Not once but twice the muted trumpet must blow this week for two of the most accomplished warriors for Christ as their weary bodies are laid into the ground. During my nearly seven years of theological study, my two chief mentors were John MacArthur and Wayne Mack, whose example and doctrine have left an indelible imprint on my life and ministry for 33 years now. But never did I expect that they would both be buried within the space of five days.
Last Sunday in the Lord’s perfect providence, as our church is going through Matthew’s Gospel, we arrived at the Parable of the Talents – a story all about well-spent lives that are not wasted (25:14-30). What better illustration of investing in eternity than these two incredibly productive patriarchs, Drs. MacArthur and Mack (dying at ages 86 and 90 respectively)?
O Lord, what do you want to teach us by this sovereign sequence of events? Two men who were once co-labourers in ministry but who finished their course on opposite hemispheres, buried on separate continents 10,000 kilometres apart (MacArthur in California, Mack in South Africa), yet both united in serving the same Lord, and now reunited around His throne. When Christ our Captain calls home two of His finest generals, what are the lessons He is pressing home upon us, the foot soldiers in His army left behind? How do we ensure we do not drop the baton now handed to us by these two heroes of the faith?
Extraordinary Providence
Dr. Mack taught me to love the Puritans, and Dr. MacArthur quoted them often. What our secular age often calls ‘luck, fortune, chance, or coincidence’, the Puritans called, “extraordinary providence”. From Scripture they learned to look for God’s unseen hand steering all things for His glory and the good of His people (Gen. 50:20; Book of Esther; Rom. 8:28). They meditated on what lessons God might be teaching us when He “clusters together” great public events, and especially when God “heaps up” trials or “multiplies” our losses to humble us, soften our hearts, improve our repentance.
Like Moses prays in Psalm 90, while watching a whole generation perish, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”. From that psalm we sing with Isaac Watts:
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while life shall last,
And our eternal home.
Does Ecclesiastes 7 not tell us it is better to attend a funeral than a party because “death is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart” (vv. 2-4)? The Puritans would speak of how God sometimes removes “creature props” from us, one after another, that we may rest only upon the Rock of Ages.
What They Were Not
Which brings me back to the Parable of the Talents, as we ponder two of the most fruitful Christian lives of our day, who’ve now begun to enjoy their heavenly reward, “Well done, good and faithful slave…enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21,23). If MacArthur and Mack had been like the one-talent slave, we would’ve never known of them or benefitted from so them so richly as we have. Nor would we be mourning their loss, but only grieving two wasted lives.
It would’ve been bad enough if Jesus only called that failed servant, “unfaithful”. But it’s worse. He uses stronger language to wake us up, to warn us about the tragedy of a wasted life, calling him, “wicked”, “lazy”, and “worthless” (vv. 26, 30). Christ does not take it lightly when professing believers throw away their talents, don’t invest for eternity, and swap eternal rewards for unending torment. I may only have one talent compared to MacArthur and Mack’s ten talents, but I’ll answer for how well I’ve spent it.
What They Were
Of all the lessons MacArthur and Mack have taught us, when we put their portraits side by side – surely this virtue stands out: faithful spending of their talents. Both laboured hard for the Master, long after most men their age would’ve retired and slowed down. Both refused to see family and ministry as mutually exclusive but served with their families in ministry until the end, immersed in the life of their local church. There is a world of difference between a celebrity known for fleeting fame and a hero who has earned our admiration by their deeds and lasting impact.
In our day when many leaders have fallen, both these men ran their race strong to the end, dying with their boots on. Both were mourned by loving flocks for whom they had poured out their lives.
Each of these men preached more sermons, taught more classes, wrote more books, counselled more people, mentored more leaders in one lifetime than most of us could ever dream of doing in multiple lifetimes. Each of them faced more opposition and endured more trials for Christ than most of us would ever want to face, and they did so humbly and graciously in steadfast faith. Only the indwelling Holy Spirit and the energising grace of God, combined with lifelong habits of hard work and self-denial, could explain such immense, extraordinary fruitfulness.
Their Joint Project
How providential also that the only book that MacArthur and Mack wrote together was, How to Counsel Biblically, where they open with this line: “This book is written to present a system of biblical truth that brings together people, their problems, and the living God (p. vii).” Therein lies their legacy.
Their shared aim in that book was, “To enlarge and reinforce the confidence of God’s people in the sufficiency, superiority and practicality of Scripture for dealing with all the issues of life, and to convince Christians that the resources we have in Christ and His Word are…superior to the resources found in the world (p. vii).” How I praise God for these two modern-day Puritans who so boldly championed a high view of Scripture, leading to countless lives around the world transformed by God’s truth! If society only knew the debt owed to these two men, both their bodies would’ve laid in state in capitol buildings for public viewing, accompanied by an honour guard of soldiers – “men of whom the world was not worthy” (Heb. 11:38).
My Testimony
Their joint writing project took place in 1994, while I was a student under them both. I soaked in Dr. MacArthur’s sermons every Sunday, while Dr. Mack nourished my soul Monday through Friday in the classroom (at TMU). As a fellow student said to me years later, Mack and MacArthur were the “bookends” of our spiritual formation and discipleship in those days!
It was truly a taste of heaven, a personal revival, a perpetual Bible conference, a veritable feast for our souls! I tremble to think of the talents and training God entrusted to us by that inestimable privilege of sitting under two world-class pastor-theologians. “To whom much is given, much will be required” (Lk. 12:48).
That’s exactly why my wife and I could not justify remaining in the comforts of the USA when in 1998 the Lord opened a door for usefulness for us in South Africa, where we still have the joy of serving Him today. When both Mack and MacArthur returned from their respective visits to South Africa in the early 1990s, speaking of the great need and gospel opportunity in this land, God stirred hearts like mine and others. It was like a Macedonian call we could not ignore.
The lifelong debt that I, my family and my ministry owe to these two mentors is very personal. Dr. Mack is now the first buried in South African soil from our whole band of workers sent out from Grace Community Church in the past thirty years (GMI missionaries, TMU & TMS graduates, etc).
Like MacArthur and Mack, every slave of Jesus will give a full account one day for how we have multiplied whatever talents of opportunity and gifting He has given us in His service. We won’t answer in comparison to others, but for how each of us invested our own unique, God-given capital for His kingdom in our generation.
My fellow servant of Christ, I ask you: Are you living more for personal comfort or for kingdom usefulness? A billion years from now, what will you be most glad you poured your life into? Are you burying your talents in fear, or by faith spending them for our worthy Master in eager expectation of eternal reward?
A noble army—men and boys,
The matron and the maid,
Around the Savior’s throne rejoice,
In robes of light arrayed.
They climbed the steep ascent of Heav’n,
Through peril, toil and pain!
O God! to us may grace be given,
To follow in their train!
Tim Cantrell – Johannesburg, August 2025