Servant of the Word and Flock (continued)
8. Patricia MacArthur.
Patricia MacArthur
Tr family is the one environment where your devotion, faithfulness, and consistency matter most. It's where the most 1s at stake. It's where the greatest blessings can be realized. There is simply no greater earthly blessing than raising your children in a way that honours God, and then seeing them grow up to honour God with their own lives.!
Such words carry the greater conviction spoken 1n a congregation where all know that the pastor and his family enjoy the blessing of which he speaks.
John MacArthur has said much on Christian family life, and the church at Sun Valley has seen what he speaks about. By the time the above words were in print his own four children were grown-up and he could write, 'It is a delight to see them beginning to raise their little ones in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,'
Godly homes are blessed, and under God the first persons responsible for that blessing are Christian wives and mothers.
1 John MacArthur, Successful Christian Parenting, p. 201.
'Men have the authority in the home, but the women have the influence. The mother, more than the father, is the one who moulds and shapes those little lives from day one.' This should not be understood as though fathers need have minimal spiritual input. When the children were growing up, John was always present for family prayer and on this point he has written: From the very beginning of our marriage more than twenty-nine years ago, Patricia and I committed ourselves not only to creating healthy individual habits for deepening our walk with Christ, but also to cultivating them in the life of our family. For us and our four children, the breakfast table was the spiritual rallying point in our home. We began each day gathered around the table, sharing breakfast and reading from God's Word. Children are keen at picking up on patterns, so it didn't take ours long to realize how seriously we took the things of the Lord.?
For Patricia her children had the first place in the pattern of her life. As she would say in later years, 'I never sacrificed my kids for anything or anyone. The time when they are young can never be recaptured.' But devotion to children does not mean the absence of discipline, and many things were not left to their decisions when they were young: there were chores for them to do; Sundays were for church and spiritual things; friendships were under parental control; on such things as theatre-going, junky magazines, 'sleep-overs', television in their bedrooms, Patricia says, 'the kids had no option'. She saw it as her responsibility that the children should learn convictions on behaviour from infancy.
* Grace to You letter, September, 1993.
Patricia MacArthur
The MacArthur children had the blessing of long-living grandparents. Grandfather Dale Smith lived to his ninety-ninth year, dying in 2009. John spoke of him 'as a tremendous example'.
Patricia's mother, Lorraine Smith, remained a support to all the family until her death in May 2001. Irene MacArthur died suddenly while visiting one of her daughters in Arizona in February 1999.* Grandfather Jack MacArthur was called home on June 15, 2005, at the age of ninety-one. Only in January of that year did he conclude teaching Sunday Schoo! at First Baptist Church in Eugene, where he had formerly been the pastor.
John was with him during the last month of his life, and at a Memorial Service would speak of him as the first model of a minister I ever saw . . . above reproach in his life and ministry to the day he died, though aware of his sinfulness and need of God's grace. Dad drummed into me the importance of standing for the Lord 1n conviction, conduct, and character.
While both John and Patricia see the mother's role as of first importance, it is not, for them, the key to a happy Christian home. That lies further back, they insist, in the marriage relationship itself: The love between husband and wife is the real key to a thriving family. The properly situated family has marriage at the centre; families shouldn't revolve around the children. Furthermore, all parents need to heed this 3 John said of her: 'The degree to which I have enjoyed success as a father, as a husband, and as a minister of the gospel, is a result of the investments she made in me each day.' lesson: what you communicate to your children through your marital relationship will stay with them the rest of their lives. By watching how mother and father treat one another, they will learn the most fundamental lessons of life—love, self-sacrifice, integrity, virtue, sympathy, compassion, understanding, and forgiveness.*
Even so, that is not the foundation. "Marriage for two Christians 1s first of all commitment to Jesus Christ and then to each other.* Only then will priorities be in the right order: for the woman, 'love for heaven, husband, and home'.
In a home where this is true, the original purpose of creation is being fulfilled.
Eve was created to be a helper to Adam—to keep him company, to support and encourage him, to work alongside him. Her role as his wife was a token of the marvellous grace of God to man.
She was in no way an inferior character made merely to serve him, but she was his spiritual counterpart, his intellectual co-equal, and in every sense his perfect mate and companion.°
For John MacArthur, his wife is as truly the gift of God as was the first gift to Adam. Without Patricia his whole life and ministry could not be what they are. He leans on her, as she leans on him. On their fortieth wedding anniversary in 2003 he would write: 'Through Patricia, God has filled our home with love, grace, and kindness. He has provided for me a godly partner and a daily source of joy, support, and accountability.'
John MacArthur, Tivelve Extraordinary Women (Nashville: Nelson, 2005), pao: 5 Ibid., p. 233. Ibid., p. 5.
Patricia MacArthur ie
If whom we marry is the next most important thing to conversion itself, it is doubly so for every pastor. John Watson, advising students for the ministry on this point, warned that of all men they 'ought to be most careful in the choice of a wife, for she may be either a help or hindrance not merely to his comfort but to his work'. A good wife, he continued, advises her husband on every important matter, and often restrains him from hasty speech . . . receives him weary, discouraged, irritable, and sends him out again strong, hopeful, sweet-tempered. The woman is 1n the shadow and the man stands in the open, and it is not until the woman dies and the man is left alone that the people or he himself knows what she has been.'
MacArthur would have no doubt about the truthfulness of Watson's words. He would go further and say with Spurgeon, A true wife is the husband's better half, his flower of beauty, and his heart's treasure. In her company he finds his earthly heaven; she is the light of his home, the comfort of his soul.® wie
In an interview reported in the Talbot students' magazine, the Tiger Tale (February 1980), Patricia MacArthur is described as 'a friendly, open, and energetic person'. At that date her share in the work of the church included chairing a weekly deaconess meeting, and in taking care of the wives of seminary students.
7 John Watson, The Cure of Souls, Yale Lectures on Practical Theology 1896 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1896), pp. 235-6.
8 Spurgeon's Practical Wisdom, or Plain Advice for Plain People [John Ploughman's Talk ¢ Pictures] (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2009), p. 95.
But she saw her first calling as the provision of a secure and peaceful home for her family.' To successive years of young people, preparing for Christian service, her priorities would be passed on by word and example. In the Tiger Tale interview already quoted, she said: It's a big job to raise four children and keep the house according to my standards. We have all heard stories about 'pastors' kids'. Rebellious kids can invalidate a man's ministry. I want our children to be honouring to John's ministry.
Beth Quinn, wife of one seminary student in the 1980s, was to thank Patricia MacArthur for many things. They included: her friendship, 'allowing access to you and John so freely'; 'being transparent, always answering my questions 1n an honest and biblical way'; 'praying for our family through the joys and trials of family and ministry issues'; and 'for just being you'.!°
The seminary students themselves learned from Patricia. In the words of one of them, Tom Pennington, You modelled for us that wives can be our greatest confidants, our most helpful critics, and our wisest counsellors. By your own consistent tenderness toward those in special need, you taught us that pure religion and undefiled is to care for those who are most vulnerable and needy."
Patricia did not hide the fact that, as a young pastor's wife, she had not learned everything at once. For example, she did * Patricia MacArthur fully shares these convictions of her husband: 'One generation plants the trees and another gets the shade. Our generation lives in the shade of many trees that were planted by our ancestors.' 'Mothers are the makers of men and the architects of the next generation.'
0 Tn a letter to Mrs MacArthur, read by her husband, Lance Quinn, at a dinner in which former pastoral staff celebrated John MacArthur's fortieth anniversary, 30 Jan. 2009.
'! Part of speech at the fortieth anniversary dinner. not instantly accept that the first call on her husband's time was not always her own.
I used to complain about not having John's attention and company whenever I wanted it, but I realized he deals in eternal matters. He needs to be free to follow up opportunities offered by the Holy Spirit.
It is not John MacArthur's habit to refer in sermons to his wife and family, nor ought it to be for any pastor. But we know enough about his home to know that the principles he taught on family life were lived out. For instance, on the biblical teaching respecting a wife's submission to her husband, he is careful to say what it does not mean. It does not mean a wife losing her own personality, or giving up her own opinions.
There 1s nothing to prohibit a man from seeking his wife's counsel about such matters as where the family should live, what job offer he should accept, whether the family should participate in this or that activity, or a host of other similar decisions. In fact, the man who is not interested in his wife's opinion in such matters is a foolish and uncaring husband. But the final decisions are ultimately the husband's prerogative, because he is the one who will be accountable to God for the stewardship of his family.'"
In the home Patricia exercises her own influence on John's life and ministry. She can propose changes as no one else can.
T still need to remind him sometimes to take time for the family', she said in 1980. Making sure there were enough occasions for relaxation was one of her roles. Family evenings were times 'to sit around and talk or play games together'. When the boys had sports days at school, John was an enthusiastic onlooker
2 Successful Christian Parenting, p. 188. without any prompting, and in due time they would join him in his own favourite exercise of golf.
A faithful wife will have opportunities to remind her husband of humility, as Patricia did on one unexpected occasion. At six o'clock one morning in their home, they were shaken awake.
While earthquakes are not uncommon in southern California, at the 6.8 level on the Richter Scale this was no normal tremor.
As John later described it:
The doors started banging, the kids were flying out of bed, and the radio newscaster reported that the dam above our house had broken and everybody had to evacuate. By God's providence, the only thing we lost was a shelf full of my athletic trophies. We went into the den and they were in a pile on the floor, the symbols of my long-ago gridiron glory, smashed to bits.
As they looked at the scene, 'My wife used the opportunity to remind me that God blesses those who are humble.' It was no light-hearted remark. To undergird this council, years before she had inscribed for him in needlework the words, 'Walk humbly with thy God.' This gift he mounted at eye level in front of his desk in his study.
Occasionally when close friends are visiting the MacArthurs they are amused to hear Patricia say, 'Now Johnny, you know that's not right', and to hear him acquiesce. He certainly values her judgment, and happily leaves most of the financial affairs of the home in her hands. One feature of her character on which he depends is her awareness of the needs of individuals in the congregation. In her own childhood home Patricia had been familiar with the high place that belongs to service to others.
'S Hard to Believe, p. 107.
Two of her sisters had gone to the mission field. When she was no longer responsible for leading the meeting of deaconesses at Grace Church, it made no difference to her practice. "Her strength is people', MacArthur says.
She will come into my study and put down a piece of paper on which there 1s a list of people who are ill, or who have special needs, or should have a 'thank you', or some kind of a response from me. And she will say, 'I want you to write or call these people.' She feels in a way I do not, and if I can keep involved in people's lives it is largely because of Patricia.
In describing their normal daily timetable, as it was in 1980, Patricia said: 'I lead a very sheltered life. Johnny takes the kids to school in the morning and returns at 5.00 in the afternoon.' Some ten years later this routine had a major change when her husband decided to move his study from church to home (now some twenty minutes from the church in a country location). It had become increasingly difficult for him at the church to get the privacy he needed for preparation and study. Inevitably the removal of his books entailed some difficulty but, once happily resettled, there came a problem in the new arrangement that had not been anticipated. In his words: Patricia said it's so wonderful to have you at home, I can make you lunch and bring you tea. Of course, with phones ringing and kids around, I needed to keep the study door shut. From time to time she would come up to the study and in her usual happy way make an observation or ask, 'Honey, can I ask you a question?' Then there would be a pause as I disengaged myself before I might say, "What do you want?' Or she might come with some lovely food prepared and hear only some kind of grunt from me. After a few days of these experiences, she commented: 'You know, I think it might be better for our marriage if you go back to the church.' She was not angry but hurt at the new situation in which I was present and yet not available.
All settled down as John recognized his responses were not appropriate! whe
In late July 1992, they experienced a trial that would test the faith they believed and taught to others.
One afternoon John was at a golf course anticipating some of the others to join him. He was waiting for their eldest son
Matt, coming 1n one car, with his mother driving behind with Melinda. They were driving on a winding, four-lane road when, to his horror, Matt saw his mother's car catch soft earth beside the inside lane, then flip in the air and turn over. The seriousness of the accident was instantly clear, and a helicopter was called to take mother and daughter for emergency care. John was phoned, and he would later speak of that call as the moment when his 'whole life suddenly changed'. There were no details, only that Patricia was gravely injured and was being airlifted to a hospital about an hour away from where he was: Inadvertently leaving my golf clubs on the practice tee, I immediately got in my car and headed for the hospital. That hour-long drive to the hospital will be forever etched in my memory. A thousand thoughts flooded my mind. I realized, of course, that I might never see Patricia alive again. I thought of the gaping hole that would exist in my life without her. I reflected on the essential part she has had in my life and ministry over the years. I wondered how I could ever manage without her. I remembered when we first met, how we grew to love each other, and hundreds of other little things about our life together. I would give anything to keep her, but I realized now that choice was not mine to make.
The questions that entered my mind were, How am I going to live my life? How am I going to step into all her roles? I kept thinking, What will the children do? I cannot meet their needs, the needs that only she can meet. What will the grandchildren do? What will our life as a family be without her? (for Patricia really is the glue that holds everything in our family together). It was just one huge mystery, and I was very much aware of the fact that there is no one whom I had ever met who could replace her. There is no one who could step into her shoes to fulfil what she does. Yet I didn't have a time when I did not believe that God was 1n charge. That thought never entered my mind, but this one did: What if she was gone, what in the world were we all going to do, and how would we put our lives back together?
A supernatural peace flooded my soul. My grief, sorrow, uncertainty, and fears were all enveloped in that restful peace. I knew that Patricia and I were both in our Lord's hands, and under the circumstances that was the only place I cowd imagine any sense of safety.
When I arrived at the emergency room, I learned that Melinda had been badly bruised and cut but was not seriously injured. She was severely shaken but not in any danger.
A doctor came out to explain Patricia's injuries to me. Her neck was broken. Two vertebrae were severely crushed. The damage had occurred above the crucial nerves in the spinal cord that control breathing. In most cases like hers, the victim dies immediately.
Months of special care followed, with Patricia's head held immobile in a steel frame, held by four rods fixed to a plastic upper-body vest. John had now the treasured experience of being able to serve the one who had ministered to him for so long.
Slowly Patricia was out of danger, but her extremities remained numb. Prayer was widespread, and there was slow recovery until only her right arm continued to suffer paralysis. One day she asked John to ask specifically 'that the Lord will give me back my right arm'. "Lord, we want your will to be done', he prayed, 'but Id like to ask you if your will couldn't be full restoration.'
In time the prayer was answered.
Eighteen months after the accident Patricia recorded her own testimony in speaking with Richard Mayhue: The accident affirmed that our days are numbered and God is in charge. That is what I kept emphasizing to our daughter who was in the accident with me—1. that God is in control of our lives and, 2. that He is totally sovereign. Whatever He allows to come into our lives, He has a purpose for our good and His glory. And, 3. it made me realize how temporary this life on earth is.
People ask me, 'Why do you think God allowed this to happen?' or, 'What did you learn through it?' Pve learned again that God 1s sovereign; He will go through any circumstances with us. The verse that kept going through my mind is, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee' (Isa. 26:3). I used to sing that a lot in the morning. I know His salvation, and I have come to know His healing powers in a personal way.'* " Richard Mayhue, The Healing Promise (Fearn, Ross-shire: Christian Focus/Mentor, 2001), p. 249. This book contains a whole helpful chapter on Patricia MacArthur's accident and its lessons.
Patricia MacArthur IAI
At the same time, Patricia MacArthur was careful to note that an answer to prayer for healing is not in any way related to our deserving. Two especially valued friends who visited her when she was still in hospital were Joni Eareckson Tada and her husband Ken. Joni, in her wheelchair, and with the experience of twenty-five years of paralysis, said, 'Oh, Pat, 'm so glad you are not a quad', and sang to her, 'His Eye is on the Sparrow'.
Mindful of such Christians as Joni, Pat has said: Certainly our prayer 1s not necessarily answered according to our spiritual state. I think it is what the Lord sees best for everybody involved. In my situation, there were many people aware of and praying for my healing and recovery because of the effect it would have on John's ministry. The Lord saw fit to answer the prayers according to the way they were asked—not because I was deserving of this particular kind of healing. There is no question that God orchestrated these things to bring glory to Himself. Pm just thankful that He chose me to be a recipient of His undeserved and unexplained grace.
In reflecting on what had happened in these months
MacArthur was to conclude:
This whole experience has been the most difficult trauma in our lives together. Yet through it all Patricia and I have learned again—in a very practical way—that faith works. Our faith in Christ—the same faith with which we first trusted in Him as Lord—has remained strong and enabled us to trust Him through this trial."
In her interview in 1980, Patricia MacArthur advised that 'life-partners need one heart and one mind to have a successful 'S The Gospel According to the Apostles, pp. 18-19. ministry'. That union in Christ was all the stronger for the suffering of 1992. It was strong confirmation to her in her role, as she said afterwards, 'The Lord has given me a heart for service, which I enjoy and love.' And it cannot be doubted that the added grace given to her reflected to others in her husband's continuing ministry. In a book dedicated to her in 2008, he wrote: To my beloved Patricia, who personifies faithfulness. Her love and devotion to me have been my greatest earthly delight since the earliest days of my ministry. When she has had to relinquish me because of my pastoral duties, or settle for a distracted husband because of endless writing projects and sermon preparation, she has borne those trials with exemplary grace and patience. For every grief I ever caused her, she has given me a thousand blessings in return—not the least of which is a wonderful home and family that are held together and adorned by her loving attention. !° '© The Gospel According to Jesus, Revised and Expanded Anniversary Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008). } tba
A Correction and an Example from Russia
( E 1980s had seen large growth in the ministry on all fronts. The possibilities seemed endless. But I turn now to a development which was not to prove successful and from which valuable lessons were to be relearned.
In November 1987 'The Master's Fellowship' was established at Grace. Under this title the main agencies for outreach were brought together under a governing board to which new supporters belonged, and fresh initiatives were launched with additional hired staff. One purpose was to plan MacArthur's speaking ministry around the country, instead of leaving it too largely dependent on the invitations of others. Another aim was to expand the influence presently exercised among pastors by the Shepherds' Conferences. After the first such conference in 1980, a further ten were held by 1985, and attendance continued to grow. Accordingly a 'Master Conference Schedule' was published detailing the date and place arranged for more than forty 'Shepherds' Seminars' across the United States in the period April 1988 — November 1989. This was announced in the pages of the Grace to You letter, and in the same issue readers were informed that a Christian audio magazine called
Forefront was now available.'
The most conspicuous development from the Master's
Fellowship, however, came with the launch of Masterpiece in the summer of 1988. This was a full-scale magazine/journal, produced in a gloss and colour format, and in style the equal to any of the world's leading periodicals. In the first issue
MacArthur, as Senior Editor, explained that the formation of The Master's Fellowship was not his idea, but it had come out of a belief that we are on the threshold of even greater things. I have seen Him bless His truth not only through a dynamic local church, but also in a worldwide media outreach, a flourishing college and seminary, a unique missions ministry, and extensive service to church leaders . . . The Fellowship has four clearly defined areas of emphasis: Communications, Education, World Outreach, and Church Resources.
MacArthur connected the title of the new magazine with Ephesians 2:10, 'We are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works'—''to create in us a masterful work of grace'. Three issues of Masterpiece were published in 1988 anda further fourteen were to follow. The material was well-balanced and, while serious in tone, pitched at a popular level: it included a 'Cutting Edge' editorial from John, teaching from leading authors (old and new), short Christian biographies, help on family and parenting issues, Questions and Answers, and book reviews. In its doctrinal orientation the pages promoted the rediscovery of an older evangelicalism, and the books reviewed ' Grace to You, Spring 1988, 'Introducing a New Ministry'.
A Correction and an Example from Russia
majored on such authors as James I. Packer, A. W, Tozer, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones. In one issue MacArthur was asked to list the books that had the greatest impact on his life. He named the following: Arthur Bennett, ed. The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Banner of Truth, 1975).
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Klock & Klock, 1977).?
J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Inter-Varsity, 1973).
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preachers and Preaching (Zondervan, 1971).
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Eerdmans, 1977). Arthur Pink, Spiritual Growth (Baker, 1971).
John R. W. Stott, The Preacher's Portrait (Tyndale,
1967). Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes (Banner of Truth, 49723): Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (Banner of Truth, 1970).
In Masterpiece there was a combination of good content, style, and promotion. A major success would have been a reasonable anticipation, and yet, after seventeen issues, it stopped without notice in the summer of 1992. It had failed.
The sudden termination must have been a surprise to most. A discerning reader of its issues may have judged from the frequent changes in the names of the editors that there were problems, and there was some irregularity in publication dates.
Phil Johnson was 'editor' in the first issue, but thereafter his ? These volumes have been reprinted by the Banner of Truth as vols 1 & 2 in the five-vol. set The Works of Stephen Charnock (2010). See MacArthur's comment on Charnock's greatest work, p. 203. input was only occasional. His main attention was elsewhere, in the preparation of MacArthur books for publication. Tom
Pennington and Mike Taylor gave their best efforts to the magazine, but a few new men on the scene, including Robert
D. Van Kampen, General Director of the Board of The Master's
Fellowship, were not entirely of the same mind on its content.
The setting up of the Fellowship as an umbrella organization had been Van Kampen's idea, and he saw it as a promotional agency. A wealthy man himself, he may have thought that spending money liberally would generate wider influence. When this did not happen, and debt began to exceed revenue, there were stronger appeals for monetary help than had ever been made before. MacArthur chafed at this situation, and in the summer of 1990 told Phil Johnson to 'get back into it'. At the same time
Van Kampen dropped out. "These were volatile years', Johnson would later comment. Certainly the enterprise had not been marked by the harmony present in earlier years. By the time a halt was called a debt had built up that would take an estimated five years to clear.?
When MacArthur became certain they were on the wrong track, he terminated the Master's Fellowship—in Johnson's opinion, 'the best thing he ever did'. In a letter of March 19, 1992, addressed to all friends of Grace to You, MacArthur began: Pm writing to ask your forgiveness. I also want to explain some changes you will be seeing in the mail you receive from Grace to You.
The Lord has led us to carefully re-evaluate this important aspect of our ministry. With great sadness I realize my Tn fact, the debt was cleared within two vears. letters to you each month have begun to be monopolised by appeals for money. On behalf of all our staff, and from my heart, I want to ask your forgiveness for that. I confess
I had become careless and was beginning to let the ministry wander from the principles I have always espoused.
Seven years ago, a listener wrote to ask my fund-raising philosophy. At that time I replied: 'We don't say much about money either on the radio or in print, because I am a little resistant to the idea of appealing for funds. I see too many ministries today trying to raise money in ways that just don't honour the Lord .. .' We were slipping off track for a while, but I want you to know I still hold those convictions with all my heart. I have often said that my concern is the depth of my ministry: God will take care of the breadth of it. Or, as the Apostle Paul indicated, we simply plant seed and water 1t—God causes growth (J Cox 3:6). Clever fund-raising techniques, money, and human effort can never impel a ministry like ours to grow faster or larger than God Himself graciously permits. Moreover, the Lord will always provide support for any ministry that honours and serves Him.
I know that the Lord called me to minister, not to raise funds. So I am reviewing my commitment to the real priorities: teaching the Word and meeting people's spiritual needs.
The reader of these words would suppose that the fault had been in the writer, and, as the leader, MacArthur believed that it was. He had allowed developments which were against his better judgment. In another letter to friends of Grace to You, March 15, 1993, he wrote: You may recall that one year ago this month, after much prayer, we made deep cuts in our ministry budget, enacted several changes in the mail we send to our ministry family, and re-committed ourselves to depending on God's provision for our financial needs. As anyone knows, during times of change you'll always weather a few anxious moments, we've weathered a few of our own.
The last sentence was an understatement. It was just four months after his 'apology letter of March 19, 1992, that Patricia's serious car accident occurred. These were trials that carried abiding instruction, and to this he referred in several letters: Patricia's near-fatal automobile accident and the events that have unfolded since then have certainly brought many humbling lessons. My life—each of our lives really—is indeed a vapour, and only through God's grace do any of our plans ever materialize.*
During the past year God in His sovereignty has brought into my life some extraordinary events—events that have in a wonderful way united my personal circumstances with powerful truths from God's Word . . . God taught us many lessons during those difficult days . .. We don't exist for the sake of raising money or building a huge ministry empire. We exist solely to teach the Bible, and we trust God to sustain us at the level He chooses.®
As I mentioned in a letter a few months ago, we made several deep cuts in our ministry budget last year, including several painful decisions that affected our staff size and the extent of our outreach. I can tell you that God is clearly blessing our commitment to trimming our financial obligations and living within our means . . . We still have many challenges ahead, and don't want to presume on God's blessing.°
* Grace to You letter, October 16, 1992.
> Ibid, June 17, 1993.
Ibid, August 16, 1993. In this letter MacArthur expressed the hope that whe
While the above was happening, spiritual lessons were being confirmed to MacArthur from an unexpected quarter. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 the Communist world of Eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union was suddenly open for the gospel. He made an initial two-day visit to Leningrad (St Petersburg) in July 1990, his party taking three hundred Bibles with them, donated by the senior class of the Master's College. These were readily distributed, including to five border guards, and one to a taxi driver who turned out to be a Christian. Presented with a Bible in Russian the taxi driver pressed it to his heart with joy and gratitude.
An invitation to Baptist churches in Russia soon followed the initial visit. John hesitated. His short visit had impressed him with the greatness of the need, and there was no doubt about the welcome he had recetved when he preached at a three-hourlong service during the July visit. But he was uncertain whether taking advantage of the opportunities in the former Soviet bloc was consistent with his calling to his local church. In addition, he was not enthusiastic about speaking to congregations through an interpreter— The language barrier can make teaching tedious for both speaker and audience.'
However, he accepted the invitation and returned to Russia.
He was not only to find people helped by the Word of God but to have his own life and thinking enriched.
Masterpiece might be resumed sometime in the future. This was not to be.
Between October 22 and November 2, 1990, he preached at pastors' conferences in Moscow and Kiev, and spoke at the Odessa Bible School. Some 20,000 copies of his book, A Master Plan for Church Leadership had been translated into Russian, funded by the congregation at Grace, and 1,500 copies were eagerly taken up within a few days.
In the October of the next year he spoke at Bucharest for the Union of Baptists pastors in Romania. Three-and-a-half days of meetings had been planned, and around 200 pastors were expected. Instead 500 came to hear MacArthur speak on 'Expository Preaching' and 'Church Leadership'. The schedule of meetings from 9.00 in the morning until 8.30 at night was evidently flexible, for on one day the visitor found himself on his feet teaching and answering questions for eight hours at a stretch. From there he went on by train to another pastors' conference at Kiev, in Ukraine (October 7-12, 1991). About eight hundred men were present and, again, the length of the meetings was unpredictable. A morning Question and Answer time planned for one hour went on for three.
The experience of these two years, 1990-91, made a deep impression on MacArthur. The spiritual hunger was unmistakeable, and yet halfthe churches in Ukraine were without pastors, and some two hundred towns and villages around Kiev were without any evangelical church. His enquiry for their greatest need got the response, "We need pastors—pray that God will raise up young men to be pastors.' 'If I could speak Russian', he was to say on his return home in 1991, 'Pd be there and stay until God moved me because that is the great harvest field.'
The contrast between material conditions in the former
Soviet bloc and the affluence of the West could not be missed.
In Leningrad, for instance, he learned of four families living in a four-room apartment, with thirty-one people dependent on the same bathroom. Yet the life of the churches seemed in no way weakened by the general deprivation; on the contrary, there was remarkable vitality and strength. A difference in the pattern of church life could not be missed. While much regarded as indispensable for success in America was absent, such was the hunger for the Word of God that there was no problem in maintaining crowded services morning and evening on a Sunday, as well as services on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights.
Reflecting on what he saw, MacArthur wrote:
Their worship services were the very picture of austere simplicity—just the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the ordinances, totally devoid of the flash and entertainment being touted as essential tools for the times by all the 'experts' back home. That got me thinking more deeply than ever about how the Lord builds His church and what it means to be a wise master builder (1 Cor 3:10-15).
Slavic worship is simple and gospel-centred, exactly like we see in the book of Acts. The gimmickry, superficiality, and man-centredness that have spoiled so many western churches were notably absent.
The stress is on the essentials: repentance from sin, faith in Christ, biblical preaching, obedience to the Word of God, love for one another, and a passion for the truth against all forms of error . . . I sat in many Russian worship services for hours, hearing convert after convert publicly repent—renouncing former sins and declaring faith in Christ to the gathered church. It was the polar opposite of what American church gurus insisted was absolutely necessary.
More than ten years later MacArthur would still underline these lessons to American audiences: Over the years I have ministered quite a lot in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and other parts of the former Soviet Union. The church in those countries, repressed by Communism for so many decades, is nonetheless vibrant and dynamic today. One of the significant things that struck me when I first began to minister there was the terminology that virtually all Russian-speaking believers use to describe conversion. They do not speak of accepting
Christ as one's personal Saviour. They would never say merely that someone 'made a decision for Christ' or that the person 'invited Jesus into his or her life'. The language they use is simple and entirely biblical: the new believer is someone who has repented. If a person shows no evidence of repentance, he or she would not be embraced as a Christian, no matter what sort of verbal profession of faith was made .. . By contrast, we live in a culture of such shallow religion that most of what goes by the name 'Christian' in Western society has little or no emphasis on repentance of any kind. The call to repentance has been deliberately omitted from the most popular gospel presentations of our generation."
From the beginnings of the 1990s MacArthur was to have a life-long bond with churches in Eastern Europe and beyond, and he contributes significantly to their witness. But the help he gained from them in strengthening his convictions was perhaps no less significant. Certainly, as his Grace to You letters of the 1990s show, he was emphasizing lessons not commonly heard in contemporary evangelicalism.
' Address on 'The Glory of True Repentance' in Assured by God, ed. Buck Parsons (Phillipsburgh, NJ: P&R, 2006), pp. 126-7.
One of these lessons had to do with the source of the greatest danger to the gospel. It does not come from the world's hostility to the church: Your church's greatest enemy isn't the government, the culture, Hollywood producers, or the liberal media. Scripture states and history confirms that churches are strengthened under persecution and adversity. If our churches are to be destroyed, or rendered ineffective and stagnant, that will happen at the hands of her own people . . . One of my greatest fears for the church I pastor is that we would unwittingly abandon the vital principles that keep us healthy, growing, and strong. The day we cease clinging to those principles is the day we grow cold and dishonour God before a watching world.®
Another lesson was the falseness of the message which represented the gospel as a way to get more from God on the material level: As I have studied God's Word and experienced both the exhilaration of spiritual victory and the discouragement of failure, 'm convinced the key to powerful living is not in getting more from God. The key is just the opposite.
The moment we stop making demands on Him and offer ourselves as a living sacrifice is the moment we begin to please Him . . . From my own experience I know that being a living sacrifice is not an easy path. But sacrifice 1s absolutely necessary if we are ever to know the fullness of God's blessing and render to Him the service He is due.
8 Grace to You letter, August 15, 1994.