Pastor John MacArthur remains in the hospital amid complications recovering from heart surgery and has begun physical therapy. Medical teams are closely monitoring his condition as he works to regain his strength.
MacArthur, 85, “is still in the hospital,” Grace To You Executive Director Phil Johnson, an elder at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, California, shared in a Wednesday update.
MacArthur underwent multiple heart operations in the past year. He has not commented publicly about his progress since returning to the hospital.
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“The tests and treatments continue,” Johnson said, shooting down reports he had been released as “false.” “Please keep praying for his recovery.”
A few days earlier, Johnson stated in an X post that MacArthur has “been bedridden long enough they are giving him physical therapy.”
In November, he briefly appeared at Grace Community Church and said he had gone through “three heart surgeries and surgery on my lungs in those last few months.” He noted at the time that the experience involved challenges but did not offer an in-depth timeline of events.
“I’m still here, and thankful to the Lord for that.” He acknowledged “stress” during his health battles, adding, “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.”
In January 2023, MacArthur preached during the first service of the new year, only to be hospitalized soon after he experienced trouble breathing.
MacArthur became the pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in 1969 after graduating from Biola University’s Talbot Theological Seminary. Over the decades, he has delivered more than 3,000 sermons.
Discussions about MacArthur’s condition have circulated on social media, prompting Johnson to address the topic more directly.
In one online exchange, Johnson responded to a claim by an “anonymous” individual who alleged that MacArthur was “dying in the hospital.” Johnson dismissed the rumor, writing, “Anonymous, of course. And he’s a chowderhead with a longstanding devilish agenda who always pretends to know more than he really does.”
“John MacArthur is currently getting treatment for some symptoms that have plagued his recovery from heart-valve replacement. Those who need to know more details do know,” Johnson stated.
“John IS currently hospitalized, and the persistence of these symptoms is a concern. But the suggestion that he has been handed over to palliative care is a sinister lie, concocted by this pernicious character who has been lying about JM and GCC for 5+ years. Ignore him.”
Johnson stated that MacArthur generally does not want extensive public announcements about his condition.
On Facebook, Johnson wrote, “It’s one of his quirks, and it is a years-old policy of his. The scarcity of public announcements about his health is not something unique to this current illness.”
Johnson has been confronting his own health challenges.
He disclosed a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, a condition described as incurable but treatable.
“My cancer treatment so far has been somewhat eventful (a couple of trips to the USC Medical Center for extra stitches on a surgical incision), but it has not been as bad as I feared,” he wrote on Jan. 18.
