John MacArthur Returns to the Pulpit After Five Month Absence + Three Heart Surgeries
Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church received an extended standing ovation after returning to the pulpit for the first time in nearly five months, quipping, “I should go away more often,” after receiving raucous cheers and clapping.
The 85-year-old pastor made brief comments during the Sunday evening service, sharing reasons for thanks, as well as offering insights into the travails and health issues he’s been dealing with since he preached his last sermon in July:
It’s been since July that I’ve preached here on a Sunday. That wouldn’t have been my choice, but I think as Grace just sung, sometimes our trials are blessings in disguise. And God has purposes that we would never have been able to fulfill if we weren’t put into some kind of stress.
I can tell you I’ve had three heart surgeries and surgery on my lungs in those last few months and I’m still here. So I’m thankful to the Lord for that.And I have so much to be thankful for. In fact, when people ask me how I feel, I say ‘I’m thankful.’ I’m just thankful. I see the good and gracious and kind and providential hand of God in every vicissitude in my life, every hard experience, every challenge, whatever that challenge may be. I see the good hand of divine providence operating in ways that would never have been possible.’
In an October 2023 Q &A, MacArthur about what he’d been dealing with, describing the months prior to “a long siege of not breathing normally.”
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.”
“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.”
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