During an episode of “The MacArthur Center Podcast” released on March 4, John MacArthur shared that his kidneys are failing.
Titled “The Grace of Technology,” the podcast episode focused on how MacArthur, in both his ministry and health, has benefited from advancements in technology.
MacArthur celebrated 56 years as Grace Community Church’s (GCC) pastor-teacher in February, but due to his health, he was unable to preach more than half of 2024 and all of 2025 so far.
Describing his current physical condition, MacArthur said, “The truth is, I went 85 years and then went off a cliff.”
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“I had the need for surgery on my veins to keep me alive. I had surgery on my lungs to keep me alive,” he explained. “I had a replacement—this is amazing—of the aortic valve with a procedure called TAVR to keep me alive.”
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is an outpatient surgery that involves replacing the aortic valve without ever opening up a patient’s chest.
MacArthur Shares That Dialysis Is Keeping Him Alive
MacArthur shared that he is being kept “alive by stints,” “a cow valve,” and “dialysis.”
“This will be new to people,” he said. “My kidneys have essentially come down to the final stage.” MacArthur explained that “over the last two months, I’ve been in a long, elongated hospital setting, and I’ve come out of that and entered into the world of dialysis.”
“It keeps me alive,” he added. “Literally dialysis. I can sit in a chair and watch my blood go out and spin through this machine that does what a kidney does.” MacArthur shared that he has to undergo the treatment “three times a week” for “four hours.” MacArthur said that he “can’t live without it.”
MacArthur praised God for the body he was given. “It’s been through a lot. It’s been a lot of places, done a lot of things. It’s carried me in and out of virtually every part of the world,” he said. “It served me well to provide a voice for preaching and teaching. God used it in my marriage to produce four wonderful, godly children…grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.”
“But I also understand that the body is temporary, and I’m okay with that,” MacArthur acknowledged. “I’m at the point where I’m running out of the capability of this body. And I long for my body, which is from above, but I want to make sure I ring everything that this body can do. So I’m going through every procedure I can.”
