Archives for January 9, 2023

By God’s grace, we had another great and thoroughly enjoyable day today, teaching four more hours of Reformed Experiential Preaching to Dr. John MacArthur’s doctoral students at The Master’s Seminary, Grace Community Church, Los Angeles. This doctor of ministry program is headed up by Dr. Steve Lawson (photo 1), who is assisted by Rev. Andrew Curry (photo 2). It was great to spend some time with both of these dear brothers throughout this time of teaching, including having lunch with them each day.

Tomorrow morning I conclude the REP class, and then the Queen and I head for the airport if it is still open. Presently, Los Angeles is experiencing steady, torrential rains that are supposed to continue through tomorrow. Please pray that our plane would be able to arrive and depart despite the heavy rain.

We had a blessed Lord’s Day yesterday at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles (pastored by Dr. John MacArthur for the last 50+ years). About 5000 people attend the two (repeat) morning services (photo 1), and close to 2000 attend the evening service. Dr. Michael Reeves from Wales preached an outstanding sermon in the morning on the fear of God from Isaiah 8 (photo 2), which was very helpful for many (including my own soul), and I preached in the evening on Jacob’s five contagious blessings that accrued from his experience of wrestling with the Angel of the Covenant (Gen. 32:24-32). (You can listen to my and Dr. Reeves’ sessions here: https://www.gracechurch.org/sermons/20582
https://www.gracechurch.org/sermons/20583 )

After the morning service, we had a delightful time of fellowship and a delicious meal at the home of one of the leading pastors who has been working closely with Dr. MacArthur for close to fifteen years—Dr. Austin and Merrily Duncan and their four children (photo 3). (Dr. Duncan also did two segments of interviews with me last Friday for Grace Community Church’s popular new podcast. So far, they have done 14 podcasts which have resulted in more than one million listeners!). Here is a link to the first episode of the podcast series: https://macarthurcenter.org/the-expositor/

We also enjoyed speaking with Dr. Phil and Darlene Johnson (photo 4). Phil assists Dr. MacArthur in editing his books for publication and speaks at various conferences as well. I first got to know him as a friend about twenty years ago when we were fellow speakers at conferences held in London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle (Spurgeon’s former church).

I covet your prayers for today and tomorrow as I conclude teaching my Reformed Preaching Class to 50 of Dr. MacArthur’s Doctor of Ministry students—just 6 more hours, and then we will be homebound! Pray that it may be a blessing to these dear brothers who are asking great questions in class—it has been a great joy to be with them.