Remembering John MacArthur

Pastor John MacArthur passed away July 14th, 2025.
Today Cory Wing personally honors this godly man and the legacy he leaves behind, as well as discusses the impact John MacArthur, RC Sproul, and Billy Graham had on his life.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Whoso dot com. The first time I remember being deeply
affected by the passing of someone I ever met was
back in two thousand and five. It would be the
first of five miscarriages that I've experienced as a father,
and the grief was palpable. I was twenty seven years old,
and I didn't understand how I could feel such profound

(00:45):
loss at the death of someone that I had never
spent one waking moment with. And while the potential of
life and of course unmade memories brings a deep sadness
for what might have been, it does remain somewhat in
the space of the esoteric, in the sterile. However, life
well lived, even those that we watched from afar, would

(01:08):
help me to understand this kind of loss and would
assist me in crystallizing and appreciation for the depth of
meaning that one person can have on others, even on
the unknown masses. So on December fourteenth, twenty seventeen, once
again I would feel intense sadness, and once again it

(01:28):
would be at the death of a stranger, this time
a man by the name of RC. Sproll. The third
time this would happen would come much more quickly However,
as on February twenty first, twenty eighteen, the Reverend Billy
Graham would pass into eternity. Both men had tremendous impact
on my life. One as the champion and herald of

(01:50):
Christ all over the world for nearly sixty years, beamed
into living rooms via radio and then television, preaching the
simple gospel in run of presidents and kings and everyone
in between. We're all sinners, and we all need to
repent of our sins and find forgiveness at the cross.
The other, one of the greatest thinkers and theologians that

(02:13):
the modern era would produce, an aeradite and bold teacher
who would take Christ's instructions to Peter that we see
in John chapter twenty one to heart, and he would
spend his entire life feeding the sheep, distilling reform doctrine
into books and lectures, and asking us all, what's wrong
with you people? It would be here that I would

(02:36):
start to understand that I did know these men. I
mean sure, I didn't know them personally. I'd never shaken
their hand, I'd never sat and had a meal with them,
But they were the soundtrack to so much of my life.
Their preaching and teaching and writings have had significant influence

(02:56):
on the way I came to Christ, on the formation
of my spiritual disciplines, and how I process and think
through doctrine theology even to this day. But when I
look across the broad spectrum of my life, where Doctor
Sproll has sharpened my theology and Reverend Graham my thoughts
on global evangelism, it would be doctor John MacArthur that

(03:20):
would show me what a well rounded evangelical Christian truly
looked like, someone steeped both in evangelical zeal and robust
theological study. Like so many, I was introduced to this
giant of the faith through his radio ministry, Grace to You.
It was a mainstay of my early childhood. It was

(03:43):
on the kitchen radio in my grandparents' home often, and
then as a teenager in the car radio as my
dad would take me and my older brother to and
from ball practice. In college, I would read my first
doctor MacArthur book, Our Sufficiency in Christ. It was powerful
and it was equal parts comforting and convicting, and that

(04:04):
is the quality that I would take away from so
much of his ministry. I would go on to read
many many more of his books, including one that I
am currently working through in seminary. His unique ability to
grasp the tension somewhere between your loving grandfather and your
grandfather's scary friend from the war was a talent that

(04:26):
fhuman possess. Authoritative yet compassionate, powerful but approachable. These are
things that made doctor MacArthur stand out. His fidelity to
Scripture as the sole authority for faith and practice made
him a voice of transcendent truth in an age typified
by double speak and subjectivism. And it would be in

(04:47):
this space of public theology that doctor MacArthur would teach
me and many others so very much in his two
thousand and seven book The Truth War. I would be
thoroughly introduced to the idea of that there is an
inevitable head on collision that must take place in the
mind and within the public square when opposing worldviews compete.

(05:09):
He would champion the ideas that neutrality really is the
greatest myth ever perpetrated on a gullible population. This fortitude
would solidify into a granite like immovability just in time
for the COVID insanity of twenty twenty. When California Governor
Gavin Newsom, and so many within the weak willed evangelical

(05:32):
world pressured him to close his church out of love
for neighbor or fear of big brother. He stood up
and said no, This was a man that God had
seasoned and prepared for such a moment as this one,
and doctor John MacArthur would not be found wanting because
courage breeds courage. Other men took his lead and reopened

(05:55):
their churches in kind, and what could have been an
even more catastrophe collapse of American Christianity than it already was,
became a threshing floor by which many ministries would be sorted.
That which the mighty Roman Empire had learned two thousand
years prior through the testimonies of the Apostles and the Saints.

(06:16):
History would once again be reminded of that when a
man is fully sold out to God, he becomes untouchable.
His preaching will be remembered as a treasure trove of
faithful biblical exposition and precise rhetoric. Recordings will live on
for decades, and because of the Internet, some of them
will be with us until the end of time, so

(06:39):
future generations will continue to learn from this stalwart of
the faith. And it isn't just of him, but it's
the faith he placed in our blessed Redeemer. So whether
he found himself on Larry King, outnumbered and maligned by
the other guest, or holding forth the Jewish messiahs had
been Shapiro, doctor MacArthur never gave an inch. His famous

(07:04):
friendship with Arc Sproull, despite sharp disagreements about several doctrines,
should be the model that more Christian pastors and even
lay people aspired to foster. His work with the Master's
University and the Master's Seminary Training, the next generation of
Christians and pastors will continue to have impact decades beyond
his own life. Amazingly, doctor MacArthur chose to never outgrow

(07:30):
his role as a pulpit pastor and shepherd of Grace
Community Church in Sun Valley, California. That particular church, which
he pastored since nineteen sixty nine, was the home base
from which this incredible life of ministry would be accomplished.
And it is there at home that the loss will
be truly profound. One Timothy five, verse seventeen says, quote,

(07:55):
let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of
double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.
Quote famously, doctor MacArthur said, actually just a few years ago,
pretty recently, late in his ministerial career, that we lose
down here. Well, doctor MacArthur, if your life, my friend,

(08:20):
is what losing down here looks like, then sign me
up for more loss. So while the watching world mourns
his loss, we thank God for his faithfulness. And it
will be in the increasingly concentric circles of his home church,
his co laborers like Phil Johnson, his nine great grandchildren,

(08:43):
his fifteen grandchildren, his four children, and his beloved wife
of more than sixty years, Patricia, that the loss will
be most intense. So our prayers are for and with
you all. We thank you for sharing this wonder man
of God with us and allowing him to serve the
universal Church in the ways that only you knew the

(09:06):
true cost of, but you shared him anyway. So again
we thank you. Most of all, we thank God for
the life and for the ministry of John Fullerton MacArthur Junior.
God bless