It’s extraordinary in many ways.

First, the man is 81 years old.

Eighty-one.

You think he doesn’t somehow feel that when he climbs in or out of bed each day?

He’s fighting this battle at an age when most are either dead, enjoying retirement, or under nursing care.

Furthermore, he is standing for Christ without his lifelong peers.

You know, the prominent Christian men who shared theological battles with unfeigned sympathy.

James Montgomery Boice. R. C. Sproul.
D. James Kennedy.

A tad earlier and an ocean away, Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

Others who slip my weak memory.

John is the last man standing of that great generation of pulpit voices.

Compare it to some of the most prominent Christian voices of our hour.

I won’t mention names here.

But I don’t feel like being subtle, either.

The men who once stood shoulder to shoulder with John?

You know, the ones he gave platform to at Shepherds’ Conference and Grace Community Church for many years?

The ones who leveraged John’s audience to expand their own?

Yeah, those guys.

The ones making their academic or ecclesiastical mark by giving harbor to critical race theory and the social justice gospel.

The ones who profess respect for John but now contradict him in the ways that actually count.

Yeah, those guys—cut from a different cloth than John’s past friends.

My dear Christian friends, how would you feel if the men you’ve helped and affirmed went AWOL in the critical battle of our times at the end of your ministry?

May God have mercy on them.

Yet through the physical and relational toils (and who knows what others), John continues to prepare his weekly pulpit, pastor his church, and give high profile interviews to national audiences.

I’m quite sure Christ is strengthening him, renewing his inner man day by day in anticipation of an eternal reward far beyond all comparison to the present earthly labor.

But my Christian brothers and sisters, understand this.

John MacArthur is not indestructible.

He’s human. He’s mortal.

And we won’t have him on earth forever.

So play the part of a loving and discerning Christian.

Appreciate him now in a way that matters.

Continue to pray for him as so many of you already do.

Find a way to verbalize your support for him in whatever sphere God has given to you.

(The closer you are to him, the more your open and vigorous support matters. This is no time for men to lay low in the weeds until the storm passes.)

But most importantly, consider John MacArthur’s example and let it point you to our crucified and risen Christ, even if you too are standing alone in your allotted sphere.

John MacArthur is showing you in real time how worthy Christ is of your highest faith and service, and how faithful Christ will be to you.

It is biblical to observe deeply and take it to heart.

17 Brethren, join in following my [i.e., Paul’s] example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.

18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ,

19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;