

53:54

This, this was a just, you know, Bible preaching church, but it was, uh, not, not what it is today, right?

54:01

Not with all the specifics and the richness of theology. It was kind of a simple, basic church.

54:08

And one of the things I think as a point of application, I do want to say here is that there are guys who graduate from places like masters who are very particular about the churches that they go into.

54:18

It's got to align a hundred percent in every way and have a richness. They gotta be five point Calvinist and they gotta be elder, uh, rule and they gotta be, you know, they have to have the formula that I learned in seminary.

54:29

Do you realize John MacArthur entered a church that you would never have entered yourself?

54:35

Just saying, uh, the pastor's wife, um, Ian Murray counts as one of the people that was like unofficially on staff because she was constantly helping

54:45

MacArthur navigate personal issues and that kind of thing. Giving her wisdom to MacArthur because her husband had died.

54:51

That's why he was there. Uh, it was, it had to, it had to adapt and change under the preaching of the word.

55:00

And because MacArthur loved people and because he was tailoring himself to the people under his care and not to rigid lines necessarily, although there are lines, but he wasn't, uh, he was seeing the potential and he was seeing people for whom, who they were and not just judging everything based upon secondary issues that, uh, could be later on corrected.

55:25

He actually became a very successful pastor there. And I wish I could say that to so many guys who just look for the formula and boy,

55:35

I'll tell you what I have been in churches where the formula was all there and the virtue wasn't. And I've come to the conclusion sometimes

55:42

I'm like, I think we were in a cult. I think we were, I think that all the theology on paper was great.

55:49

You didn't have people of virtue though. The heart wasn't there. The spirit wasn't there. What's more important.

55:55

You got to ask yourself that. So in 19, uh, sorry during, uh, let's see where I want to go.

56:04

Okay. So he says this about his early years. I wasted a lot of energy when I was young, trying to create concepts and programs to get everyone conforming into a slot.

56:13

So that that's one of the troubles I see with a lot of young pastors too. It's like you, you have all these ideas and you want everyone to do a program and you got to see people more beyond the program.

56:24

Yet by 1972, the church became the church of 900 ministers, according to Lowell Sanders and Moody monthly, the church of 900 ministers, because what happened was

56:33

MacArthur just focused on spiritual depth, walk with the Lord discipleship, be moved by the spirit of God.

56:39

What's your personal walk like? Do you want to serve him? And that just produced volunteers everywhere. There was a story of a couple that canceled their honeymoon to be involved with a church ministry.

56:48

It was, that's what the church was like. And so you had a reporter go there and say, it's like, everyone's a pastor here.

56:54

Everyone's doing the work of the ministry. He had people calling them up saying, is there anything to do? Is there any work? I'll go visit someone in the hospital.

57:01

That's how the tape ministry form. That's all these things that formed around him were because of that. He just focused on knowing Christ and that was it.

57:07

He didn't put them into a slot. And that's another thing I see with a lot of modern ministers.

57:13

It's, it's just a formula and it's, you know, getting people into a slot, telling them things that will stoke their ego.

57:19

Maybe, I don't know. It's like manipulation and managerial techniques. And MacArthur didn't do that.

57:24

He literally just preached the word of God and that's what grew up around him. In 1972, or sorry, 1969, the tape ministry began by a guy named

57:36

Vern Loomis from 5 ,000 tapes produced in 1970 to 37 ,000 in 1973 with six volunteers.

57:43

No one's being paid. In 1976, 110 ,000 tapes were produced in a year.

57:53

1972, original chapel was replaced for one that could hold a thousand. And in 1977, it was replaced for one that could hold 3 ,000.

58:00

He says, and this is important too. MacArthur doesn't say, well, we had the right formula here. Well, I'm just such a good preacher.

58:05

Well, he didn't say any of that. He says, we were dropped into the right place at the right time. We caught the waves of those events, meaning the

58:12

Jesus movement, disenchantment over Vietnam, new Bible translations of people wanting to understand. He doesn't attribute all that success to him and what they were doing at the church.

58:22

He attributes it to the providential hand of God that, hey, we were in the right place at the right time.

58:27

LA in the 1970s, Jesus movement, people wanting to know the word of God. That's why the church grew.

58:33

It's providence. And there's how many MacArthur's are out there who have smaller ministries and they're doing all the same kinds of things

58:42

MacArthur did, but the circumstances aren't the same. And the name and the Lord wants it that way, perhaps, or, or maybe, you know, on the horizon, their church will blossom in these ways, but it, to have that in on the periphery, the size and the scope, and then they just have the depth kind of in the front of you.

59:00

That's the, if you want to make a formula, which I don't think you should, but if you're going to, that's the formula. I think that's the lesson, uh, 1977, the radio ministry starts unexpectedly and expands to more than 100 stations by 1981.

59:17

So, and unexpectedly was because, uh, I think it was like Maryland or Pennsylvania.

59:24

I forget. It was somewhere on the East coast. Someone wrote the church and said, Hey, I really appreciate John MacArthur's messages.

59:29

And at the time there was no internet. They're like, how did you know about our pastor's messages? Well, I heard it on the radio and then they realized that people are taking the tape.

59:38

Sometimes I'm playing them over the radio and that's how it started. So 1978, uh,

59:44

Talbot theological seminary opens extension at grace church. So they had all these guys go who wanted to be pastors driving like 50 minutes to get to Talbot.

59:53

And so they said, you know, why don't we just make an extension of Talbot? We'll have some professors at our church so they don't have to drive so far.

59:59

And that's what happened. 1978, the charismatics is published a doctrinal perspective, uh, that book.

01:00:05

So charismatic chaos is the book. Most people know about in relation to this issue, but the charismatics was kind of his first critique of the charismatic movement.

01:00:14

And I think my dad has like an original copy of that. Cause they've seen it on the shelf before. Anyway, uh, 1979, the

01:00:20

LA times publishes a woman's place is at home, which was a hit piece. And it actually had inaccurate information.

01:00:27

They said that five members of the grace church staff were fired because of this message because women shouldn't be working.

01:00:35

Well, actually there was women who were convicted. They were taking too much time away from home and they left. They were never fired, but that was the first kind of experience with hit pieces and that kind of thing.

01:00:47

In March of that year, this was a hard year. Kenneth Nally committed suicide. He was an athlete who

01:00:53

MacArthur actually, I think had lived with the MacArthur's for a little bit, but was, um, depressed. And, uh,

01:01:00

John MacArthur went on a trip. He went to, I think it was Scotland or Ireland. And during his time away,

01:01:05

Ken was staying with a friend. They were supervising him because they were concerned about his suicidal tendencies and he decides to commit suicide.

01:01:14

And the father was a Roman Catholic and the father did not like John MacArthur. He did not like Protestants.

01:01:20

And he decides to, uh, sue the church and it's for clergy malpractice.

01:01:25

He says, uh, there were three points. I forget all three of them, but he, uh, the main one,

01:01:32

I think that was the issue that had to be dealt with was whether or not the church was obligated to outsource, uh, counseling situations to quote unquote, professional psychiatrists or psychologists.

01:01:43

And if they had, did they fail to do that was the question. And was that negligence on their part?

01:01:48

And the answer was this eventually took years, but worked its way up, uh, to,

01:01:54

I believe the Supreme court. And, um, it created a precedent for all churches that actually know when you are a, that you are protected as a church.

01:02:05

When you give advice, when someone seeks your counsel, uh, the counsel you give them, uh, there is a protection layer there.

01:02:12

So this was kind of instrumental, but it caused a lot of stress I'm sure at the church. And then, uh, there was a church faction on what has been termed black

01:02:22

Tuesday, which was June 12th of 1979. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm sure if I asked my dad, he would know all about this because he was there, not, you know, the decade after that.

01:02:32

And, um, you know, in leadership in some capacity, I just, I don't know. Ian Murray doesn't go into details.

01:02:38

It's just, um, there was kind of like a coup situation. And I guess it was mostly with people that they had hired from the outside to come in and do ministry work.

01:02:47

But, uh, I don't know how many times they've had people disgruntled people, especially leave the church and, and then want to spill the beans about this and that.

01:02:57

And the other thing, I mean, this happens all the time, which is that should actually be another comforting thing to you, to be quite honest, they've, they've had so many people over the years.

01:03:06

And I don't think it's, I mean, this is something that happens at Liberty university. This is something that happens at any institution of this scale, because institutions of that scale, you, like I said, you end up with people that aren't in it for the right reasons.

01:03:18

And there are bad decisions made usually at lower levels, sometimes at higher levels, but someone comes out, they spill the beans and nothing's been able to really touch

01:03:27

MacArthur. It's there. There hasn't been anything that's, you know, and I, I'll look at these things sometimes and it's like, yeah, there was maybe a bad, there was a boneheaded decision made here or this, this, yeah, this doesn't seem healthy in this area, this particular part of the ministry over there or whatever.

01:03:46

And I'm like, oh, it's a, it's a big church. It's a big ministry. I kind of expect the devil to target those places, but you can't find

01:03:54

John MacArthur being directly involved in these, in those things when they come out.

01:04:00

And there's a lot of bitterness often. There's a lot of just, I don't know, it's the, you can tell the attitudes aren't necessarily usually about serving people and wanting to protect them.

01:04:12

It's like, you know, the people who didn't get their way, people who didn't get promoted people, it's like that kind of thing. That's my personal, obviously opinion, but, uh, but anyway, that was one of the first situations.

01:04:23

And there's been, I think, a smaller scale one since then, where, you know, it's sad.

01:04:28

You have leaders who, uh, you know, leave and then want to disparage the ministry.

01:04:35

Uh, 1980, the first, uh, shepherds conference though, forms with fewer than 200 men. 1983,

01:04:40

Phil Johnson moves to Sun Valley to be an editor for John MacArthur. And I will say Phil Johnson has been, um,

01:04:46

I think a wonderful person over the years on so many issues, but obviously the social justice issue is the main one.

01:04:53

I remember in 2019, I told him, I don't have any money. I really didn't. I said,

01:04:58

I'd love to come to the shepherds conference. And he's like, well, I want you to come. It's on me. You just come out. And, uh, you know, it's just, he he's been wonderful.

01:05:07

Uh, I have to say, um, on a personal level and, um,

01:05:14

I think him, him and MacArthur working together, that's the only way that all these books were produced because, because really what these books are, uh, they're his sermons edited.

01:05:24

So you take his sermons, you take paragraphs from them, you edit them, and then you might send him certain things for review.

01:05:31

He'll review it. He might add to it, but it's not reinventing the whole wheel. That's how he could crank out so many things at that volume was because he had a guy like Phil Johnson who was editing, um, his, his sermons to make books out of them and that kind of thing.

01:05:46

Los Angeles Baptist college, uh, is then, uh, given to John MacArthur or sold.

01:05:51

I forget, but it becomes the master's college in 1985. The next year, the Talbot extension became master's seminary.

01:05:57

I remember I said, my dad graduated in 19, what did I say? 80. I think it was 87. Yeah. So the second year that they, so he started with Talbot and then he graduated under masters 1988, the gospel according to Jesus is published with which critique the modified gospel that depicts conversion as a decision for Christ rather than a life transforming change of heart involving a genuine faith, repentance, surrender, and rebirth unto newness of life.

01:06:20

Like I said, this is a controversy. I think it's actually worth looking into this controversy. Um, I never really examined it until in the last few years.

01:06:31

And I've, I have my own views, um, on this whole thing, but I, I do keep in the forefront of my mind that MacArthur's trying to correct something that is ever present.

01:06:42

And it was a real problem and easy believism meaning, uh, and, and the belief is easy, right?

01:06:48

When the Holy, I mean, I don't even like the word easy believism. What we're describing is, um, a, uh, a cheap kind of, uh, muttering incantations and then rubber stamping someone as saved for eternity.

01:07:05

So it's sort of this combination of once saved, always saved with, uh, this just decisional regeneration and, um, and then outward expression of that being the primary or the only evidence or the necessary evidence.

01:07:21

So that that's what he was correcting, but that's what he publishes in 1988. And then, um, man,

01:07:28

I don't know what happened to my slideshow here. So I'm going to have to pull this up because it got weirdly formatted on my end.

01:07:35

And I don't know why that is. So give me one second here. Uh, while I pull it up,

01:07:40

I don't know if I'll be able to show you, but I can at least read off for you. Um, the rest of what

01:07:46

I have some, it doesn't usually do it this bad, but sometimes when I have a presentation and I upload it into StreamYard for whatever reason, it will format it differently a little bit.

01:08:00

Usually it's not a big deal, but this time it kind of was, um, all right.

01:08:07

Well, I don't know what happened there. I thought, uh, all right, I'm going to just have to wing it. We're winging it now, which is fine.

01:08:13

I know enough about the situation. So, uh, I may get some of these years slightly off, but in 92, um, there was a major car accident where his wife and actually his daughter,

01:08:25

Melinda, uh, got really hurt. His son was driving and saw it happen. And his wife ends up breaking her neck in two places.

01:08:34

And this is right at the time. There's this thing that they had started at Grace Church called the

01:08:40

Shepherds Fellowship, which was this, this magazine. I think it was monthly, if I'm not mistaken, had a column from MacArthur had other things in it, but it was expensive to produce.

01:08:50

They had multiple editors and it was, and they, they added up getting into a bunch of debt.

01:08:57

And it was right at that time when the ministries in debt, um, Phil Johnson was supposed to try to salvage it, but it was like Phil Johnson said, the best thing

01:09:06

MacArthur did was to cancel that project. It wasn't salvageable. It P I don't know why that was, but it just wasn't.

01:09:13

And it was right at that moment. He's got this personal issue and in the, um, the fear of losing his wife, having these, you know, four kids, he writes to the.

01:09:27

The people who support the ministry at grace, uh, to you, and he basically apologizes to them and he does it twice.

01:09:35

And this is one of the things I respect so much about John MacArthur. He actually humbled himself to say,

01:09:42

I made the mistake is one of the things about a leader, by the way, a good leader that sets them apart from bad leaders, bad leaders, blame shift, bad leaders, blame underlings, bad leaders, uh, say they throw someone else under the bus.

01:09:57

John MacArthur said it was my fault. I did this. I made the decision to keep this magazine going and you know what?

01:10:04

It was against my principles. My principles were never to, and he apologized also for sending out fundraising requests.

01:10:11

He says, that's not ever what we want to do. We're never the kind to go try to fundraise from you. Uh, we don't ask for money by the way.

01:10:19

That is something that I've taken to heart. I realized so many of the things that he did. I don't know if it's because of the influence on my dad and then me, but those are just like knee jerk kind of assumptions

01:10:29

I have. Of course you don't go out there and beg people for money, but like, obviously, right.

01:10:34

I'll let people know you can, if you want to contribute, if you, you like what I'm doing, you can, but I know

01:10:39

I'm not the don't do that. Right. God will grow it. I just, that's just sort of ingrained. And that's what

01:10:44

MacArthur apologized to these people. Cause he said, I broke my principles. Shouldn't have done that.

01:10:50

And I, I respect that so much. That takes a lot of humility to take the blame. And then to say, by the way, I was a hypocrite.

01:10:56

I have to ask your forgiveness. It took them five years to climb out of that debt, but they did climb out of it. So I guess the next thing

01:11:04

I'm trying to think what I had on my slideshow, I think what happened was I, um, so my baby, my little one -year -old sleeps in the same room that my office is in.

01:11:11

And when she went to bed, I took everything on my laptop and that's where I finished the slideshow. And I thought I had sent it to myself, but I guess

01:11:17

I didn't. So I'm going off memory now, but I think, uh, the next thing on the agenda is the

01:11:23

MacArthur study Bible, uh, which was, I think 1990,

01:11:28

I want to say 1999, that was published somewhere around then. And over 1 million copies have gone out of that particular

01:11:37

Bible. I know I have a version there's, I mean, it's in multiple translations, but, um, in fact,

01:11:42

I was a little surprised. I was at a, uh, a church that I lead a

01:11:47

Bible study at. That's not really MacArthur. There's people who like MacArthur, I'm sure there, but it's, it's not,

01:11:53

I didn't consider it kind of like that type of a church. And they had a few MacArthur study

01:11:58

Bibles just sitting there for people who needed a Bible. That's the Bible they had. And I thought, wow. So that was, uh,

01:12:05

I think in the late nineties, I want to say 1999, but it's that's reached probably more people than anything else.

01:12:12

Um, at this point, grace to you has about 2 ,500 radio outlets and about a thousand of them are in Spanish.

01:12:22

And that's every day, John MacArthur's on the radio in that many places, which is tremendous.

01:12:27

He will, he's going to be like J Vernon McGee or some of these other radio guys. He will outlive his own life.

01:12:33

Cause you're going to hear him on the radio. Um, in 2011, he finished preaching through the new

01:12:41

Testament after 42 years. So this is a, quite an accomplishment. Most pastors don't aren't, especially if they're doing it in an expository fashion, they aren't able to do this.

01:12:51

MacArthur was, and he has his new Testament commentaries based off of these sermons. Took him 42 years, but he preached through the entire new

01:12:59

Testament. He signed the Dallas statement on social justice in 2018. That was a big deal.

01:13:04

If you remember, I was so encouraged by that. This is kind of the point in which I always respected him.

01:13:11

Um, I had, I had differences here and there. Uh, I think I've talked about it before, especially when it comes to politics.

01:13:17

I, uh, man, I'm going to comment on this in a moment, but I thought that John MacArthur, um, at times, especially when

01:13:24

I was there in 2011, had gone too far with saying Christians shouldn't really be involved in politics, or at least insinuating that.

01:13:30

I still remember a sermon in 2011, where he said, the only thing I expect the government to do is to make sure

01:13:36

I'm not shot at on the way to work and that the water runs and my libertarian self, I wasn't total libertarian, but I was a little more that way.

01:13:43

Perhaps I, I thought, well, the government shouldn't be involved in your water. And I also thought, and you know, and there's so many other things they should be involved with.

01:13:53

Right. And so of course he's, I think, using hyperbole now, but he, he saw a problem on in certain segments of the religious rights.

01:14:02

And that's why I didn't really depend on him necessarily to get involved in political fights unless they were very egregious during his later years.

01:14:09

He got involved in several, like I said, uh, the, we will not bow sermon in 2015.

01:14:15

Uh, we're not going to bend a gay marriage. Um, so -called he got involved, uh, on the social justice issue.

01:14:23

He even called it. And I was so encouraged by this at the time, because I felt like a lone voice. I had been doing the podcast, uh, at the,

01:14:30

I think, was I doing the podcast at the time? Maybe not, maybe not yet. I was, I think this might've been right before I was at Liberty though.

01:14:37

Cause I remember I was at Liberty. I remember where I was when that all happened. I was literally, yeah, I wasn't doing the podcast yet because I was walking to the financial aid office to like, uh, set up.

01:14:49

I was, I was doing adjunct, uh, teaching or whatever. And I was setting everything up as I was a student there.

01:14:55

And, um, I remember on the way there still as clear as day. I know what road I was on and everything else.

01:15:01

Uh, that was when. Um, the, the shepherd's

01:15:07

Q and a thing dropped and the internet was blowing up. It was within like the next day or week that he had published a blog and he called social justice, the most pernicious threat to the gospel that he had yet seen of all the threats.

01:15:21

And think of all the battles he had been in. That was the worst. I still remember that. And I still remember thinking,

01:15:27

I'm not alone because it was very few. James White had critiqued it.

01:15:33

Uh, when I was at Southeastern, I remember thinking like, does anyone know what's going on here? It's insane. And no one's saying anything.

01:15:40

And if I say anything online, which I had, people think I'm crazy. People think it's not happening.

01:15:46

I still remember guys who some of them now are on the right side of this, but they were telling me I was stirring up trouble.

01:15:51

Told me the real debate is Calvinism and Arminianism. And I'm like, you guys, you know, do you see what

01:15:57

I'm seeing? I'm at seminary. I'm at Southeastern and it's straight up Marxist stuff that is being jammed down our throats.

01:16:04

And most of the students have no clue. They, they have no clue what they're being exposed to. James White started saying some things, but it was like just him.

01:16:14

And then, and you had guys, you had the, uh, Protestia or now it was Poulton and Penn at the time get involved.

01:16:20

Right. But John MacArthur, uh, lent his weight to the Dallas statement.

01:16:25

And if he had not lent his weight to that, it would, you'd probably never would have heard of it. To be quite honest with you, it never would have been what it became.

01:16:32

Uh, and that made a difference, but it cost him as well.

01:16:38

And that's where the clip I played at the beginning, I think is riding on the tails of that, that look, you got friends.

01:16:44

You think they're in it for the right reasons and they depart from you. It's sad. It's very sad. But, um,

01:16:51

Oh, someone just in the comments reminded me of something. Another disagreement I had with MacArthur. Okay. So I did talk to John MacArthur once, but it wasn't in a circumstance.

01:17:00

So, okay. It was that master's seminary chapel. I got up in front of everyone.

01:17:06

All right. This is just an offshoot here. And I said, he, he was on this kick saying that, uh, he thought

01:17:12

Muslim eschatology was the reverse or the inverse of Christian eschatology and that the antichrist would be

01:17:18

Muslim. And I remember getting up and I said, is there any biblical support? Can you find what you're saying in the

01:17:24

Bible anywhere? Or is this just your opinion? Cause he had preached a sermon on it. Um, I remember,

01:17:30

I remember like feeling, uh, like everyone was looking at me like, you know, what are you doing?

01:17:37

Right. What are you doing? And I'm like, I'm just, I don't know. I paid a lot of money. I think I told a student after I was like,

01:17:42

I paid a lot of money to be here. I mean, it's, it's kind of one of my, my question answered. Um, anyway, uh, that was,

01:17:50

I just remembered that I totally forgot about that, but someone mentioned Islam in the comments. Uh, so, so I never, you know, had a hundred percent alignment with everything

01:17:57

MacArthur said, but, um, when it came to political things, though, especially by the end of his life, he definitely hit his instincts were all correct.

01:18:07

I think his instincts were even correct in 2011, to be honest. I think he felt compelled because he thought the word of God and the spirituality of the church was, we don't, we don't look to that for salvation, which he's right about.

01:18:19

And that there's too many Christians emphasizing that. And he wanted to correct that. And maybe he over -corrected, but I do remember at the time

01:18:25

I remember I met with an elder at grace church and he said, look here, uh, what was it? Young America's foundation is meeting with MacArthur, you know, this week.

01:18:33

Cause, and he's very interested in, uh, creating a connection between them and, um, and master's college.

01:18:42

He believes that there should be Christians politically focused. In fact, last I heard, I don't know what happened, if it's still happening, but master's college was going to, uh, receive a law school and start training

01:18:51

Christian lawyers. I don't know if that's still happening, but I think by the end of his life, he could, again, this is the lesson you adjust to the threats that are in front of you that affect real tangible people.

01:19:01

That's what MacArthur did. He wasn't an ideologue guys. A lot of the people that are around him that want to copy him can be ideological.

01:19:08

He wasn't. When he, when we went, when we shifted from a positive world, which is maybe how he started his ministry to neutral world, which is, uh, most of his ministry to then, uh, hostility to Christianity and negative world, as it's like,

01:19:23

Aaron read Wren's three -part kind of, um, You know, and then obviously it's different for different regions of the country in LA.

01:19:30

I think negative world came much earlier, but MacArthur adjusted to those things.

01:19:36

And he did call out, um, Gavin Newsom on abortion. He, uh, was involved with obviously the

01:19:44

COVID stuff very famously. And, um, and this was, I think the next big thing that was his big, that was, he went out with a bang.

01:19:52

His contributions towards the end of his life were some of the most controversial and they probably cost him the most, but they also gained him the most respect in a politically conservative audience.

01:20:02

And I saw Ben Shapiro of all people yesterday saying MacArthur was a great man. I saw, um, who was it?

01:20:09

Megan Kelly saying that she's going to start listening to John MacArthur sermons on X. So I suggested one.

01:20:14

I don't know if she is going to listen, but when I suggested was one that I listened to about eight times on God's will for your life.

01:20:21

And it was very simple sermon, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life career wise. I just kept listening to the sermon.

01:20:27

Okay. You know, God wants me to be saved. He wants me to be sanctified. He wants me to be spirit filled. He wants me to be saying, thanks.

01:20:33

He wanted, these are the things we know that are God's will. Right. And so, I mean, that's one of the sermons that I know affected me, but, um, those are some of the things, those are some of his contributions, uh, later in his life.

01:20:48

And there's a quote, and I guess I don't have it on the slide show. I wish I did. And I only have half of it here, but, uh, the greatest, he says that at one point towards,

01:20:58

I think it was towards the end of his ministry, that the greatest privilege of his ministry was not the time spent with people. And I keep telling you, oh, he, he looked at people, he saw people he did, but that wasn't the greatest privilege of his ministry.

01:21:08

He says, quote, the greatest privilege of my ministry is the time I spent with him. Unquote. That's the great, that's why he was in it, that he was in it because he loved the

01:21:17

Lord. He was in it because he got to spend time with the Lord and study every day. And I don't think every pastor is going to have the same kind of schedule there.

01:21:25

Most pastors don't have 30 hours a week. They can devote to just study. It's a privilege if you can. But John MacArthur emphasized that, that life, that private life, that's what overflows and fills your public life.

01:21:40

And that's the way it should be rather than your public life is kind of a stage presence that you work up in order to fool people about what's going on in your private life.

01:21:53

Uh, that's the wrong way. And that's how I, um, unfortunately I believe a lot of pastors today are.

01:21:58

And so it does feel like someone who was in it for the right reasons, who was an adult, who was mature, has left the building, but obviously

01:22:07

God hasn't left the building. And that's the whole point. If you want to take the lesson away from John MacArthur's life, if you want to be like John MacArthur, if you respect him, the answer is not to just read

01:22:18

John MacArthur or just create formulas from his ministry, or just think that everything he said was a hundred percent accurate and not worthy of examination.

01:22:26

The way to actually be like John MacArthur is knowing Jesus. It's not, it's not knowing

01:22:32

John MacArthur. It's knowing Jesus. That's how you can become more like John MacArthur. That's what he would tell you.

01:22:38

And, um, and now he's with Jesus, right? And I have to, I'm getting emotional now myself.

01:23:02

I think John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul were two of the, uh, the greatest men to be on the evangelical stage in the last few decades because they had virtue and they didn't take themselves too seriously.

01:23:23

They were both right about the social justice issue, which has been the stumbling block for so many.

01:23:30

It's not the only one out there, by the way. I think there's another stumbling block that's, there's, there's one that I'm seeing develop that I'm starting to take shots at, and I don't know how far

01:23:40

I'll go. And, and again, I want to be like MacArthur. I want to assess the level of threat and I want to go after things according to that assessment and how it affects real people.

01:23:49

And that's where I want to put my time. And, and, and, and obviously under the guidance and providence of the

01:23:54

Lord, but they were both, um, you could count on them is what I'm saying for issues that threaten the church.

01:24:02

And they're both gone now. R .C. Sproul kind of left this world right before that issue got hot.

01:24:08

John MacArthur, the Lord left him as a witness. But I think he was kind of alone, um, on that level, but he had, he had people around him.

01:24:19

He had people he loved and some of them, maybe you'll never know their names, but he did have his friends.

01:24:25

He had his local church and that meant more to him than the platform, the stage. And I think that's part of what made him who he was.

01:24:31

And I'm looking for that now. I'm looking for people who are going to be like that. I'll give you my, um, post

01:24:39

MacArthur kind of prediction as far as what the, what that whole world is going to look like in the future.

01:24:47

And then I'll play a clip from him to end the podcast, but this is what I think is going to happen.

01:24:53

And I'll, I'll, I'll say this as a warning first, whatever happens to the institutions MacArthur was part of, whether good or bad, you know, we should pray, should be praying right now that the good men, men without guile, without malice, who aren't vindictive, who weren't people who ride coattails, that those are the men who take over the helm of these ministries.

01:25:14

But whether those ministries go South, go North, whatever MacArthur's reputation is going to be intact.

01:25:22

It is, it's in marble now. Okay. He lived the life he lived and it's, it's set and you're only given one life.

01:25:30

It's very short. And I think what made those ministries is the man behind them.

01:25:38

And what made that man is the God behind him. If we don't have the

01:25:48

Holy Spirit and the power of God and the virtue that is produced by someone submitting themselves to God and finding their, their pleasure in walking with him, and you know, there were times

01:26:05

MacArthur said that he would rather dig dishes than be a pastor. Let's be realistic. He was a man. When there was controversies, he didn't always want to be around.

01:26:14

It wasn't always hunky -dory, but duty drove him.

01:26:22

Duty drove him, and an affection for the God he served when the going got tough, and the going will get tough if you're in ministry.

01:26:31

What we need more than ever is not new programs. It's not new formulas.

01:26:37

It's not old programs or old formulas that come from old things either. We can learn lessons from all of those things, but we don't need rigidly apply.

01:26:48

We don't need to take MacArthur's life is what I'm saying and create a formula out of it and create institutions that are the, you see the

01:26:56

Pharisees, they were supposed to be representatives of Moses and Elijah, right? You see what happened, right?

01:27:03

You can lose the whole point. You can lose the whole purpose. We just need men who are like MacArthur in the sense that they know

01:27:11

God. That's it. And they have the virtue that accompanies knowing God, and they will go into a church and they want the people there to know

01:27:17

God, and they're going to fight the same battle that MacArthur fought because it is the same battle. All these different controversies he got involved with, they're not separate battles.

01:27:25

They're all the same battle. That's how he saw it. You have the kingdom of darkness, you have the kingdom of light, and they're constantly in conflict.

01:27:34

Which side are you going to be on? And it needs to be the kingdom of light every time. That's what a man of virtue does.

01:27:41

You know, there's new controversies every day, and there's pressures to sometimes get involved in ones that you shouldn't.

01:27:50

And there's pressures to not to stay out of ones that you should. It takes wisdom. And only the man of God, I think, can have that wisdom, because he's in touch with a higher power.

01:28:05

You don't need to get in touch with the formulas that are produced from even faithful men.

01:28:11

You need to get in touch with the person, the Holy Spirit, who inspires those faithful men to do what they do.

01:28:21

My prediction is that the way things are going isn't actually very good at all. Right now in evangelicalism.

01:28:27

And I realized this more when I was reading Ian Murray's book. He ends it on a high note that this reform movement is just getting bigger and bigger, and you see what happened to it.

01:28:37

And there's hope right now because there's so much opportunity out there, among at least some more religious right guys,

01:28:43

Christian nationalists, quote unquote guys, all that, that look, there's a political momentum that we have.

01:28:48

I agree. I think there's tremendous opportunity. I really do. I don't know that we're taking advantage of it.

01:28:53

Some of the guys who think they're taking advantage of it are doing the wrong thing.

01:28:59

They're in some cases using rage bait. The message that young men especially need to hear is, guess why you had those trials?

01:29:10

Guess why all those things came into your life? It isn't so you can be angry and so you can follow us and not them, and we'll kick them to the curb.

01:29:18

The reason that those things came into your life is because as James says, trials perfect you.

01:29:24

That's the message young men need right now. They don't really need a Jordan Peterson. The people who

01:29:30

I think got really involved with Jordan Peterson were guys who mostly had dysfunctional past, to be honest with you.

01:29:37

I never listened to him. I listened to a few things. I thought he had a few interesting things to say, but if you listen to him enough, it's like the world is just chaos everywhere.

01:29:47

This isn't about Jordan Peterson, by the way. As an aside, I think he's one of the first guys to really tap into this young men have been left behind thing.

01:29:59

He became a dad to a lot of guys. I remember there being talk.

01:30:04

I was in chat groups with guys who were like, man, if we only had a Christian who was Jordan Peterson. You did, guys.

01:30:10

You did. That's the thing. John MacArthur. That wasn't his brand, right?

01:30:17

Because he wasn't after making a brand. It wasn't corporate interests.

01:30:24

It was just be faithful to what the word of God says and follow the Lord's lead. That was it.

01:30:30

If there's not enough inspiration in that for young men, then we're toast. That's what you need.

01:30:38

You don't need a brand. You don't need the MacArthur brand. I don't know how much

01:30:43

I can emphasize this. This is also in honor of John MacArthur. I know he would agree with what

01:30:49

I'm saying, my basic thrust here, because that's what he believed. I don't know.

01:30:55

He was a real man. He was willing to take hits. He was willing to risk things. He was willing to sacrifice tremendously.

01:31:05

He was willing to forego fame and all the vices that people seek that don't actually satisfy.

01:31:13

He had an incredible stability about him because it was rooted in the word of God. I also think his family and his grandfather and father had something to do with that.

01:31:22

He was a man. He was a man, but he was a great man. That's, I suppose, my impression and what

01:31:30

I think is going to happen. Unless we raise up men like that, we're not going to have this kind of evangelicalism and the richness of Bible study and all that.

01:31:41

That's not going to remain. It's going to remain in the sense that God's going to always protect his church.

01:31:47

And MacArthur believed that. And that's what the Bible teaches. There's always going to be people like that. But at the scale that we've had it, it's not going to remain unless men come that are like that and take the helm.

01:32:01

And I don't know where that's happening, really. I don't. I really don't. Not at the scale, at least.

01:32:09

And that may be fine. The Lord may be doing his pruning work as well in all of this. And I think it's not going to be master seminary guys either.

01:32:20

I'm just being real with you. You can't go to master seminary and get a degree and it gives you virtue and it makes you like MacArthur.

01:32:27

It won't happen. Hopefully, you learn things there that contributed to MacArthur's theology and his life and all those things.

01:32:35

But that's not the thing that's going to do it. You have to have the virtue in you to be able to ascertain those truths and utilize them.

01:32:43

You can't tap into those things if you don't have the virtue already there. We need men of virtue.

01:32:49

That's who you need to be identifying in your churches and putting time behind. We are entering a time when the credentials of the seminaries aren't worth as much as they used to be.

01:33:01

In some cases, they're not worth the paper they're on. The commodity that's going, there's going to be two commodities that are going to be worth something.

01:33:10

And they're going to be in competition to some extent. One is going to be virtue. The other is going to be image.

01:33:19

And I see image winning out right now. But I do think virtue has a strong chance, especially in the political world.

01:33:28

Why do you think Trump's so popular? Is he the most virtuous guy? No. No, not in every way.

01:33:34

But he's got one virtue. It seems like he's got some bravery. He's willing to take a bullet if necessary to save the country.

01:33:41

We're down to that. People recognize that and think, well, I don't know about all the things

01:33:48

Trump believes, but hey, if he's willing to keep running the race here after someone shot at him twice, maybe he's telling the truth.

01:34:00

That's a basic human instinct. And that's a test that's going to be applied more and more. Are you willing to take hits?

01:34:06

Are you willing to cross your own audience when they're wrong? Are you willing to not let your audience pull you into directions they want to go?

01:34:13

And you'll say stop, like Moses did with the children of Israel. Virtue, virtue, bravery, fortitude, wisdom, not substitutions for those things.

01:34:25

That's the curated image. Edginess is not bravery, guys. A critical spirit is not discernment.

01:34:34

Formulas are not wisdom. These are the difference between counterfeit virtues and real virtue.

01:34:41

Real authentic virtue, it comes deep from within because, and in the Christian world, we know the kind of virtue that we're talking about is so deep.

01:34:49

It's something that the Lord himself is cultivating within you. I'll get to a few comments, and then

01:34:56

I'm going to end the podcast with some, with a sermon clip from John MacArthur. It's actually not a sermon, it's a

01:35:02

Q &A, and he talks about what happens after someone dies. Conceptual Clarity says, who is left alive of the evangelical big names of the 20th century other than James Dobson?

01:35:19

Leo says, very well done biographical sketch of one of God's faithful servants. I remember when I exposed the heresy,

01:35:25

Catholics and evangelicals together, the Christian mission of the third millennium. At my own expense, I printed copies of this damnable heresy and mail copies to every

01:35:33

Southern Baptist pastor in the Shelby Baptist Church. To no great surprise, I had only one pastor who responded to my critique of the document, and it was not surprising at receiving a personal response from only

01:35:43

Adrian Rogers. Ruth says, someday we will all be home with our

01:35:54

Father. Hallelujah. Praise God. No more sin. Praying God raises up young men today to fill the shoes of faithful pastors.

01:36:05

Jonathan says that R .C. Sproul's wife, Vesta, signed a Dallas statement as well. Yes, she did. Yes, she did.

01:36:13

Soledeo Music says, I learned to study the word under him after leaving the Charismatics. What an example of Christian faithfulness, resolve, and ministerial work ethic.

01:36:22

Friend 77 says, as a woman, my gratitude and love for Pastor John is mostly because of his virtue and purity.

01:36:30

From his love for Scripture to his love and tenderness for his wife, Patricia, I haven't seen in 67 years.

01:36:39

Mary Conrad says, Leo Johnson, I'm an ex -Catholic, and yes, it has cost me a relationship with my parents and siblings.

01:36:45

I can say John MacArthur made a huge impact on my life. Sadly, it's not about being Catholic. Job well done,

01:36:56

Pastor John, says David Watson. A pillar of the evangelical church, a man of virtue, finished well, a true servant of Jesus Christ.

01:37:08

Army girl for Christ says, I cried a good part of the night as well. I am so happy for him. I dreaded the day for us this side of heaven.

01:37:15

He will be missed very much. I was thinking, even John MacArthur's accent, and some of you might say, he doesn't have an accent.

01:37:22

Yes, he does. It is a Southern California dialect, and it's the same accent

01:37:29

I have, pretty much. It's the same accent my parents have. You'll notice it with certain words.

01:37:36

You'll add gutturals where there really aren't gutturals. It's exceptionally clear. Instead of saying white, it's kind of a white.

01:37:47

There's little things I pick up on. I think it was so comforting for me because regionally speaking, his church,

01:37:54

Grace Community Church, is five minutes away and about a 15 -minute walk, if that, from where my grandparents live.

01:38:01

They've lived there since the 50s. Every time I go back to California, that's where I stay, and we'll just walk to Grace Community Church.

01:38:09

My uncle is a member there. For me, growing up,

01:38:15

I didn't have that celebrity thing, too, because it was just the family church. It's just where my parents go.

01:38:22

There are so many endearing things that I'm thinking now that it's just so hard.

01:38:27

There's a hole. There's a hole left. MacArthur was very pivotal in the ministry, says Chris Mitchell, that God has given me for the last 17 years.

01:38:34

The issue that I see on the rise as a pastor is unbiblical music in the church and many following it. It's why you all need to come to the

01:38:40

Music and Masculinity Conference, musicandmasculinity .com, if you're a man.

01:38:45

It's our men's retreat this September because we have some wonderful presentations. We're going to have campfire music and all the rest, but we're going to be talking about the issue of music.

01:38:54

I do see that as an actual issue. If you are talking about it, it's come up here and there, but I think we're at the point in MacArthur—he saw things this way, by the way—that we are losing grasp of our tradition.

01:39:09

The people who remember the old hymns are dying now. If we were burned at the stake like Christians were in the first century, what kind of songs are they going to be singing?

01:39:20

I don't even know. Hopefully, everyone knows in Christ alone, but what newer songs are they going to be?

01:39:25

Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, yes, Lord. I don't know. What's it going to be? That's not even new. That's like 20 years old.

01:39:31

What new song is going to be the thing? So many of them are shallow, so I think we need to examine this kind of thing, and it'll be fun.

01:39:44

Musicandmasculinity .com. We see Cosmic Treason says,

01:39:49

I haven't gotten choked up. This is party time. What a great example of exiting earth with no regrets, nothing left undone.

01:39:55

Time to celebrate his work. Amen. It certainly feels like we just finished a book and placed it on the shelf, says

01:40:02

Traverse Blog Radio. He will raise up others on the path toward—a path onward is in the name—the same direction.

01:40:11

Sorry, Psalm 91. Nesby says, I want my fresca.

01:40:17

Thanks, Nesby. AJ Shope says, that's the way I saw John for sure. He was a strong figure, but he always tried his best to point back to the

01:40:24

Bible every single time. Yeah, there wasn't a verse to back it up, right? He wouldn't say it.

01:40:33

Will you make the slides available when you get them fixed? Yes. I make them available for patrons.

01:40:40

I will try to remember to just post a public link as well. You know what I'll do? I'll put it on Patreon, but I will make the post available so everyone can download it.

01:40:47

So yes, I will do that right after this podcast. And so if you go—I think the link is in the info section for this—to

01:40:56

Patreon. It's patreon .com forward slash JohnHarrisPodcast.

01:41:02

You will get access to the slides. Bob—Gerard Perry says,

01:41:11

Bob Militello has a great perspective on Trump and how God is going to possibly use him despite his lack of manifest virtue.

01:41:18

Well, I think God is using him. And John MacArthur—actually, that was another thing he did that was brave. He actually endorsed Trump in 2016 of all times.

01:41:25

You know, and it was—I mean, it wasn't like a, you know, this big rally kind of thing, but it was like, hey, we're

01:41:32

Christians. What else are you going to do? I only have a few more that I can get to because of time.

01:41:42

Irene says, the Lord's truth through MacArthur's voice came at a critical time of after a crisis of faith had been ushered in through a spiritually abusive charismatic cult, forever grateful.

01:41:54

Cosmic treason again. The advice on not planning for expansion, but only letting it happen naturally as a result of preaching sermons was helpful.

01:42:02

Yep, that's—I mean, it's amazing. Jenna Cole says, I remember John going out to seize candy to get his wife her favorite treat during the

01:42:11

COVID cult without a mask in LA and got in a discussion with a mask Nazi as he believed in freedom to breathe and his wife requested a treat.

01:42:19

You know, my brother says this about John MacArthur. He's totally right. He goes, you know, the best MacArthur when it comes to anything social or political is that unfiltered boomer instinct that comes out of him.

01:42:29

I'm like, you know, you're right. He'll just do an aside. You can tell he's doing it in a sermon. He'll just be like, you know what?

01:42:36

I'm just going to kind of say it and he'll just kind of start going. And it's like the best gold comes out of his mouth.

01:42:43

And I've always been intrigued. I've always thought the funny thing about it sometimes is the fact that there are guys who just kind of have to—they just line up behind him, right?

01:42:53

Guys who—sometimes they're genuinely convinced by his argument. But sometimes I think they're just—they got there with the

01:42:59

MacArthur brand or something, right? And so they just—whatever he says, they're like, okay, now that's our belief. And I always thought that funny because I've met guys like that.

01:43:08

They're just like, you know, we got to now do whatever he says. But sometimes what he said was just coming out of sort of like the world he came from and grew up in and his instinct and like that.

01:43:18

And that's the mask thing is one of those things. It's just like, you know, he's big on Romans 13, but then he's like, this isn't

01:43:23

America. This isn't how we do things. Oh, it's so great. Thanks for sharing that story.

01:43:29

That was a really good story. Pastor John MacArthur touched so many lives as citizen of heaven.

01:43:35

And while we may mourn for a night, the knowledge that he is in the presence of Jesus, it makes me rejoice and praise

01:43:41

God. He will soon enter into the same rest. Man, there's so many good comments.

01:43:47

I'm having trouble here with all of them. The Lord used his preaching in my life, says Rose Roseanne during COVID.

01:43:55

John MacArthur gave me such hope and encouragement. He is at the end of an amazing strength and virtue.

01:44:04

John MacArthur, with his unwavering commitment to scripture and gospel centered preaching embodies the spirit of the

01:44:10

Puritans, perhaps the last living link to their legacy of holiness and truth, says Emmanuel Baptist Church. You know,

01:44:16

I was, I was thinking about this too, that sort of emphasis on holiness.

01:44:22

And, you know, I, I've been critical of some of the foul language that I see coming.

01:44:28

I'm not like super not going out and policing people. I think there's priorities that need to be focused on priorities that don't.

01:44:34

But I, I don't think it's right to use foul language as like, um, a signal that you're edgy or brave or anything else, or that you're breaking tradition with the past.

01:44:45

I actually think it's one of the things that a lot of people don't seem to understand that yes, we live in the liberal order, but the liberal, we don't completely live in the liberal order.

01:44:54

We also live with a lot of Christian things from the past cultural things.

01:44:59

We have a cultural memory that is all that is fused with not really fused with, but it's alongside the liberal order.

01:45:06

Um, it's still bad to be, to abuse children. Okay. Right. The liberal order didn't that that's actually the liberal order that wants expanded choice to the, uh, and children, why doesn't, why don't children have consent?

01:45:20

Why do we trust that children should remain in a hierarchy where they don't make decisions for themselves? That's against the liberal order, isn't it?

01:45:26

Well, cause we still have a Christianity that is maybe on life support, but it's there. And one of the things that we still have retained is we don't use foul language.

01:45:36

We don't, you know, we, we, we dress up on Sunday, right? These are, this is respect.

01:45:43

Um, we're not degrading the pulpit by preaching about X controversies.

01:45:50

We're not podcasting from the pulpit. Good grief. That, that's one of the things I have no patience for.

01:45:56

We don't, um, we, we don't make movies are illustrations, right?

01:46:02

We're not like, I don't know that we don't cheapen the gravity of that office. MacArthur never cheapened it.

01:46:10

It's one of the things I respect about him. He didn't use foul language. That was one of the critiques of Mark Driscoll that they had at the time.

01:46:16

I remember. And I remember thinking like, well, Mark Driscoll is making inroads though. Isn't he, you know, isn't he doing some good things?

01:46:21

Maybe, but I think MacArthur was right about that. Don't give up your dignity.

01:46:28

Don't cheapen. Don't, don't water down these things. These things have been passed on to us.

01:46:33

They're precious. And if I could say anything to the new Christian, right, it would be that, um, you know, don't make edginess or profanity part of who you are.

01:46:44

Try to stay away from those things, uh, as much as you can and be on a higher playing field, be on a higher, uh, plane of existence, right?

01:46:58

So I think that dignity is, is really important. MacArthur had that. Kenneth says, are we supposed to walk as the

01:47:04

Messiah walked? Yes. Did the Messiah keep the commandments? Yes. Then why don't Christians follow Messiah's example? Well, we're sinners.

01:47:10

Even Paul had his sin struggles, but, um, it's, we're not the

01:47:16

Messiah, right? He was tempted in all points as we are yet without sin. Who can say that? Michael Collins says it was his father,

01:47:22

Jack, who won my first pastor to the ministry and changed his heart. He spent many years bathing us in John MacArthur's reformed teaching where I got saved generational blessings.

01:47:31

Yeah. And actually voice of Calvary radio, his grandfather, and then his father were involved with. So they, he had a radio, uh, preaching kind of background, even though that's not what he was.

01:47:41

He just wanted the pulpit ministry. But, uh, I attended John MacArthur's 50th anniversary truth matters conference.

01:47:47

And pastor John MacArthur told us the first day that he was going to spoil us during those three days. And he went over the top.

01:47:54

You know, one of the things you'll notice with grace community church and the shepherds conference is they're very generous. And you go there and they want to give pastors.

01:48:03

Um, you get more than a bang for your buck at those places. I'll just say that running conferences myself, and this is another thing

01:48:09

I guess I've taken to heart. I never make money off a conference, you know, and I don't know that maybe they make money in the long run with all the books they sell.

01:48:18

I have no clue, but they give away books. They give you like 30 books. They give you meals every day, everywhere you look, someone's giving you food.

01:48:25

You're getting your shoes shine. You're getting a haircut. You're getting like, it's just the red carpet, man.

01:48:30

And it's, and that's one of the things I've tried to take to heart. That's why even the music and masculinity conference, it's at cost.

01:48:37

No, one's making any money off of that. We're spending money to do it. We have to pay speakers honorariums.

01:48:43

That's not coming out of the cost of going to our, our conference. And I, I have to think that's partially because of the influence of John MacArthur.

01:48:52

Um, so many of the conference circuit, uh, incentives are to make money because you can make money.

01:48:57

I don't think that was ever his motive. I really don't. Um, all right, well, we're going to, uh, end the podcast now.

01:49:07

I guess there's some guy, I was expecting this, some guy who's causing problems in the chat. Okay.

01:49:12

Well, uh, ignore him. We're going to end with a little clip from John MacArthur.

01:49:20

Oh, I have two clips queued up. Now I'm wondering which one I do. Okay. One of them was, I'm not going to play one of them.

01:49:25

One of them was just him showing bravery and calling out Gavin Newsome. I want to play this one from, uh, someone asking a question and it shows a few things.

01:49:34

It shows the relationship that he had with, you know, there's no little people, no little places as Francis Schaefer said.

01:49:41

And he has a precious relationship with his flock. And it also, I think gives a little satisfaction to where he believed he was going and where he is now.

01:49:49

So with that, uh, we'll end the podcast. Thanks for participating everyone. And, uh, God bless.

01:49:54

See you later this week. ERIKA So, Pastor John, my name is Erika, but I have two questions that are related, um, on behalf of Kathy Kim.

01:50:03

So, I'll read those to you. KATHY Hi, John. JOHN She says, how are you?

01:50:10

Okay. The questions are, when we die, do we wake up in God's presence and will we know each other in heaven?

01:50:20

Uh, when you die, you will immediately go into the presence of the

01:50:26

Lord. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. Right? 2 Corinthians 5.

01:50:31

We're Philippians. Far better to depart and be with Christ. It's instantaneous. It's instantaneous.

01:50:39

There's no delay. There's no waiting. It's not waking up because you never really go to sleep.

01:50:46

It's absent from the body, present with the Lord. As soon as your spirit leaves here, your spirit never goes to sleep.

01:50:52

Your spirit never dies. Your body may go to sleep. Your spirit will enter into the presence of the

01:50:59

Lord immediately. And then, at the rapture of the church, you will receive a glorified body and there are no wheelchairs in heaven.

01:51:09

None of them, okay? But there's no soul sleep, waiting place, no limbo.

01:51:20

You go from the presence here to the presence of the Lord. You'll see the Lord Jesus face to face.

01:51:25

When you get to heaven, you will know as you are known, you will have instant knowledge of the Lord, instant knowledge of everybody else that is there.

01:51:34

I wrote a book on heaven. You can go to the bookstore afterwards and get a copy of that book. It has a whole section on that, okay?

01:51:39

Would you do that, Erica, for her? How are we going to know each other?

01:51:50

Should you just read the book? Well, you could probably gain a lot by reading the book, or I can just give you the answer and you can forget the book.

01:52:04

That's either one. Because you're going to have perfect knowledge.

01:52:11

You're not going to need to...we won't have...I'll put it another way. Not only will there not be wheelchairs, there will not be name tags.

01:52:18

You will know because you will have perfected knowledge, okay?

01:52:28

She thinks you rock. Thank you.