It’s the day that John MacArthur passed into eternity just a few hours ago.
I don’t know that I’ve ever been within a thousand miles of the man, with him being primarily on the west coast and me on the east. Never saw him in person, never been to his church. But yet he has been an influence on me as well as numerous people I know here.
Right after I was saved in a Baptist church here in the South at the ripe old age of my young 20’s, I didn’t know much about the Bible. I had only been to church enough times to count on my fingers and toes in my entire life. But after I heard the gospel as a young married man in a Baptist church service (at the invite of a coworker) and FINALLY repented and “prayed the prayer” (which actually, glory to God, did start a lifelong change in me), I did know where a local Christian bookstore was and spent some time there.
Interestingly enough (let’s call it providentially enough), the first Christian book I ever purchased and read was John MacArthur’s “The Gospel According to Jesus”. I had zero idea who the author was at the time but the title sure seemed to be exactly what I was interested in. There are parts of that book that shaped me from that point onward. I still recall to this day, some 4 decades later, reading what Dr. MacArthur taught me there about the rich young ruler. It shocked me…and shaped me. I think in the Lord’s providence that was the first Christian book I ever read and it helped inoculate me against a lot of errant teaching over the years.
As I think about this one preacher’s influence although a few thousand miles away, I easily think of several sermons of his I listened to while driving on business trips. I’ll never forget one in particular. I can remember specifically where I was on the road when after he had walked through all the details of the very familiar parable of the Good Samaritan, he hit the punch line. He didn’t explain this as a wonderful little moralistic story about kindness to strangers with the Samaritan as a good moral example…no, after walking through the details of what this man did, he drove the point directly to my heart – you and I have never loved anyone like this example. None of us have truly loved a stranger “as we love ourselves”. It was a story to show us our sin and drive us to the only One who does love like this. It was one of the most convicting moments and I clearly remember the spot on the road where I burst into tears as the truth of it hit me. I can drive you to the spot today.
I remember John MacArthur being the first person to ever teach me about the parables in general. I had always heard that Jesus was the master storyteller, and parables were his way of putting truth on the bottom shelf for folks so they could understand it. Dr. MacArthur was the first to ever show me that was definitely not true and what Jesus actually said about why he taught in parables – after they attributed his works to the devil and rejected him, he began to teach in parables in order to CONCEAL the truth from them.
I remember watching clips of Dr. MacArthur on Larry King Live show on CNN. Many faced with TV cameras and microphones in their faces before a nationwide audience would greatly tone down the message of the gospel. Not this man. I remember Larry asking the hard, hard questions – the ones that put on full display the offense of the gospel. The questions about the exclusivity of Christ as the only way to God and the absolute need for repentance. He never backed down one iota nor shied away from a full-throated statement of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In clip after clip after clip, all he could do was open his mouth and let Scripture escape.
So on this evening of his passing, though I never met the man, I feel an outsized sense of loss; we’ve lost one of the unmovable bulwarks of God’s truth in our society in our time. Yet he was an example of a man who ran his race to the very end and finished well. I know that only because Christ was sent into this world, died on a cross, and rose again that this particular preacher, as he breathed his last, in the next instant opened his eyes to the One he has spent a lifetime loving and preaching to all.