COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
This week the church at large is both mourning and rejoicing in the death of John MacArthur. We are collectively mourning because the man who was the senior pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, for over 56 years and who taught the Bible inductively to millions of people through Grace To You—a radio, television, tape, and online ministry—went home to the Lord on Monday, July 14, 2025.
We are rejoicing because this man, who devoted so much of his energy to the equipping of pastors and laypeople by expounding God’s word contextually, by conducting conferences, and through the establishment of The Master’s Seminary on the campus of Grace Community Church, is finally free from suffering in the presence of his Savior.
Guardian of the Gospel
When Richard and I first came out of Adventism, we knew nothing of John MacArthur. One of our first introductions to him was in the endorsement that he wrote for Dale Ratzlaff’s book Sabbath In Christ:
“I’m impressed with the clarity, precision, and thoroughness of Dale Ratzlaff’s work. This book is a much-needed treatment of the Sabbath controversy, written with intelligent passion and full of insight and wisdom. Mr. Ratzlaff shows great care in his handling of the complex biblical historical and theological issues. This book will be a great encouragement and help to anyone struggling to understand what Scripture says about the Sabbath.”
Another early introduction we had to this Bible teacher was a recording someone gave us (online sermons were not yet a “thing” at the turn of the millennium) of MacArthur explaining why Catholicism cannot be confused with evangelical Christianity, and why evangelicals must not, in good conscience, join forces with Catholics to do ministry.
I remember listening to this sermon as I worked in the kitchen one day. As we were coming out of Adventism and realizing that almost everything we had believed had been a deception, we had even questioned whether Catholicism might be more biblically accurate than Adventism. Everything was up for review.
I remember listening to this sermon as I worked in the kitchen one day. As we were coming out of Adventism and realizing that almost everything we had believed had been a deception, we had even questioned whether Catholicism might be more biblically accurate than Adventism. Everything was up for review.
MacArthur’s sermon was a response to the growing interest in a 1994 ecumenical document entitled “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” which had been signed by leading scholars from both the evangelical and the Catholic communities. The original signers representing the evangelicals and Catholics were Charles Colson, evangelical, and Richard John Neuhaus, Catholic. As the years passed, more and more denominations and scholars were signing onto this document to cooperate “to deliver a common witness to the modern world at the eve of the third millennium…It seeks to encourage what is known as spiritual ecumenism and day-to-day ecumenism.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicals_and_Catholics_Together)
As I listened to MacArthur, I realized I was hearing the truth. He spoke about the differences in Catholic theology from evangelical theology, and I remember his summary sentence that jolted me back into historical reality. He said in effect, “We cannot join forces with Catholicism. The Reformation happened for a reason.”
Indeed. Somehow the significance of the Reformation had almost disappeared from my mind—and I realized that the twisting of history that was Ellen White’s legacy in her great controversy worldview put anyone questioning Adventism in danger of further deceptions if they don’t become grounded in clear biblical teaching and an accurate view of Christian history.
God Provided a Shepherd
In 2013 Richard and I (and many of our friends, both former Adventists and never-been Adventists) experienced a crisis. Our beloved pastor, Gary Inrig, stepped down from his position as senior pastor at our church where we had been members since leaving Adventism.
At the same time, our church’s denomination was experiencing what many people have reported over the past few decades: its focus was changing, and there was an effort to move our congregation from being a Bible church to being more seeker-friendly. Richard and I and those with whom we studied the Bible regularly were—in a word—devastated. We realized within weeks that finding good expository preaching was difficult. We felt “homeless” and a bit lost.
It would be three years before we, with a core team that Richard invited to join us, would be able to plant Redeemer Fellowship in Loma Linda with Gary Inrig as our pastor, but God did not leave us adrift. For several months during that transitional time, a small group of us met in our living room every Sunday morning and “attended” Grace Community Church’s live-streamed service. We sang hymns with the choir, and we took notes as John MacArthur preached through the gospel of John. Many times as we finished participating in the online service, I thanked God that he had provided a shepherd for us during our months of loss.
I want to emphasize that meeting together under the protection and teaching of a shepherd is the biblical model. Making a habit of watching services online is not the same as being part of a local body. Sometimes, however, circumstances make regular attendance in a local church impossible for a time. Our Sundays fellowshipping at home with a regular small group while worshiping with Grace Community online was a temporary provision for us that ended when circumstances changed.
We also attended two conferences at Grace Community Church. The first was in that eventful year, 2013, and our church-planting core team attended the “Strange Fire” Truth Matters conference. In October, 2019, we attended our second Truth Matters Conference entitled “The Sufficiency of Scripture”.
Between meetings at that conference, we were walking around the expansive Grace Community campus. Nikki Stevenson and I, with Richard’s technical help, had just completed an interview with Justin Peters who had graciously agreed to meet with us and address false prophets and Adventism for Former Adventist Podcast. On a hunch, Richard wanted to see if there might be any possibility of our meeting John MacArthur and securing one more interview while we were at Grace Community Church.
Ministry Support
We came upon an open doorway into the church office, and we walked in. There, standing in the reception area with several of his friends, was John MacArthur. He spotted us and walked over, introducing himself.
Richard introduced us and explained that we were with Life Assurance Ministries. We reminded him that he had written an endorsement for Dale’s book Sabbath In Christ and thanked him for that, thanking him also for understanding the problems with Adventism and their idolatry of the Sabbath.
Richard asked him if there might be any possibility of asking him a few questions about Adventism for a podcast while we were at the conference. MacArthur was responsive and welcoming, and he told us that the person we really needed to see was Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace To You. He told us where to find Phil and how to meet him after the next conference session—and his help resulted in Phil Johnson’s meeting us in their upstairs conference room and spending over an hour talking with us about Adventism. You can hear that podcast here.
John MacArthur was gracious and kind. We felt welcomed and “seen”, and the small group of us who met him that day will always remember the surprising warmth he showed us—people he didn’t know who came looking for him—and the support he gave this ministry because of his commitments to biblical truth and to shepherding the flock of the Lord Jesus.
John MacArthur was gracious and kind. We felt welcomed and “seen”, and the small group of us who met him that day will always remember the surprising warmth he showed us—people he didn’t know who came looking for him—and the support he gave this ministry because of his commitments to biblical truth and to shepherding the flock of the Lord Jesus.
Many former Adventists whom we know have been carried through their transition out of Adventism by listening to John MacArthur’s expository preaching. He has taught many of us, anchoring us to God’s reliable, inerrant word, and teaching us to believe that the words say what they mean. His legacy of integrity and reliance on the truth of God’s word has been both a protection and an example to countless believers around the world.
This week we grieve his loss, but we also praise our Father for having given John MacArthur to the church in this generation. We pray for his family and for his church body, and we thank God for this pastor’s legacy of clear teaching and commentary on God’s word that will continue to inform and nourish the body of Christ until our Lord returns to bring us with Him into His kingdom. †
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