John MacArthur Gives Major Health Update: “It’s been a long siege of not breathing normally”
Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church gave an extended health update during a October 20 Q & A at the chruch, sharing with the congregation what has kept him out of the pulpit so much this last year.
“I was preaching here January of 2023 in the morning service, and all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe. And I said, I’m having trouble with my breath. And then I went on and preached for 50 minutes. But that was the first service. In between, I was told that I had probably had an Afib attack on my heart, and that I was benched for the second service.
So they took me to the hospital, and the upshot of that was I had four stints put in the arteries around my heart. And it was very successful, my heart was doing very well. A few months after that, they noticed an aberrant rhythm in my heart. So they did another procedure where they run an electric wire up and shock whatever that cell wants to do on its own, and it was successful.”
MacArthur, who is 85 years old, continues:
“And a few months after that, maybe almost a year, the cardiologist said, you need to have your aorta replaced. (editor’s note, he almost certainly meant to say “aortic valve”) Well, that sounded pretty serious, but they have a new procedure where they literally run a catheter up through your veins in and put a new (aortic valve) in and push the old one out. It’s an amazing surgery. And they did that, and it was successful.”
MacArthur explains that the biggest problem is the recovery time in between preocedures, that he’s basically been in recovery mode the whole time and that most difficult part of all this has been his breathing.
“So it’s been a long siege of not breathing normally. After all of that, they put me through, I guess it was an x-ray, and they said, ‘you have fluid on your lungs.’
And I thought, okay, what do we do? Well, they aspirated it five times, and it kept coming back, and then they realized they have to do a lung surgery. So that was the last one, not just really a month and a half ago maybe, they went in and they cleaned out my lungs and sealed up the leaks wherever those are coming from. And the doctor said that was very successful.
But the recovery from that is requiring a lot of patience. Because though your lungs are delivered from whatever is in them that’s stopping them up, it’s almost like scabbing, they have to recover. And I keep telling my lungs, could you please move a little faster? I’m not sure they’re hearing me.”
MacArthur concludes by noting “I would guess, four to six weeks before we get to whatever the final outcome of that healing process is. So obviously I can’t preach because I can’t sustain that…but I’m so thankful for good medical care.”
Look, I was fine till I was 84. I hit 84 and I went off a cliff. I don’t know what 84 did, but it’s exactly where the Lord has me and exactly where he wants me. And I’m grateful for that. Well, as- And by the way, people say, how are you, how are you, how are you, I give them the same answer, thankful.
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May God continue to bless him (and us!) with his presence here on earth. We need more faithful leaders in the church, now more than ever. Sproul is gone. MacArthur won’t be here forever. We need more shepherds to rise up and not be ashamed of the gospel.
Amen John 🙏