So many great Christians are being called home…
Most Christians have just learned about the sudden passing of Voddie Baucham in America. I had seen him speak in Melbourne not all that long ago. He was only 56. There will be many moving tributes for this great Christian, so I will leave others to do this.
But I am reminded of how the death of God’s leaders often paves the way for new ones to come on the scene. We are certainly seeing that with the murder of Charlie Kirk. And Scripture provides various examples of this. Simply think of how the prophet Elisha followed on from Elijah, asking for a double portion of his anointing.
And the rag-tag team of dis-spirited and often feckless disciples became the mighty driving force of the early church after Jesus died and rose again. The biblical principle of John 12:24 so often applies here: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Here I will just highlight a few things about Baucham and some others who have recently passed. Let me mention just five of them who have gone to be with their Saviour in the past six months, and share a few quotes from each. But Baucham will get the bulk of my attention.
Voddie Baucham – September 25, 2025, age 56
“The gospel is the glorious, Christ-centered, cross-centered, grace-centered news of what God has done in Jesus Christ (the last Adam) to redeem man from the fall of his federal head (the first Adam) and to give man an eschatological hope that all things will eventually be redeemed in Christ.”
“I do not mean that we must accept the world’s faulty, emasculated, unbiblical version of love—the version that sees any disagreement or confrontation as inherently unloving. No, we must love each other with a tenacious, biblical, Christlike love.”
“True repentance is the result of an accurate understanding of the significance and gravity of sin, coupled with an overwhelming desire for the remission of that sin through the person and work of Christ and turning from sin and dead works to faith and obedience.”
“I am happy to save every single child I can. I am not a social justice warrior, but I believe God meant it when He said, ‘Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause’ (Isaiah 1:17). But I don’t believe He called me to use the government as a proxy. God calls His people to be His hands and feet in this regard. Believing this transformed my life and that of my family to the tune of adopting seven newborns in nine years as an expression of our pro-life commitment.”
“We are seeing a complete cultural shift in our perception of marriage as the preferred state. In fact, I believe this trend is foreshadowing something far more serious—a wholesale rejection of marriage as an institution.”
“The church does not meet as often as the home. Thus, if Christ is to be worshipped daily, it is incumbent upon the home to play an important spiritual role. Consequently, fathers, as heads of households, are thrust into a pastoral role.”
“The gospel is about much more than how we get saved and go to heaven. The gospel is about the work of Christ saturating every aspect of our lives.”
“Suffering is common for all. However, persecution (which is a form of suffering) can be avoided. All you have to do is compromise.”
“Sometimes God is glorified when sick saints get well. But more often than not, God is glorified when sick saints die well.”
“You are going to hear a rumor one day, that Voddie Baucham is no more. Don’t you believe it, don’t you believe it, don’t you believe it, because though I die, I will rise with Christ. It will not be the end of me because Christ is raised, and I too will be raised with Christ.”
I reviewed one of his books HERE.
Charlie Kirk – September 10, 2025, age 31
“I mean, I’m nothing without Jesus. I’m a sinner. I fall incredibly short of the glory of God. We all do. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade, and it’s the most important decision I’ve ever made, and everything I do incorporates Jesus Christ.”
“The greatest minds of history have been mesmerized by the Scriptures — Isaac Newton, Thomas Aquinas. Isaac Newton wrote more about biblical prophecy than even physics. And so there’s something about the Scriptures that are intellectual, that does push your limits. And that’s what I think is so beautiful about our faith is it can be accessible to everyone, but also infinitely nourishing in exploration.”
“If you believe in something, you need to have the courage to fight for those ideas – not run away from them or try and silence them.”
“I wanna be remembered for courage for my faith. That that would be the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith in my life.”
“Jesus defeated death so you can live.”
Here is one of many pieces I wrote on him.
James Dobson – August 21, 2025, age 89
“One of the first things you and your fiance need to develop is a meaningful prayer life even before the wedding. My wife, Shirley, and I did that, and the time we have spent on our knees has been the stabilizing factor throughout nearly forty years of marriage.”
“Traditional Judeo-Christian values literally hang in the balance in America. They can be ‘forgotten’ in a single generation if they are not taught to children and teenagers… It could happen here if we don’t defend what we believe.”
“You have to work to keep love alive; you have to protect it and maintain it, just like you would a delicate flower.”
“By learning to yield to the loving authority of his parents, a child learns to submit to other forms of authority which will confront him later in his life — his teachers, school principal, police, neighbors and employers.”
“The universe and everything in it will someday pass away and be made new by the Creator. Therefore, the events of today that seem so important are not really very significant, except for those matters that will survive the end of the universe.”
John MacArthur – July 14, 2025, age 86
“Our responsibility is simply to make our witness faithful; it is God’s responsibility alone to make it effective.”
“Love and truth must be maintained in perfect balance. Truth is never to be abandoned in the name of love. But love is not to be deposed in the name of truth… Truth without love has no decency; it’s just brutality. On the other hand, love without truth has no character; it’s just hypocrisy.”
“Godly character is not the result of good intentions, wishful thinking, some mystical ‘zap,’ or even sheer Bible knowledge. It’s developed through the self-disciplined application of God’s Word at a very basic level, enabled and empowered by God’s Spirit.”
“Christians are not left in the world by accident but are placed there on divine assignment from their Lord.”
“All death can do to the believer is deliver him to Jesus.”
See my write-up about him HERE.
Phil Robertson – May 25, 2025, age 79
“This is the problem with spiritual darkness. It obscures the reality of the God who is not only there but is infinite in every way. Infinitely powerful! Infinitely present! Infinitely good! But when we choose darkness, it overshadows our view of the literal Creator of the cosmos.”
“Without God, we don’t have a moral code, we have no way to remove our sins, and we have no hope for our eternal future.”
“The reason they’re in our government to begin with is because ungodly people elect ungodly politicians. Elected officials in a democracy are simply replicas of the electorate. They are a reflection of who our country is made of. We are the problem.”
“I’ll say this more than once, but this is my theme in this book. When I cast my eyes and thoughts on Jesus (Heb. 3:1, 12:2), it isn’t long before I begin to find him beautiful. And the more beautiful he becomes to me, the more I desire him. And the more I desire him, the less I am obsessed with the fleeting things of this world.”
We miss these great men of God. But if the Lord should tarry, he will raise up many more like them. Our job is to remain faithful, just as they were.
This article was originally published at BillMuehlenberg.com.
