–– Paul Schlehlein
The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
On Monday, July 14, shortly after 6 p.m., John MacArthur breathed his last breath on earth and was received into the presence of Jesus Christ, whom he loved and had preached faithfully for over six decades.
I enjoyed the privilege of studying under Dr. MacArthur at the Master’s Seminary and was honoured when he endorsed my first book. His influence reached around the world and will impact the church for centuries to come should the Lord tarry.
Having served for two decades as a missionary in Africa, I would like to highlight four ways John MacArthur influenced this continent for Christ.
Grace Community Church
First, MacArthur has reached Africa through his local church. Each week from his pulpit at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, he preached to more than 8,000 people. From those pews came hundreds of part-time and full-time missionaries to Africa.
In 1992, MacArthur took a preaching tour throughout South Africa. From that visit sprang forth a host of evangelists. Just in South Africa alone, men like Joel James, Tim Cantrell, Robin Brown, Brian Biedebach, David Beakley, Matt Floreen, and Mark Christopher took MacArthur’s example of Reformed, expositional preaching and spread it throughout that nation and beyond. From this armada of evangelists, the gospel has multiplied a thousand-fold.
The Airwaves
Second, MacArthur has influenced Africa through media, especially on Grace to You. Millions listen to MacArthur’s sermons each week on the radio and through internet streaming. Phil Johnson has said: “There’s not a time, day or night, any part of the week…twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, somebody is[n’t] listening to John preach.”
Due to modern technology, MacArthur’s preaching can be heard in a hut in Namibia, a hovel in Nigeria, and a shanty in Zimbabwe. It took more than a decade to deliver the first million cassette tapes of MacArthur’s sermons. Today, there are close to two million downloads on Grace to You every single month. This doesn’t include the multiple millions of downloads of his sermons on YouTube.
In 1999, while preaching from 1 Thessalonians 3:1 and the speed at which the word of God spreads, MacArthur said:
“I preach a message here, and Serge hears it on the radio station. Somebody in New Zealand hears it on a tape, or somebody in Singapore hears it on a tape, or somebody in Europe hears is over the radio. Somebody in South Africa hears it over the radio. If ever there was time in the history of the world when the message could run, it’s today. And God is truly sending forth His words and they’re running swiftly over the earth.”
The Master’s Seminary
Third, MacArthur has reached Africa through theological education. In 1559, Theodore Beza became rector of the newly established Geneva Academy, a dream of John Calvin that had been in the works for twenty years. This institution, a Bible college essentially, wooed students from all over Europe, beginning with 162 students and within six years growing to over 1,600. The Master’s Seminary has had similar success.
A cursory glance at statistics reveals that hundreds of African men have been trained in the Scriptures, either at the Master’s Seminary in LA or Master’s Training Centres throughout Africa. Legion are the families who have left their accounting jobs in Johannesburg or teaching careers in Zimbabwe to cross the globe and study under MacArthur’s teaching ministry in Los Angeles. For those who could not make such a dramatic move, preaching centres have been established throughout the continent, including Christ Seminary in Polokwane, South Africa.
Books
Finally, MacArthur has impacted Africa through his literature. Having lived to age 86, MacArthur outlived most of the great preachers in Church History.
John Calvin passed at age fifty-four, Charles Spurgeon fifty-seven, Chrysostom was around sixty, James Montgomery Boice sixty-one, Martin Luther sixty-two, John Owen sixty-seven, Augustine and Richard Baxter seventy-six. John Newton, Martin Lloyd-Jones and J.C. Ryle were blessed with long lives—dying at ages eighty-two, eighty-three and eighty-four respectively—but still not as long as MacArthur.
R.C. Sproul, a dear friend of MacArthur’s and a great theologian, was born the same year as MacArthur but died six and a half years earlier. Being granted more years than virtually every great preacher in history and having preached and written until the very end, MacArthur’s theological contributions to the church are unrivalled.
MacArthur published well over one hundred books, including over fifty from age fifty-four onward, the duration of Calvin’s life. By giving MacArthur so many years on earth, God graciously bestowed on the church a repository of invaluable Christian material. I have seen his commentaries perched proudly in Zimbabwean pastors’ studies, witnessed his books stacked neatly in Botswanan church buildings, noticed his Study Bible marked up in Ghanaian dining rooms, and observed his theological works displayed in Malawian Bible schools.
Conclusion
John MacArthur often signed his name with 2 Timothy 2:15: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” He handled the truth well in a life well-lived. May his disciples do the same.