Pastor John MacArthur (1939 – 2025) was the president and feature teacher with Grace to You, an international nonprofit radio and television ministry that shares powerful biblical messages around the world. What I love about Grace to You is that all of Pastor MacArthur’s over 3,000 sermons are available for free on the website.
He wrote literally several hundred books and study guides and each book has a no compromise message on the gospel and the Bible. He served as the senior pastor at Grace Community Church for over 50 years and was a humble servant of the Lord who knew his calling and loved his Savior.
Below are some of his most powerful and serious quotes on Jesus, the Bible and Christian living, that I pray you will meditate on.1
“The true gospel is a call to self-denial. It is not a call to self-fulfillment.”
“We should not be entertained by the sins for which Christ died.”
“The cross is proof of both the immense love of God and the profound wickedness of sin.”
“It wasn’t a potential atonement actuated by the sinner; it was an actual atonement initiated by the savior.”
“Without a proper view of God there cannot exist a proper view of man.”
“If you are ever to know power and passion in your prayer life, you need to pray with a devout heart-with a pure motive seeking only the glory of God. You also need to pray with a humble heart seeking only the attention of God, not men. Finally, you need to pray with a confident heart knowing full well that God already knows what you need.”
“If you please God, it does not matter whom you displease. And if you displease Him, it does not matter whom you please.”
“It is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition. There is nothing that tells the truth about us as Christian people so much as our prayer life.…”
“He calls us to obey, not because He needs us but because He knows we need Him.”
“Jesus gave us, His children, three reasons for not worrying about this life: It is unnecessary because of our Father, it is uncharacteristic because of our faith, and it is unwise because of our future.”
“While nothing in the Bible is contradictory, many of the Bible’s most provocative and profound truths appear to us paradoxical.”
“The one most valuable lesson humanity ought to have learned from philosophy is that it is impossible to make sense of truth without acknowledging God as the necessary starting point.”
“Why would we spend our lives being amused by the dim hue of the television when we could be breathlessly enraptured in the blazing brilliance of Christ’s glory? Let us keep our eyes on Christ, the Author and Perfecter of the faith. In so doing, we will have little appetite for the fading illusions of this passing world.”
“Let’s begin with a simple assumption. Since God has a will for us, He must want us to know it. If so, then we could expect Him to communicate it to us in the most obvious way. And how would that be? Through the Bible, His revelation.”
“Truth cannot be subjective; there is no such thing as your truth or my truth. Truth is forever fixed. Authentic Christianity has always held that Scripture is absolute, objective truth. The Bible is God’s truth regardless of whether a person believes, understands, or likes it. It is permanent and universal truth, and therefore, is the same for everyone.”
“God sends His people forth as ambassadors into a fallen, lost world, bearing amazing good news.”
“Paul’s supreme passion was to see men saved. He cared nothing for personal comfort, popularity, or reputation. He offered no compromise of the gospel, because he knew it is the only power available that can change lives for eternity.”
“Hopelessness is one reason men have devised so many false religions. People must have some kind of expectation for the future if they are to survive the present. Some people delude themselves with false hopes, and others escape through drink or drugs. All that is because life without hope is not worth living.”
“For confidence in the future, trust the Word.”
“You are the only Bible some unbelievers will ever read, and your life is under scrutiny every day. What do others learn from you? Do they see an accurate picture of your God?”
“Precisely because it is so powerful, the Bible has always had its enemies. Unbelievers challenge its credibility. Skeptics question its accuracy. Moral revisionists depreciate its precepts. Religious liberals dispute its supernatural character. Cultists twist its meaning.”
“Scripture repeatedly makes clear that heaven is a realm of unsurpassed joy, unfading glory, undiminished bliss, unlimited delights, and unending pleasures. Nothing about it can possibly be boring or humdrum. It will be a perfect existence. We will have unbroken fellowship with all heaven’s inhabitants. Life there will be devoid of any sorrows, cares, tear, fears, or pain.”
“There are basically only two kinds of religion in the world: those based on human achievement and those based on divine accomplishment. One says you can earn your way to heaven; the other says you must trust in Jesus Christ alone.”
“The Christian life is not adding Jesus to one’s own way of life but renouncing that personal way of life for His and being willing to pay whatever cost that may require.”
“Christians are not left in the world by accident but are placed there on divine assignment from their Lord.”
1 All of these John MacArthur quotes are from the websites below: