Remembering John MacArthur: A Shepherds Conference Q&A

Well, thank you for coming and I've talked to enough guys this morning to know that some of you came hoping that we would take up where we left off in 2019. We're actually going to table that discussion and discuss a totally different subject. The theme of this year's shepherd's conference, of course, is servant of the word.

And that theme was chosen to honor John MacArthur. Of course, the best way to honor John is doing what he loved the most and what he founded this conference for, and that is to preach the word. And so, expository preaching, that was his passion. That is what all of our plenary sessions are going to be, except for this one.

This session is specifically planned to honor John with remembrances from a particular group of men. These are renowned Christian leaders whom John labored alongside with for decades or longer. And so, I want to introduce them. There is next to me Dr. John Piper, Chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary, founder and teacher of Desiring God Ministries for 33 years.

He was senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church. We have Dr. Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, host of The Briefing, the news I get pretty much every morning when he's on. Then next to him is Ligon Duncan who is Chancellor and CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary.

He served also for many years as senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi. And then Mark Dever who is Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, founder of Nine Marks Ministries, former President of Nine Marks, right? You have a new president now, Jonathan Leeman. So, it's good to have you all with you, these men with us.

These men all encouraged and challenged John MacArthur and sometimes they battled alongside him to defend the cardinal doctrines of Christianity including things like the inspiration and authority of God's word, the doctrine of justification by faith and the lordship of Christ. And you men all preached with John in various contexts including the Shepherds Conference and Together for the Gospel, the Ligonier Conferences, the Alliance of Confessional Evangelicals, ACCE, you all shared one another's trials and triumphs as fellow pastors and seminary presidents.

And you didn't necessarily see eye to eye with John on everything, but I know that John treasured your friendship. He loved each one of you. And so, I want to say thank you for being here. We wanted you here for a particular reason. You are you are a diverse group of evangelical leaders both denominationally and personality-wise.

And so, I'd like to ask each one of you to uh tell us how you first became aware of John MacArthur and how your friendship with him began. and we'll just go down the road. We'll start with you, Dr. Piper. I was aware of him because he was on the radio.

That is the way you come into contact with him first. We met for the first time on January 27, 1983. I know it because it's in my journal. And it was at a breakfast meeting in Minneapolis at a Hilton restaurant. and he was there to speak to the founders conference of the Baptist general conference and uh John Salehammer I think his brother was here for a while at the beginning of John's ministry and he set up the breakfast he was there and I was into the pastor for three years and he was seven years ahead of me seven years older and uh so I was able to pepper him with questions about what a new pastor should do.

Well, just one memory. I said, "What would be the first staff member that you would add if you came as a solo pastor?" And and he said, "I would add a minister for evangelism." And that always stuck out with me. I was with him in Minneapolis that day.

I drove him from Chicago. He was at board meeting Moody Bible Institute. I drove him from Chicago on the 25th of January, actually the 26th, and he spoke that night at the seminary for John Sailhamer and it was on that drive from Chicago to Minneapolis that John said to me, "You should quit your job at Moody Press and come to work for me."

And I said, "Okay." And he said, "No, I'm serious." I said, "Yeah, so am I." He said, "Yeah, you need to pray about this and talk it over with your wife." And I said, "I've done all that." So, I remember that weekend very very well. It was more pivotal for you than it was for me.

True. There was another time that I was with you and Jose. The first time I remember meeting you in Daniel Fuller's living room in here in Pasadena. Talk about that. That was 1989. I that was more significant. It was 89. We had a we've had a fellowship group.

So I went to Fuller. I studied with Dan Fuller. Loved Dan Fuller. most influential teacher I ever had in every good way. And we formed a group called the Fellowship of the Arc, based on arcing, which was breaking down a paragraph into propositions and arcing them and making sure they all relate to each other and you get the main point.

And once a year we'd meet and talk theology and the lordship controversy was a big deal. And John was willing to come over. You came with him evidently. I don't remember you. No, I wouldn't expect you to remember me. I was uncharacteristically quiet. Yeah. But I remember you because I was there with Lance Quinn as well and Lance had said that's right.

Lance knew you and he said John Piper, he said he's written the best thing you will ever read on Romans 9. And uh he said he's really good. You came in the room and dominated that discussion. The minute you came in the room, I knew this guy's important.

Everybody listened to everything you had to say, including John MacArthur. Yeah. Well, the issue just I mean we may go back to this on the lordship issue, but we I wanted to push John. I mean, I totally love that book uh the gospel of Jesus. I just thought that was a phenomenally good book. wrote a support for it and but I wanted to push him through magnifying Jesus by submitting to lordship and magnifying Jesus by being really thrilled that he's Lord.

I mean just they felt like that just one more step that you make Jesus look good if you bow but you make Jesus look better if you're really happy to bow. So that was that was where the conversation Yeah. You know, and I do remember that because uh you had a you had a way of describing it.

You said it's like client lordship. It was the term you used and you compared it to when you go to the doctor. He's not necessarily in authority over you, but you do what he says because you know he's right. You know, I've given up on that analogy. I don't like it anymore because it was a good one.

Well, it it's good in that it goes so far, but you can hate your doctor and submit to his surgical. I mean, seriously, you when you talk about the nature of saving faith to trust a pagan surgeon with your brain, it makes a lot of sense if he's the best surgeon in the world.

You don't get saved with that kind of faith. Yeah, that's a pretty good point. I have some doctors I hate. You got to love you got to you got to love the surgeon. You had an influence on John because he wrote a sequel to the gospel according to Jesus and in it he stressed the importance of that one of the one of the signs of true saving faith is a love for Christ a genuine love for Christ and uh enjoyment of him.

So and I know that hung with John. It's one of the reasons he's always respected you. Thank you. Dr. Mohler. Tell us about how you met John. Well, I first met him through his voice. I was a 15-year-old boy in South Florida, which is a an unusual place.

I think people in Southern California may be capable of understanding what South Florida was like at the time in the 1970s. And uh there was a lot of Christianity on the ground, but I was surrounded by I was in a wonderful faithful tall steeple Southern Baptist church, but uh I really hadn't heard expositional preaching.

And I heard about expositional preaching. And one of the persons I was talking to was actually the ministry of music in my church. He and his wife were listening to John's sermons on cassette tape. And they started giving me their tapes to listen to. And so long before I met John MacArthur in the flesh, I all of a sudden discovered what expository preaching was and by definition what it isn't.

But it was just this marvelous introduction and it's like where's this been all my life? And I didn't know who this was. And of course this is very early in his ministry. So this would have been he maybe pastor here four or five years when I'm listening to this.

And uh I was just so immediately drawn to it. But I had no access to John MacArthur beyond that. I'm a teenager and uh so I just want to go back and say never ever discount the way the Lord uses a cassette tape or whatever digital variant thereof.

It was because I I had no idea I'd ever meet him in the flesh. I met him because he had such an impact on my life and I wanted to meet him. So when I was editor of the Christian index in Atlanta, he was speaking at the Christian Book Sellers Association in Orlando and I just reached out to him and asked if I could have a few minutes of his time and I could interview him for for the paper and he agreed to it.

So he didn't know I left at like 10:00 at night, drove all the way from Atlanta to Orlando and just to meet him and that was the only thing I did at the entire meeting was meet with John. And that was when I discovered a couple of things.

And the first thing is he is exactly who I heard him to be. This is the same man. He was so kind and he was so convictional on the issues and there were big issues going on at that time. And so the Gospel According to Jesus was all about that time.

And so I was just astounded by the clarity. I was astounded by his graciousness and just his kindness. And I was very honored that he remembered that conversation years later when I was we actually ended up in a place together when I was editor of the index later and I think he found out what I was up to and was a great encouragement.

Then when I was elected president of the Southern Seminary, he's one of the people I most wanted to talk to and so I would say that was the first really substantial friend conversation and you were there when this took place. Yeah, it was over at Grace to You when we were in an industrial park over there.

I remember announced by an earthquake, right? That's right. Yeah. I'm walking in the building. I'm thinking I'm feeling unwell. You were very young at the time, which is a way of saying you're no longer young. Yeah. Exactly. I was I was 33 years old. Yeah. Yeah. So when you met John years after that first meeting, did he remember the first meeting with you?

He did. He did that. And he remembered it with content about the questions I asked. And that's when I discovered he's not used to be asking in that kind of context serious doctrinal theological questions. And he remembered it. That meant a lot to me. He had a he had a very deep respect for you for the way you had taken Southern Seminary and really turned it around doctrinally.

He was a great encouragement and then you know he opened so many doors for me invited me to be here at the Shepherd's Conference. I preached I believe it was his 30th anniversary sermon, right? Preached at the seminary and at the college. I don't have a perfect metaphor for this, but I can simply say he is one of the fathers in the ministry to me, a big brother in another sense.

And, I just can't tell you what an honor it is to get to thank God for John MacArthur and to do so right here, right now. Yeah, you wrote a great tribute to him shortly after he died. I may come back and ask you some questions about that.

Ligon Duncan, I became aware of John as a seminarian in the 1980s. First through noting that he had participated in the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. And so inerrant he was that was a that was a real concern for mine in seminary. And so the resources of ICBI meant a lot.

And so I knew him that way. But even though I was in a reformed and Presbyterian environment, I was aware of the discussions going on in the in the dispensational world over the so-called free grace movement and then what eventually became the gospel according to Jesus. And so even though that book came out the year after I graduated from seminary, John was already speaking into that issue and my professors were paying attention to that.

They were paying attention to John though because of expository preaching and which was not super common in in my neck of the woods. For instance, the theological conservatives in the Presbyterian church tip typically were textual preachers rather than expository preachers. And so John was sort of on the cutting edge of commending that.

And my homiletics professor, Robert Rayburn, was very committed to expository ministry. And so John MacArthur's name came up in that context. It was really my brothers met John before I met John. My brother John worked for Ligonier Ministries and helped record the hymns that Joni Eareckson Tada and John and Robert Wolgemuth sung in that wonderful three or four volume set that Crossway produced.

My brother Mel met him and so that you know they were telling me what a wonderful experience they had had meeting Dr. MacArthur. And then Eric Alexander was supposed to speak at the shepherd's conference one year and something happened. He couldn’t come and he called me up and he said, "Would you be willing to preach for me at the Shepherd's Conference and so he was commending me to John in that way.

But it was really Jim Boyce and RC Sproul that introduced me to John through Ligonier conferences and through the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. In 1998, I was a young pastor and Jim Boyce asked me to join the Alliance Council and I got to know John that way personally and then at Ligonier conferences and then later at T4G.

What was the first year you spoke at Shepherds Conference? Do you remember the year? I don't. It was sometime in the 2000’s. You mentioned your brother Mel by the way. I should say he is responsible for Grace To You television. He took me to lunch one year right after the Shepherds Conference and laid it on my conscience that we needed to do more video of John's material.

He said, "Future generations will curse you if you don't if you don't get John on video." And so that smoked me to the heart and we started Grace to You television. And so I'm always thankful for Mel and his influence. Mark Dever I really got to know John because of two of you because of Al and you I think Phil.

So I had heard John in person at the 95 SBC. There was a he was there preaching in Atlanta. There was a Can you also forgive my interruption to my embarrassment? Can you mention that before John got up there were sparklers and smoke now? I was going to be nice because you're here.

I know. I know. I know. But if you want me to No, all I'm saying is forgive my interruption, but he walked up as if nothing had happened. Well, I I'm not sure your memory is entirely correct. Here's how I'll remember it. Okay. It's 1995. Go look it up in the video and you'll see.

John, I had heard him preach on I guess cassette tape and read his stuff. So, I knew him, liked him, didn't know personally. Uh but I was surprised that they had John MacArthur to preach at the shepherd, at the Pastors Conference before the SBC. I mean, it's not exactly the SBC style at the time.

Um but I was really pleased. Well, John preaches this amazing message from Revelation 1. I mean, I don't know how many times I heard John in person. Maybe 30 or 40 times. It was one of the top five of the better ones of John's I heard. And John's are good.

So, this was he preached a really good one in Revelation 1. So, we've heard this amazing sermon on God. Yeah. And then the Nameless Brother, not John, gets up there after the sermon and he just sounds awed in his voice. And I'm just saying he's feeling like I'm feeling.

And he said, "Now, what's about to happen has been in preparation for over a year. You're going to notice smoke beginning to fill the coliseum. Do not worry about that." And there began to be this extraordinary thing of the names of God presented through the Bible and multimedia with fog machine and everything.

And so what he was talking about was not the message we just heard. It was these stunts that were about to be pulled. You brought up the part I was hoping you'd avoid. Anyway, so so I was immediately introduced to John's ministry personally in a wonderful way. But it was a few years later and again it was strange.

It was Eric Alexander. So I'm not sure how this works out. Eric was supposed to preach here, but his wife's sister was very sick and maybe had just died. This is in 2001, 25 years ago this week. And my dear friend Al says to John on the phone, I got this young friend Mark who can preach.

You need a substitute just to pinch it. So that's how I got here. And then I like I imagine John pitched it to you, Phil, and you probably said, "Hey, he gave me this great tour around Cambridge." Exactly. I said, "Yeah, he knows probably knows more about uh the English reformers than anybody I've ever met."

And uh that was enough. And so John brought you here. I remember that 25 years ago this week. So speaking of By the way, it's a shame they didn't get all the smoke machine stuff on video. I'd love to see that on YouTube. I'll do a search for it later.

So, speaking of that sermon, you said it's one of the top five you've ever heard. One of the things that you're real well known for, Mark, is you like to do autopsies on sermons. Like after somebody preaches, you'll dissect it. your Jonah 4 sermon at G3 about eight or nine years ago.

One of the best sermons I've heard. Thank you. That means a lot coming from you. But because I'm always afraid to preach when you're in the room. I think he's going to do an autopsy of I think I remember I was preaching at St. Helen's Bishop's Gate in London one time and you were sitting up at the balcony.

That's right. That's right. I was in London for a meeting and I heard you were there uh at St. St. Helens Bishop's Gate and I came I just snuck in and I was sitting in the balcony and you saw me. Rico Ty gave maybe the best message I had ever heard on hell at that.

Do you remember that one? Yeah, I do. I do. In fact, I'm doing a breakout session on hell on Friday. I didn't steal any of Rico Tyson's material, but I should have. I promise you he got his best material from the Bible. Yeah. No, it's true. He did.

So, uh, so but all of you men were part of T4G and since Mark was sort of in charge of that, I'm certain you had these autopsy sessions after each sermon. Is that is that true? Kind of. I mean, we T4G was a project which was trying to do a bunch of things.

One of them was work on the relationships between the speakers just to try to help evangelicalism be better coordinated and know each other and not misunderstand each other. And so we deliberately sectioned ourselves off from the conference during the conference, much to the frustration of these patient brothers, so that we would have every meal together and we would just talk about what we were hearing said.

And yes, at those meals there were often comments made about the message that had just been given. That's what I think you referred to. And I've always been curious about not only that, you guys, all of you would be involved in meetings I think every January, right? Uh and John would go to those and they lasted what two two days or so?

Three days. Three days. And uh that in my mind was this mysterious meeting of the top leaders in conservative evangelicalism. And I wanted to be a fly on the wall, but John would never even say what those discussions were. So now I'm going to ask you, what did you guys talk about in those meetings?

I think we talked about everything. I asked I the first time he came, I said, I want to go around the circle and find out how you came to believe in limited atonement. Nice. Just to make sure they did. John's always been He's always been big for ice breakers.

John starts with the common points and then works out. I wasn't at all sure whether MacArthur would like that. Yeah. No, he John came slowly, I think, to particular redemption. And it was while he was preaching through 2 Corinthians. In fact, I remember the exact Sunday. It was the Sunday after shepherd's conference in 1995.

He was in 2 Corinthians 5. If Christ died for all, then we're all dead. and uh and so on. And he preached, in fact, I heard I think this is true. I've heard it from two or three knowledgeable sources that S. Lewis Johnson was a visitor in the congregation that Sunday.

He was he was not here for shepherd's conference, but he came in and sat back there somewhere. And of course, he had a series of sermons on the extent of the atonement that some of the best I've ever heard. Uh, and he said afterwards that he thought that message John gave was the best sermon he'd ever heard on the extent of the atonement.

And Lance Quinn and I went to John afterwards and said, "So, you become a five-pointer now. You've changed, you've accepted particular redemption?" And John said, "I haven't changed my mind on anything." It's like he didn't even realize because he'd always defended the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. And uh it's like it never it never really dawned on him that if you believe in substitutionary atonement then of necessity you believe in particular redemption.

And it all came out in that sermon and John began to think about it and he and he realized yeah up to that point in Q&A's when anyone would ask him what's your view on the extent of the atonement he would say I'm about a 4.75 Calvinist. After that, he always said, "I'm a five-point Calvinist."

Although he didn't like to use the word Calvinist until around, so that was 1995 when he really moved in his view. It wasn't until around the new millennium that he began to call himself a Calvinist and admit that he he was a five-point Calvinist. So, what did he say in those private meetings?

Did he? Well, even more interesting than that with regard to Calvinism when I saw him publishing books that put Puritan sermons at the back two or three books. I like what are these sermons doing back here? These Puritan sermons, Joel Beake type sermons. And so I invited him to come to the pastor's conference at Bethlehem.

And at the Q&A, I stood up and I said, "Are you a five-point Calvinist?" I'm going to force him to out himself. And he said, "Yes." And I said, "Why doesn't anybody know this?" And he said something to the effect of that when you get old enough, you're not as hesitant to put that out there.

I'm not sure the wording. I don't want to get the wording wrong, but the idea had something to do with I've grown into a willingness to say that. And you're pointing that out as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was at that conference, by the way, and I'm going to ask you about it later because that was the famous exchange where uh the stark difference in your personality and John MacArthur's personality came out so clearly that is on YouTube and it's a funny and fascinating exchange.

I might as well ask you about it now. You were you were saying uh because you're a passionate man and you bleed passion. John's passion came through in his preaching just in the firmness of what he said, but he wasn't an emotional guy. And uh you talked about how you'd been depressed, I think you said, for eight years.

No, no, no, no, no. Well, it was a long time. No, no, no, no, no, no. Anyway, I've never been depressed for 8 years. Okay. But you said what you said was you were crying and you weren't even sure why. That's right. That's true. and John is sitting there on the platform looking at you and shaking his head and everybody of course is watching him and he just doesn't grasp it.

Mhm. And he said that. So talk about that exchange. Did that did that surprise you that John was that stoic? No, but it was pretty stark. Yeah, and that he was flabbergasted that I would describe myself the way I did because he thought I just must be ill or something.

But I think the lesson I've thought about it repeatedly that passion comes in varying packages, right? And you and so it's a lesson for me. Be very slow to judge anybody's heart temperature by their temperament. Right? This is so dangerous for me to kind of go around and saying you don't even smile.

You know, you don't have any gestures at all. You're just blank and and conclude from that. So, you're dead inside. Now I think there are real disadvantages of being an unexpressive person, right? But but there are also advantages in being a MacArthur type. He did not he did not waste any time being depressed.

I mean that's what he said. He said I don't have time to be depressed. And I just I to me that's like coming from another planet. Yeah. You know, I think he came to the same conclusion after he thought a lot about that exchange with you and he would say things like, you know, the Lord makes people different.

You've got John the Baptist and Jesus are are quite a I've thought about that, too. John the Baptist comes uh neither eating nor drinking and you say he's a demon. Jesus comes eating and drinking, you say he's drunk. And and the whole point of that is the pinser of the John the Baptist model and the Jesus model shows you got no excuse.

I've heard your Go ahead. Yeah. So, so, so if you got MacArthur with his stoic personality and Piper with his blowoff mouth and coming at you and you don't like either one, might be because you don't like the gospel. It might that might be it. Sorry, I'd listened to your lectures about Martin Lloyd Jones and uh you said some similar things about him.

This is years and years ago, probably before that exchange with John and you were I think I would I think it's fair to say you were critical of him because of his lack of emotional expression. If you did those lectures on Lloyd Jones today, would you say the same thing?

Uh Here's what I remember about what I said about Lloyd Jones and you're probably right and my memory is no good, but I love Martin Lloyd Jones. I could tell that I love him and I listened a lot as a young pastor to Lloyd Jones and I had to stop listening because I think that type of British demeanor sounds angry.

Lloyd Jones sounds angry when he preaches. And others said to me, "He doesn't sound angry. That's just you, Piper." I said, "Well, it may be just me." But I had to stop because I don't need any help in sounding angry. I get angry a lot about a lot of things.

And my wife said, "You don't you shouldn't listen to that anymore." So I that's not getting at what you said, though. He I I think Lloyd Jones never had an all night prayer meeting and he wanted revival so bad. And I I asked Ian Murray why didn't he have an all night prayer meeting?

Why didn't he call for special prayer like Jonathan Edwards did? And Ian Murray said do not despise the day of small things. Okay. Yeah. Meaning Lloyd Jones was just a steady state. Do your work, be faithful, and if God's going to send revival, he'll send revival and you can't twist his arm.

That was not an adequate answer for me. But um I think I understood it. I don't think you sound angry most of the time. Thank you. I would like not to. The Bible says the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. I'm scared of anger more than I'm scared of lust.

That really that yes, that takes a lot of explaining, but I just think it's it's my besetting sin. Lust is not as big an issue as anger. And I think anger is emotionally destructive. It's so destructive in a marriage, for example. It eats everything. Anger eats everything. Okay.

Did you think this kind of leads into my next question? Did you think that John MacArthur sounded angry when he preached? I did at first. Yes. Yeah. You know, so when I when I first met him, I him on the radio and I said, "I'm not sure I like this guy.

He was just too blunt, too harsh, too whatever." And uh and I don't know whether he changed or I changed. He did change. Okay. I feel in the early He mellowed in his delivery actually. It wasn’t his attitude. He wasn't angry. But in the early years we would get a lot of feedback from radio listeners who said he yells a lot.

Yeah. He just Well, that may not be a problem. But but yeah, I know it's me. Well, because you yell a lot, too. So that's but well I'm glad because I I think at in the early days he did sound angry and I wouldn't have thought him that way in more recent years.

I wouldn't have. No. And it's interesting you know this does lead into my next question. People who met John personally were sometimes surprised that his mood or his attitude seemed different from in the pulpit. I mean I agree with what you said Dr. Mohler earlier. He was the same person in the pulpit and in private.

He didn't have a false veneer about him at all, but he was he was firm and convictional when he preached and yet in person he was if anything I think maybe too uh too soft like one thing that people are sometimes surprised to hear about him is that he absolutely hated conflict. uh and nevertheless he has a reputation in some circles as a controversialist because he did love the truth enough to fight for it.

My relationship with him blossomed originally during the inerrancy debate. I was a book editor at Moody Press and I sat with John in an auditorium in San Diego where the council on biblical inherency was having a massive meeting. Were you there Dr. Mohler? It was everybody was there.

It seemed like it was huge. And I sat in the back with John during that huge meeting. I think it was 1982 or so. And then and that's when we first really began to click personally. But then there was the lordship controversy uh and his fight for the sufficiency of scripture uh you know against the encroachment of secular psychology on biblical counseling.

And then in the 1990’s it was evangelicals and Catholics together. A decade after that it was the emerging church movement. And uh so let me ask each of you what do you what you think of all the controversies that John will be remembered for? Which one stands out in your minds as the moment when John's leadership and his voice were the most crucial?

Start with you Dr. Mohler. For me, it's very easy. And I'm willing to make a pretty strong argument in the basis of uh recent American church history and the development of events among evangelicals. I think the Gospel According to Jesus is a Grand Canyon. You're on one side or you're on the other.

And I think everything else he wrote was very helpful. But that was about the essence of the gospel. If you get this wrong, you get the gospel wrong. There is there are no stakes higher than getting the gospel wrong. And John had a unique background that was I mean he could see both sides of the divide.

He knew what he was talking about on both sides of the divide. And I did not have the background to understand some of what for instance some of the Dallas people meant by what they said. I was slow to figure out what they meant. John pointed right at the diagnosis of of various people and just made very clear the gospel is here on the line and uh and you know the title of the book was genius the gospel according to Jesus.

Now the thing is is that 50 years ago the liberals would have written that seriously as as a way of separating out nice sweet Jesus from the angry patriarch patriarchal Paul. As a matter of fact, Harper Collins, who who uh published the Gospel According to Jesus, or one of their companies did that same year that the Gospel according to Jesus came out, they published another book with that same title by a liberal author.

He was make trying to make a liberal point. That book died. It was genius though to for John to package that as the gospel according to Jesus and primarily to use the gospel material. It was it was I think devastating in its effect clarifying a great gift to the church.

I think other things he wrote were important but as I was seeking to fight so in the battles I had to fight it was in God's sovereign providence such a gift that he had written that book exactly as he had written it exactly when he wrote it. I just thank God for that book.

It would have been worth John MacArthur's entire ministry if what he did was write that one book and that's all we knew. I agree with you on that. out even as late as 2006. Remember we put that out as one of the first books we gave away. That's right.

At the first Together for the Gospel, everybody there, all 3,000 folks got a copy of that book. It's interesting. My first meeting with John, first time I met him face to face, uh was at a meeting that Jerry Jenkins had arranged at Moody Press uh to talk about the commentary series.

And I was one of several editors that they were thinking of using as freelance editors. And I had been listening to John on the radio. I was also pastoring a youth group at the time. Um, most of whom I thought were unconverted, but they all believed they were saved because they sat on their mother's lap and invited Jesus into their heart.

And I'm teaching them through First John and listening to John MacArthur exegete First John. And I knew that John and I are on the same page on this. And this was in Florida by the way where you had at the time I think some school in Miami that was headed by a guy who was a radical no lordship guy and all this had affected all of Florida.

So I was having parents tell me you're teaching our kids lordship salvation and that's a heresy. And so I had been sort of wrestling with this. And when I met John, my very first words to him were, "John, I listen to you every day on the radio and you need to do a book on the lordship issue."

And he brightened immediately and said, "I intend to." He said, "I even have a title in mind, the Gospel According to Jesus." So that was his title, his thought from the beginning as exactly how he wanted to do it. I remember saying to him, "You have to do the book.

I'm not sure that's a great title.” How wrong I was. But then it was my privilege to uh to work with him to put that together over the next four years. And I said the same thing when that book was released. I told my wife if I died right now, I wouldn't feel like my life was a waste.

So yeah, Lick, what would what No, I I agree with Al on the Gospel according to Jesus. And I partly because of the credibility with which John spoke into the dispensational and Bible church world. John's the only guy that could have said what needed to be said at that time.

And he did it at great personal cost and with acrimony uh hurled against him. And so I do think that is one of the controversies that people are going to go back as they're writing biographies about. They'll zero in on that. But if I could if I could turn it just slightly and say on the other hand, all the things you listed are definitely important controversies in his life.

Not necessarily a controversy, but something that you've already mentioned that he was willing to sort of come above surface about around the turn of 2000. Everywhere I go around the world, I'm on every continent about every 18 months. You would not be surprised that when big God theology or reformed theology is mentioned, that John Piper's name is mentioned and RC Sproul's name is mentioned, but nobody's name is mentioned to me more than John MacArthur when I go around the world, right?

And he's the gateway drug to reform theology for half I kid you not. No, I get it. There are a lot of dispensationalists who would uh who who grit their teeth over that, grind their teeth because it is ironic that a dispensationalist would write the gospel according to Jesus.

In the sequel to that book, the Gospel According to the Apostles, there's an appendix, what is dispensationalism and what does it have to do with the lordship issue where John explains his position on that. But uh that shocked everybody in the dispensationalist and I had come out of that.

I was a Moody Bible Institute. Warren Wearsby was my pastor and mentor and uh I had you know my theological education was Charles Ryrie and uh Ryrie had a book that was required reading for every student at Moody that had a chapter in it. Must Jesus be Lord to be savior and he basically said no and it was when I got in ministry and dealing with kids who weren't really even converted I realized that's not the right answer. and so John's book was it was it blew open my whole perspective on doctrine and everything.

I think it was Gary North who wrote a review of the book and he said I always remember this line, John MacArthur has just blown a hole in the side of the goodship dispensationalism. which probably was an overstatement, but uh but I I I do think one of the reasons reformed people hate dispensationalism as much as they do is because of its long history with that antinomians bent and John saw the dangers of that and took it on.

Yeah. Mark, what would you say? No additional comment. Agree. That's it. Dr. Piper, what what what strikes me, so I'll start with this is is that in the end, I don't think I don't think most of you are here because of the controversies. You are here because of 50 years of exposition.

That's that's what he'll be remembered for. Steady state uh all New Testament books commentary. I mean, who does that? Who does that? Controversialists don't usually do that. They have a book here and a book there, but but not all the books of the New Testament and some of the Old Testament.

Just steady state. Here's what it means. Here's what it means. Here's what it means. So So I think your point like he doesn't take to controversy is validated in the big picture by by the controversies came to him. He didn't go looking for them. Yeah. Yeah. But I think I think I would ju just because I haven't read maybe enough o over the years to to think any better.

But I agree with Al that that that one is is huge. And I'll bet there are just many young people out here, younger men who don't even know what we're talking about when it comes to the lordship controversy or uh carnal Christian issues or become a convert. Then you become a disciple. then you become a disciplemaker.

These these structures that that existed in those days that had baked into even campus crusade in those days had baked into them a theology that minimized obedience to Jesus as essential. And the reason they did is because the simple logic was if you require obedience to Jesus in order to give evidence of salvation, how much obedience must you show? and therefore you lose assurance.

That's the that's the existential argument of which is sort of the what the New Testament says. Well, say say more. Examine yourselves. You know, you look for fruit. In other words, I I I the syllogism you set out is exactly the problem. But I think the syllogism itself is in the New Testament.

Yep. Yep. Which which means you you've got your work cut out for for you really. I mean, I I think I prayed after worship services pretty much every Sunday for an hour or so with with people who had came with questions. I said, "Don't come up here for a signature.

If you got need for a prayer, I'll talk to you." And so, they'd come. And the issue of assurance, how often can I sin and still be saved? Those were the repeated 20, 30 year long issues. And you will have them. Most of your people aren't sure they're saved. they they have a big question mark and you can preach in a way that keeps them always off balance which I tended to do and I felt justified in doing that if I could if I could turn around once I got them off balance and throw them back on the cross and throw them back on the the pursuit of holiness like we heard this morning.

So the the issue of assurance was I think at the root of the free grace movement and and oh the craziness of the exigesus that would be used to escape the plain meaning of requirements for obedience. You know the one who is born again will not go on sinning will not practice sin. 1 John 3:9 and it's all over First John like you pointed out earlier and the crazy ex Jesus of those texts that was coming out of those three grace movements was just terrible.

You you don't need to know about this. You don't want to know about this. It's just I think you're right too when you think about it that there are there was a generation of young men in the ministry today who who really never experienced these issues with the lordship controversy or even the inherency battle uh and who maybe don't appreciate what it was all about.

These things come around cyclally. Dr. Mohler, you mentioned cassette tapes earlier. There's probably a bunch of guys in here who wouldn't know how to use a cassette tape, you know, seriously. So, yeah. And you know what? At the time, I think the cassette tape was the most democratizing technology we'd ever seen and the internet comes far behind that.

But the cassette tape meant that heretics can mail out cassette tapes, but so could John MacArthur and any number of others. And so it was a technology in which all of a sudden you could hear a voice. If I could add one thing to that, the the interesting thing about John in this respect was that when you heard him on tape and then years later you heard him in person, it's the same.

It is different because you realize that what you missed the whole time was his face, which was far more expressive than he knew, right? Um, but still the power of the preached word, it's still the words that matter. It's, as Luther said, it's the word that does this thing.

And so I'm I'm very thankful for those cassette tapes. And I want you to know that I I I I found a box of them just over the weekend, last week. They're keepsakes. Treasure them. I can't I can't part with I don't have anything to play them on.

But I can remember where I was when I heard this tape. And I I the older I get, the more emotional I get. I can just tell you I'm not going to throw that away. Yes. Our ministry, Grace to You grew from cassette tapes before radio. For 10 years before radio, we were cassette tapes a million cassette tapes before we ever broadcast a radio broadcast.

And uh so it was key to and John I think had the probably the largest uh cassette tape ministry of any single preacher in America. And I remember uh vividly in 1995 I had just gotten on the internet for the first time. And uh the the worldwide web was I think about a year old at the time.

Nobody knew what it was. We had a management retreat and uh I was trying to describe it and John was there and I said, "John, it's it's entirely likely that 20 20 years from now, cassette tapes won't even exist. People will be downloading your messages off the internet."

And uh he he stopped me and and rebuked me. Basically said, "Don't say that." He said, "Our entire ministry depends on cassette tapes." And uh you know I think he carried that attitude to the day he died. He hated technology and uh if if he could have stuck with cassette tapes the whole time he would have.

But he had the same problem. He'd get a new car and there was no cassette tape player. He didn't like technology. You knew that because in fact we've had discussions up here before about uh the sinfulness of pastors who prepare their sermons on the computer rather than with a fountain pen.

And uh he rebuked me because I used a a flare pen. He used to make fun of that. Uh, can I can I mention when he and RC got into a disagreement about this and RC was just typical as good as anything else, you know, he was he was just pure RC and I don't you know you remember but that night he uh presented RC with a Pelican M800 and uh that what is that?

It's a very nice gold nib fountain pen and it was completely wasted. Um, but I I I I will say this. I am with John. I think you lose something when you're not working with a book and paper and a pen. I think you can prove the fact that that adds to a composite situation that does matter, but it could be a flare.

There just shouldn't be. I'm rebuked again. I uh I I spend 99 cents for a flare pen and I'm happy with it. And in fact, uh Dr. Dr. Piper, John used to tell me about you that uh because you didn't you didn't appreciate the extravagance of expensive fountain pens.

He said, "Yeah, John Piper gets all of his pins out of the hotel room. This is a This is a pencil. I like pencils and half sheets of paper and I buy these about 50 at a time from Amazon. Isn't that ex isn't that extra? I got to say I appreciate you for that.

I I don't have the patience to keep filling a fountain pen. Anyway, Dr. Mohler, let me Do you still shave with a straight razor? I I use a real razor. Okay, I'll put it that way. All right. So, let me change the subject then. I don't want to get in trouble with you again.

No, I'm I'm glad to be asked. So, Dr. Mohler, in your tribute to John MacArthur in World Magazine, you referred to John as the greatest expositor of our generation. Yeah. So, I want to ask you to and you mentioned earlier that his preaching when you first heard it was different from what you were used to in Southern Baptist circles.

Analyze his preaching style. Give us a thumbnail sketch of what you think set him apart from other preachers. Oh, I'm glad you asked and and I'm glad I've never answered that before. That makes me think a different way. Um, so I knew I was making a contentious statement and I intended to do it to honor John, but also because I I would make an argument for it.

And uh I I I I thank God that there are many many Legion uh wonderful faithful expositors of God's word who are never never famous, never never well known, don't have a conference like this or and and such as the kingdom. I'm I'm just thankful for that. But I can't think of any one man in the modern history of the church, I'll just put it that way, who has influenced more men to preach like this.

And you know, I've I've in my lifetime, God's been so gracious to me. I've known so many of the great preachers of the era. John's the one every man can think he can preach like. I don't like the English construction, but you get the point. In other words, no one hears John MacArthur and goes, "I wonder how he invented that."

He's preaching the text. He's walking through the text. And I just have to say, I I I think I can give from my position in evangelicalism, whatever that is, in the Southern Baptist Convention and beyond, I think there are more people preaching in the way John MacArthur preached because John MacArthur preached that way.

And a lot of them don't even know that's what they're doing. And I just have to tell you downstream from that, all I can say is thank you for a preacher who just got up and it's verse by verse. It's like Calvin going back to Geneva. Here's the next verse.

And this is what preaching looks like. If you've come for something else, this is what preaching is. And by the way, it's better. And so I I just want to say I I don't think he was necessarily by any means the most faithful preacher in the world because I'm in no position to know who that was and it's probably someone who's under persecution.

We don't know. but in terms of using his influence for good, for substantial thick definition of expository preaching and then doing it through the whole New Testament so that you can see exactly what this looks like. And then by God's gift in this timing, you can hear exactly what that sounds like.

And it doesn't sound like something you can't do. It sounds like something you should do. It sounds like something you should expect to be done. I'll I'll stop with that. I I just I just think that was a singular influence. Yeah. And you're exactly right. I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I was converted uh a month before I graduated from high school just from reading the scriptures. It convicted me and I wanted to find a church where the pastor just opened the Bible and taught from it, right? And I couldn't find one. Tulsa, of course, is the is the headquarters of the charismatic movement.

So there were two kinds of churches in Tulsa. wildeyed charismatics and moderate Southern Baptists. And none of them were any good. And for years, people would ask me, "What? You're from Tulsa. What church do you recommend?" I I couldn't name one. But if you ask me that today, I could I could point you to about seven churches in Tulsa that have biblical expositors pastoring them.

And most of them are there because they were influenced by John MacArthur. And I know he's had that influence worldwide. I think it's probably maybe the the single most important thing about his legacy. Yeah. Well, let me ask the others of you. Start with Mark and come this way.

What about John's preaching style or his approach to preaching sticks out to you as important and worth pointing out? I think I'll take the most important thing, the plainness of it, sticking right with the text. I will say a commonality John he has with you is that you and John and we would see this in those conversations as we think about themes for T4G.

You and John are both marketers. I mean you you both think about the importance you kind of like a poet you know John when he gets a hold of D loss is slave. I mean Don John would think about how something will sound where I'm more just going to be let's make the decision move on.

John Piper and John MacArthur both had an unusual uh has and had an unusual ability to really think how is expressing it this particular way going to affect the hearer. So although he looks very plain I agree with that. I do think he was a wordssmith uh in ways that maybe are not fully appreciated, but having worked close up with him a number of times on things you see like, wow, he's going to give a hundred times more attention to this than I would.

Yeah, you're right. And what's remarkable about that is he didn't consciously think of that. It just came naturally to him. He was the most uh gifted natural communicator I've ever encountered. I I think one of the things that hides under the simplicity of his exposition is the man was a walking, talking, living, breathing cross reference.

I I was always blown away. You know, he explained the Bible with the Bible and he would hit you with 21 cross references as you're dealing with the text and you knew, okay, this man dwells in the word of God. He remembers the cross references. this isn't just the result of him studying this week.

And uh I know that I know there's a new John MacArthur cross reference resource that's coming out and that doesn't surprise me at all. That was one of the things that struck me about his exposition. There was constant reference to other parts of scripture in order to explain the grammar, the syntax, the vocabulary of whatever passage he was working through.

And I I was I was told in seminary, don't underell the importance of the cross references in your Bible and make sure you've got a Bible with good cross references. But it was clear to me that this was something he was doing himself. He was building his own cross reference system.

And that it it it was put out plainly, but as a preacher, as I was sitting under the preaching, I was thinking, how long did it take him to build that and to see that? That was not the work of a week in a sermon. That was a work of 10 years, 20 years, 30 years of being in the word, looking at how scripture spoke to scripture, referenced scripture, alluded to scripture, explained scripture.

That that's one of the things that stands out to me about his exposition. That's a great observation, too, because that is absolutely true. And I'll give you some inside information that he gave me. The secret to that he said he always said that his favorite resource his number one resource more than any commentary was the treasury of scripture knowledge which is just a thick book of cross references.

He always kept that open next to him while he was preparing sermons and uh he he put me on to that and and it's helped immensely. It's also on the computer. It is. Not only that, it's a it's it's old enough to be in the public domain, so it's free on the computer.

You're right. I use the computer version. I don't use the uh the book version. Sorry about that, Dr. Mohler. I feel ashamed. Albert Mohler.com. So, John Piper, what what stands out to you about John's preaching style? Well, in my in my tribute that I wrote, it said desiring God.

I listed eight of them and I can't remember them all, but a couple come to my mind. The diction is remarkably without um uh you know, sort of kind of the fillers that are everywhere in evangelical podcast communication drives me baddy. So just to listen and glory in words that flow without any silly fillers.

Okay. So that's it was just amazing. So it was not self-conscious. He would be he would be very pleased to hear you say that by the way because he he told me several times that nothing annoyed him more than a to hear a preacher insert those nonsense syllables as fillers.

Um uh it he said he couldn't listen to people who talked like that. That's why it's cuz he couldn't speak in tongues. Come on now. Come on now. Here we go. Come on, John. I think there's a tincture of truth in that. I don't think there's any truth in that.

But a second one is this and I it's simply I don't know how to quantify it or even describe it except to say that I would come to a sermon that he's going to give and it's supposedly having to do with encouragement or or some issue and it's a text and I said how is he going to do this?

He's he's going to preach the text and then have a 15 minutes of application. And application was so intrinsically intuitively part of the exposition that it was interesting. I mean, John MacArthur was just plain interesting to listen to because it never seemed like, oh, he's only talking about 2,000 years ago.

It always felt like he's on the brink of saying something. absolutely relevant and controversial and it was so I think listening to him to say how did he do that? How did he go from text to application without any artificiality whatsoever? So it just it just came out.

So those would be the two that come to my mind. Thanks for that. John never called himself a Baptist. Uh, and he was never a member of any Baptist denomination, but his theology was definitely Baptistic. And so, it's no wonder that he had lots of Baptist friends and he spoke frequently in Baptist circles.

Uh but people are sometimes mystified I think to hear that actually John's closest friend among all his fellow ministers was RC Sproul who was a devoted Presbyterian and Ian Murray who is of course confessionally reformed was so fond of John that he wrote a short biography for John's 50th anniversary as our pastor and it seemed to me that lots of Presbyterians and others from confessionally reformed denominations and you mentioned this earlier, Lian.

Uh there are lots of people in those circles who have a deep respect for John despite the fact that he was baptistic and despite the fact that he called himself a dispensationalist, he would always say he was a leaky dispensationalist to be precise, but how do you explain that?

How do you explain the love for John in reformed circles? Yeah. And part of part part of that goes pretty far back in in 20th century American Presbyterianism. In the mid 20th century, no American Presbyterian denominational seminaries believed in the inherency of scripture. and in even even in certain fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.

And so a lot of Presbyterians would make their way to dispensational institutions for their seminary education because they knew dispensationalists believed in the inspiration, inherency, and authority of scripture. And so there there was always an appreciation from conservative inherentist Presbyterians of the stand on scripture that Bible believing dispensationalists took and and John as an outstanding example out of that tradition of exposition when exposition in the 1970s and ' 80s when the PCA for instance comes into being and there's this desire let's let's do the exposition position of scripture that's not being done in the larger evangelical world, John was an example of that.

And because John was such a faithful expositor, he was sounding notes that Presbyterians said, "Oh, those are the doctrines of grace. Oh, that's those are the solas of the reformation. Oh, those are, you know, those are the great truths of our tradition that the theological liberals have rejected."

And so, I think John was he was an oasis. He was an ally. He was he was a tremendous encouragement when when a lot of guys weren't getting encouragement from their own tradition. And and then I I mean I just love to watch John relate to RC. He so clearly loved RC and RC loved and respected him.

We were with him at at RC's funeral and he was regailing us with stories about about RC. To see the two of them together was one of the most marvelous things. And they're two fathers to me in so many ways. And their personalities were so different similar. They they were it and ego, you know, but it was just perfect.

Those are Freudian terms. Don't don't take them literally. They just they were very different in their personalities, but they were so constant and so much in common. And uh I I will tell you that they're both like fathers to me, but I got between them one time at a league conference and if you haven't seen this, go find it.

When we're answering questions and John says, "The way to understand the trinity, proper Christologology, is fully God and fully man. I'm here. John's there. RC's here. And RC goes wrong. This isn't about quantity. Uh it's it's truly God and truly man. And then to understand, okay, no one who's here is ever going to forget this simply because John was never more John.

RC was never more RC. The gospel is there. And to see these two brothers before an assembly just live out that friendship in a way that by the way was theologically really wonderful. And it was just a I I feel like there are times when the the the the earth is different now when those giants aren't walking in the land.

And I think it's right that uh we point people to where if you weren't there, you can still see it and you can feel it and learn from it. I've watched that one a lot. I like it. And and I always think if I was there and RC rebuked me like that, I would point out to him that scripture says in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

And John didn't he accepted the rebuke. He uh he totally deferred. John also didn't bring up baptism. That's that's right. But it was it was it was this wonderful friendship. And John's message at RC's funeral is again one of those things I'm just glad I was there with you brothers by the way sitting in a row where we saw that and we realized and I I don't want to get too emotional here but we would not be the men we are without both of those men.

Yeah. And their friendship was a part of both of them and it was remarkable. I mean they were really two totally different types of personalities. RC was like Columbbo with his coat and everything. John was John was very prim and proper. I mean, if you see if you came to Grace Stew, we've kept his office like it was when he was there.

Totally neat. Everything is in place. He would walk by my office and see the mess on my desk and just shake his head. I'm I'm more like the RC kind of guy. And yet, uh, the love between those two men was just extraordinary. Uh, which kind of leads into another question I have.

John was sometimes regarded as insular and maybe intolerant by people who didn't know him. You all were close enough to him to realize that he was not like that at all. Uh he'd grown up, I think, in fundamentalist circles and he hated the legalism and he hated the hyperparatism.

Uh and he was the most large-hearted, generous person I ever knew. talk about what you've seen evidence of that in him. I I'll just affirm uh when when I think of John at a personal level. Um, he is one of the most gentlemanly and gracious men in in personal interaction that I've ever met and always formal and holding himself uh in a particular posture, but never cold.

And uh I and he's always like that. I've never known him not like that. And so I I think that's that's very true what you say about John. But I also think John because of the world that he grew up in, it's a little bit like John Piper's testimony as well, was concerned about the overly divisive tendencies of part of the world that he inhabited and he wanted to do what he could do to transcend.

Uh sort of pettyism. Oh yes. Uh well I think um wake up Mark. Oh I'm I'm awake. Uh I think uh John was as we all know a champion for the truth. But u if we take uh the most uh one of the most recent sharp divisions between John and a bunch of people on how to respond to CO.

I mean that that was a that was a sharp one. And um I I was represented online in many ways that were inaccurate. So, I'm told I wasn't there, but people would show me things and go, "Oh, we don't think that." Um, and people would assume there was some huge falling out between just Francis, me, and John.

And yet that whole time, John and I were calling each other on the phone and talking about a World War II documentary I'm watching. I know he'd like, and you know, he's telling me about something that's going on. And so, he could not have been more warm and friendly. remember having lunch with you and John uh over at Grace to you after the SBC was here two or three years ago uh and talking about matters.

So things in public online depending on which which parts of the online world you go to could look quite fraught but you know what Lian is saying is just true that in person John was just incredibly gracious and kind and always solicitous after what would be what would be best for you.

I mean, I got I just noticed when you all were talking, I thought, you know, I think the last time I was here, so the first time I've been here since John's not here, and I just happen to have a little uh note card of John's in my Bible because I'm a preacher's Bible.

I just have so many things stuck in my Bible. But uh this is about the restaurant that he liked in Santa Clarita, the Italian restaurant. And he he was there on the front row and he just I asked about it. He just wrote down the address and walked over during a a session, just handed it to me.

And I just I still have it there for some reason. Anyway, um but he was just always uh just all these little kindnesses were just typical John. There's a there's a YouTube video on there where he pays tribute to you and uh have you seen that one? It it floats around every now and then.

Uh and I thought it the the love he expressed for you, Mark, was was really remarkable. uh when he's introducing me at a shepherd's conference, he preach Yeah. He slightly exaggerates our service reviews on the on the Sunday nights. Yeah. Yeah. It it was fun. Yeah. He he clearly he said uh you know we sing uh more hymns than we sing and we he he said glowing things about the Sunday morning service at Capitol Hill Baptist Church which we had the joy of having him there a number of times to preach and it was a privilege. and he would always come back for our Sunday evening service review at nine o'clock and sit there and hear, you know, concerns and questions and critiques from Yes.

I I was going to ask you about that because I I knew that u again you like to you like to do the autopsies on sermons. He would preach in the morning and then you you asked him to come back and and he he gladly did came back.

That's typical John. Super humble, beautiful. What would you like me to do? I I will do that. I mean, and my understanding, I wasn't there, but my understanding is your interns basically conducted the autopsy. False. No, I conduct the autopsy. Thank you. Well, they ask questions. Yeah. Everybody gets a chance.

We just go around and people have a chance. He He was stimulated by that. I thought when I heard about it, when I heard about it, I thought I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to sit there and Oh, he loved it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You could tell.

Yeah. That's how he was. It's an honor for people to care so carefully about what you're saying and especially when what you're giving is a word of life and to have these young guys. I mean, John, when he's doing this, he in his he's in his 70s and here are all these guys in their 20s and 30s just like you guys have all these students that are here, you know, that are giving their lives at the beginning point to do the same kind of thing.

And so they're asking this, you know, old master preaching question about this or what about this or well, you didn't say that or why did you do it like this? What what a joy for John to be able to spend 30 minutes or an hour at the end of the day with a group of guys that are not even his guys.

You know, they're like they're his guys. But he loved young men who were planning for ministry. I think he liked young guys better than he liked some of us who'd been around too long. Uh but he he absolutely loved them. And uh I think it went back to his own experience.

He'd grown up as a pastor's son and uh he he got into ministry and I think before he really thought that he was anything special uh he had James Boyce reach out to him and ask him to be on the on the inherency council. He was so humbled by that and so he he he used to talk about that even in later years.

He didn't know why Boyce latched on to him and asked him to be part of the inerrancy council. But that was a that was a huge uh turning point in John's life because it did sort of expand his horizons from the fundamentalist uh sort of baptistic group that he'd been in.

Here's James Boyce, the Presbyterian, and the Council on Biblical Inerancy, all these scholars and and important people, and he's sitting at the table with them. And uh I think it changed his perspective on how much influence he might have, and uh and spurred him, I think, to to do even more.

Ligon, you once said, I think in a uh that when you travel around the world, you said you that you know that you're in a solid and trustworthy place when you see someone holding a MacArthur study Bible. So that's really a remarkable testimony to John's influence. I've noticed the same thing.

You go into the darkest corners of the world and somehow the study Bible has penetrated there and lots of pastors that's their only or best resource. Uh, and I wondered, have the rest of you noticed that what would what would your observation be about the scope of John's influence beyond the borders of our country?

And in the same way, do you think John's influence is going to be felt say 150 years from now? Is he going to be remembered in a similar category to how we think of Spurgeon as someone who was who who who people still want to read and they still want to hear his sermons?

What's your prediction on that? Um, I mean, his preaching is timeless in a way because he didn't he didn't use illustrations from pop culture or, you know, uh, yeah, it's it's it's hard to say what's going to happen with the sermons per se because you help them come out in a commentary version that means that's going to help their half-life a lot.

You think of John Gill's expositions, you know, coming out of his commentary of the Old and New Testament helps me access them now in a way where I wouldn't just go rummaging around through John Gild's sermons, you know, to find something. Uh, and and I also think if somebody you mentioned Jim Boyce a number of times, I loved Jim and I loved his preaching.

Uh, I think he was an exceptional preacher and yet I'm not sure how many people today are reading Jim's sermons. So it's what what has happened with Spurgeon sermons is so unusual. So I'm not sure but to the point of the widespread current impact and who knows what the Lord will do with that if you go around the world and with you know nine march stuff is all over the place but more all over the place is John Pipers and Desiring God and TMAI you know Mast's Academy International you guys are just doing amazing work that we always know when we're feeling out partners in other parts of the world our friends are going to be the masters guys and the desiring god guys.

You know, if if you're gonna see a little trio together, the nine marks will be the little junior partner there. You know, we're going to be the ones bringing and don't forget the church, you know. So, you know, coming in, preach the Bible, preach about God, and don't forget the church, you know.

So, so that's uh it it's there's no doubt that John's influence in in culture after culture, language after language in the seminaries is in under God's hand is just tremendous. Yeah. We we're doing an event uh on our campus at Southern uh on Martin Lloyd Jones in the fall.

And one of the astounding things to me is that Martin Lloyd Jones preaching is more accessible to people all over the world now than was ever true during his lifetime or even in the generation after his lifetime uh because of the Martin Lloyd Jones trust. And I think that's a remarkable gift.

And so I I can point people to to that and and and I can point people to John MacArthur's preaching and grace to you. I think having that body of preaching available globally 24/7 is just a remarkable remarkable thing. How the Lord will use that, I have no idea.

But I don't think you're going to have any idea either. I know. We're we're of course praying that it'll last at least as long as I Well, I I'm confident that it's going to last, but it it just you just don't know where in a strategic moment or at a strategic time a man gets what he needs in inspiration and in modeling.

And I just I just think there's no calculus for that. Mark Dever and John Piper were major influences in what was known as the Young Restless Reform Movement. And Mark, I know you studied and thought a lot about the strengths and the struggles of that movement. In your article, where did all these Calvinists come from?

You point to RC Sproul and John MacArthur as you say they were pivotal influences in shaping a new generation of young Calvinists. So looking back, what aspects of John's influence had the most influence among the young, restless, and reformed? Was it was it would you say it was his preaching, his ecclesiology, his emphasis on holiness, his stance on controversial issues, or something else?

What what is it about John that appealed to those young guys? They didn't all appreciate John. I can also remember guys online saying John's like the old man telling the young kids to get off his grass. Uh and yet there was that may have been particularly the way he responded about Mark Driscoll and he showed that he was right.

So just to be clear that's that was the context of those comments and John MacArthur was right. Yeah. Anyway, uh so uh I I I think uh particularly kind of what Lian was saying earlier for those of us who are not brought up Presbyterian and there are some of us here in the room who are not brought up Presbyterian.

Uh it it it may come as a surprise to our Presbyterian friends that Calvinism is not always a complimentary term. So if someone say in a Baptist church for instance looks over and says about the new Sunday school teacher I think he's a Calvinist. Now is this said in a positive sense commending him or are they really saying in a way that's you know trying to deep six them and get rid of them fast?

Well it's almost certainly the latter. But when you're in a world like that, which Al and I were growing up in in the 1960s and 70s, a John MacArthur is worth his weight in gold. Because there's no way you dismiss a guy if he is spending this much time not only saying the Bible is the inherent word of God, but he's actually teaching through all of it.

And you can go read and see exactly what he says and say, "Is this what the text says? He says it says this. Here's the text. Oh, it looks like it means that." So if if that's the kind of guy who's who's asserting the truths of Calvinism, regardless of the name Calvinism, leaving that to one side, if he's asserting the sovereignty of God and and the truths about regeneration and conversion that that are so crucial to a biblical understanding of the gospel and of the healthy church, then somebody then then that's how I think John was used so mightily.

With RC, I mean, there was a whole different set of gifts. a wonderful human being and a a super gifted teacher, but you would kind of expect it because he's Presbyterian. So, he he gets his own pass, you know, when you're using the holiness of God in a in a Baptist Sunday school class because well, you know, he's Presbyterian.

But if it's John MacArthur, you don't expect because he's a Baptist. And so you're you really are both going to be getting into unexpected places with good truth about the sovereignty of God, but also having a real ally. When when Allan and I would look around in the, you know, 80s and early 90s, other than John Piper over with those Swedish Baptists in Minnesota, there just are not a lot of people around.

I mean, there's a few guys at the Founders Conference, but there was not a lot going on. So John was a crucial ally. Yeah. And you bring up another major difference between John and RC. RC's framework was systematic theology. John really, especially in the early years, I think he had a distrust for systematic theology.

He was way he's like Lloyd Jones. I don't know if you ever thought of there are so many parallels between John and Lloyd Jones. Yeah. In the way they kind of threw their biblical work back into their historic systematic theology. Yeah. It was John's ex exposition of Ephesians 2 that turned me into a Calvinist uh more so than John was at the time.

I don't think he would have considered himself a Calvinist when he preached that. But Ephesians 2, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. But God, of course, that was Lloyd Jones's f famous sermon, but God. Uh and uh when I when I got to that point in John's teaching, it's like a light turned on in my head.

And uh I think a lot of a lot of us have had a similar experience. And yet John really up to the day he died really never was concerned in the least about systematic theology. Those of us around him were. So, you've got the biblical doctrine book and all of that, but uh John never embraced that with his heart.

He wanted to know what does this text say. And let me explain that. I think that was uh that colored his preaching more than anything else. Yeah, that's true. And I agree with with Mark that that's one of the reasons he had an effect in the movement of the reformed resurgence.

Um but but wouldn't you say that even though he he wouldn't hold up the systematic theology and say read this he he he was amazingly doctrinal. I mean when he handled a text I mean I know guys who who preach texts and you couldn't tell after a year what they believe about anything.

John one of the things he always said about his preaching he would sometimes decry application in a way I didn't entirely understand but he would always champion implications of the text. He wanted logical deduction done. He wanted arguments raised logically from the text and their implications sought out.

He was strong on that and and and one of you mentioned the cross referencing all the time. Well, once you start doing that, you become a systematician. Yeah. Or or a biblical theologian. That is if you say so it says this about the human uh will and it says this about God's sovereignty.

Those are two texts and you can just leave them there. leave you leave your church totally confused or you can try to put the two together. And John, while he might not call himself a systematic theologian, wanted to put s things together. He cared about the Bible making sense.

And so I think he's a great model in being um textually riveted and doctrinally passionate. So and I just plead with you to do that so that the people go out saying he's a Bible guy. He's a Bible guy, but they know what you would believe about election, what you believe about the fall, what you believe about irresistible grace, because you you're putting pieces together for them.

People need help from Sunday to Sunday, making that sermon and that sermon and that sermon fit together to say that about doctrine. Amen. Amen. Well, we are officially over time. So, Ligon, can I ask you to close us in prayer? Let's do pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for in your kind providence bringing us together today to talk about and to benefit from and to remember a father in the faith that you have taken home to glory who's ministered to all of us.

We thank you for a life of integrity and faithfulness to the word of God. Uh we thank you for a life committed to the local church, but we also thank you for a voice which has been heard around the world in multiple languages uh that has devoted himself to commentary work that will feed pastors for years to come.

And we pray that you would raise up faithful men in the generation to come who will follow in the footsteps of fidelity to the word of God, commitment to the sufficiency of scripture, heralding the glory of Christ, preaching justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and the Christian's call to a life of holiness and discipleship.

And we thank you for all those things in John that you use to teach us. And we ask, oh God, that you would get the glory because you made him. You made John MacArthur and you gave him to us for a time. And we bless you for that.

And we ask now that you would encourage us to walk with you in faithfulness in the days ahead. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.