ONE // On My Own for the Weekend

My wife has decided to leave me and the dog to our own devices this weekend while she wanders off to see her best friend graduate from nursing school. I will be feasting on TV dinners and junk food while the dog feasts on my leftovers. I had fun when I was a bachelor in my early 20s with no responsibilities, so I assumed that when my wife left for the weekend, I would have fun again. I would go where I wanted, do what I wanted, and eat what I wanted. Nope. It’s not the same. Now, I’m older. I miss my wife. I don’t know where anything is in the kitchen because that’s her domain. I can’t eat anything with onions or garlic past 7 PM because I get acid reflux, and I have to be back home in front of my computer at 1:00 PM for a class on Christian Holiness. I also have to do sermon prep, reading for class, homework, and work on a couple of other projects I’ve got in the oven. Life isn’t fun in your 30s, and from what I’ve heard, it just keeps getting worse.

However, this evening, I’m going to break out my Magic cards, go to Green Door Collectibles tonight, and try to take a well-deserved break from everything and start it all again tomorrow morning.

TWO // That’ll Teach Me to be Excited

Or, My Treatise Against Homework

Speaking of reading and homework, I was really excited last week to get my books and start reading for my Theology of Christian Holiness class that I start this afternoon. However, after looking over the syllabus and assignments, I realized that I was excited far too soon. I quickly realized that these classes were not designed for people like me who pastor two churches, work a job, and have other things going on in their lives. These classes are clearly for people used to the workload and drudgery of academia (i.e., students fresh out of undergrad) who don’t have anything else going on except maybe a part-time job.

While I am excited about the content of the class, the workload looks annoying, to say the least. But then again, I had problems with the concept of homework even in junior high. I passed all of my classes by the skin of my teeth because I hardly ever did homework. I made As and Bs on all of my tests, but my homework grades were horrendous because I simply didn’t see a point in it. I guess I was just too philosophically minded for my own good. I could never grasp the purpose of going to class for 7-8 hours a day, and then doing more work (because attending class is work) when you get home. I still don’t.

Is the purpose of homework to make sure the student is absorbing the information? That’s what tests are for. Is the purpose to make the student able to explain what they’re learning? That’s what term papers due at the end of the semester are for. You cannot convince me that homework on any academic level or for any subject is necessary.

It’s for all these reasons and more that I think, after I complete this class, that I’m going to transfer from Wesley Biblical Seminary to Asbury. The Course of Study classes are cheaper and shorter, and I’ve “heard tell” that the homework is significantly lighter.

THREE // The Spirit and the Gifts Are Ours

Last Friday, I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion for PlainSpoken where we exchanged ideas about many issues facing the Global Methodist Church in light of the upcoming General Conference in Johannesburg.

When I was asked about the gifts of the Spirit, I don’t think I necessarily “flubbed” my answer as much as I probably didn’t explain myself very well due to the time constraints and wanting to allow the other six panelists to give their input.

One of the things I said was, “Someone who thinks they’re hearing from God should have the freedom to come to pastor and say, ‘I think I have a word of knowledge. How do I know if I’m really hearing from God or if this is just gas?’”

I probably said that in a more flippant tone than I should have, but my point (that I don’t think I made very well) was twofold: (1) The Bible tells us that every member of Christ’s body has some kind of spiritual gift, and (2) pastors need to help their flock discern what their gifts are so that the body of Christ can be edified and built up together.

In a church system that teaches that gifts of the Spirit died out with death of the last apostle or with the closing of canon, the default answer to whether someone might be hearing from God is always going to be no, but if the Holy Spirit isn’t working in the lives of God’s people just as He was in the first century then the only real participation that people are going to think that they have in the body is just to show up on Sunday and hear whatever their cessationist pastor cooked up for a biblical lecture in his study that week.

This is part of the reason why I believe much of the Church in America has become something of a spectator sport. If you can’t hear from God and discern what gift or gifts God has given you, then the default option is to show up and watch.

Now, some might argue this is something of a straw man because there are still people today on the cessationist side of the argument who are “discerning” whether or not they’re called into ministry. There are people on the cessationist side of things who participate in evangelism and go around sharing the Gospel. There are people on the cessationist side of things who, despite their pneumatology, are competent teachers and preachers of the word. However, they somehow manage to overlook the fact that they have these gifts in spite of the fact that the Holy Spirit hasn’t distributed the gifts since the closing of the canon or the death of the last apostle (depending on which of those stories you want to believe).

FOUR // Aforementioned Projects

If you’ve been a faithful reader of my content, then I might as well go ahead and give you a rundown of what I’ve got going on.

First, things I have to do every week:

• Sermon Prep (10-20 hours a week)

• Work

• Class for the GMC (reading, homework, etc.)

Second, Side Projects

• “Clashes with the Christ: Jesus and the Pharisees in Luke’s Gospel” - This is a forthcoming book based on the sermon series of the same name that I preached over the course of the Fall and Spring at my churches.

• An untitled book on Jonah - This is also based on a sermon series I preached at my churches.

• This blog

• A large article that traces the doctrine of Divine Impassibility from the Jürgen Moltmann/Karl Rahner debate through the Emergent Church movement and into the present day. This will get posted here on the Substack whenever it gets done.

• Classes through Andersonville Theological Seminary (It’s a long story as to why I’m doing classes through two different seminaries, which I’ll be happy to explain to anyone, but it’s a lot to type out, and it’s unnecessary here.)

Third, Forthcoming Side Projects (No Timeline for These Projects as I Haven’t Even Started Them Yet)

• “Cumberland Conundrum: My Time in the Ruins of a Once Great Movement” - This will be a compilation of essays and sermons written to address issues that were going on in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and specifically the Arkansas Presbytery and the now defunct West Tennessee Presbytery that eventually led to my departure. This will probably be the longest book I’ve written.

• Commentary on 1st and 2nd Thessalonians - This will be a compilation of sermons that I’m currently preaching based on these books of the Bible

• Reviving the Acceptable Words Podcast - Right now I need better equipment and a reasonable schedule and format. I want to create something between a “Christianized” Joe Rogan podcast and The Dividing Line, but with significantly less James White.

Who knows, maybe I should just put down all my side projects and just address the things that are right in front of me. After all, there are pastors all across this great nation who are just content to preach to their people week after week. They don’t have any inclination to write or publish anything. They just have a simple desire to share what God lays on their heart week after week. I’ve sat under such pastors. My own grandfather was such a pastor.

However, at the same time, I have this desire to have an outlet where I can post my thoughts and opinions on things, and if I can use that outlet to equip others, then all the better. Part of the reason I write is that I want others to benefit from the things I read and study, and I don’t know any other way for that to happen than to write about it. Ultimately, I don’t want what I’ve done to die with me. I don’t really care so much about leaving a name or legacy behind as much as I want to leave a testimony. I want to do things that are worthwhile and have meaning.

Well, anyway, that got vulnerable pretty quickly. Might delete that later.

FIVE // Meme of the Week

This is why we can’t have nice things.

As always, if you like what you’re reading and want to support my work, then you can follow me on all my socials and purchase my merch and books at this link. Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. I really appreciate it!

Also, my new book, A Bitter Place, is out now! Order your copy at this link today!

ONE // Preparing for Class

I’ve signed up for another class at Wesley Biblical Seminary. This time I’m taking Theology of Christian Holiness taught by Dr. Chris Lohrstorfer. I’ve got all three of my books, and I’ve been looking over them in preparation for the first class.

I was a little leary of Clark Pinnock’s book because he was a known open theist, but this particular edition, which has added commentary by Daniel Castelo (who is not an open theist), should clear up any errors in that particular department. I’ve also been reassured that it’s only the first five chapters of the book that are pertinent to the class.

I am, however, very excited about Gregg R. Allison’s book, simply titled The Holy Spirit. In this book, Allison takes the time to speak about the role and activity of the Holy Spirit in every book of the Bible. It’s really fascinating, and it’s proving to be a must-have resource for every pastor.

Dr. Lohrstorfer’s book, Learning to Breathe, is also incredibly helpful. The title might be a little cheesy, but from the very first page you are thrust headlong into Wesleyan thought and practice when it comes to learning how to breathe in grace and breathe out grace through partaking of means of grace (sacraments, worship, hearing the preached word, etc.) and engaging with spiritual disciplines.

As a side note, I can’t wait until I’m able to teach a class of my own and make one of my books a required textbook for the class. Until then, we plod along.

TWO // Bro, Just Read the Source Material

One of the most fascinating things about all the discussion concerning Christian Nationalism on the internet is that, by and large, most of the people who are talking about it don’t really know what it is or how to define it in such a way that an avowed Christian Nationalist would recognize it.

Most of the self-professing Christians on the internet who are going on and on about how the teachings and practices of Christian Nationalism are antithetical to the teachings and practices of Jesus would probably have a lot of positive things to Tim Keller (and to be fair, I do too), and yet they would overlook one of his most prominent principles when it comes to argumentation: “Never describe the view of an opponent in a way he or she will not own.”

Not only that, Christian Nationalism is such a broad term that you have to specify which form you’re attacking because if you just say, “I’m against all of it,” then what you’re basically saying is that you’re against America having any laws that reflect Christianity in any way, which sounds, I don’t know, very un-Christlike. Most people would agree that having laws against murder and theft is objectively good, but once you point out that those are laws that have established God Himself, then all of a sudden you’re a white Anglo-Saxon Christian Nationalist with some kind of racist, sexist, homophobic agenda or whatever else Andrew L. Whitehead or David French say about you. To be honest, I’m surprised Phil Vischer and The Holy Post haven’t done an episode on how we should re-evaluate any laws reflecting moral biblical principles for fear that folks might get the idea that we’re a Christian nation.

Another fascinating thing about all of this discussion is that I’ve seen Douglas Wilson do a chapter-by-chapter review where he thoughtfully engages with Caleb Campbell’s book.1 Yet, I’ve not seen any thoughtful engagement from the other side on the source material. Sure, I’ve seen a review here or there on Stephen Wolfe’s book, but these reviews overlook a couple of things: (1) Unless you just glazed over the last paragraph, there are different flavors and nuances of Christian Nationalism. There are some significant differences between that kind of CN that Wolfe proposes and the kind of CN that Douglas Wilson proposes, and (2) I’ve not seen a single review that doesn’t create strawmen of what they’re reading. Either they lack reading comprehension, or they’re just picking out a few sentences here or there to get their blood pressure up over, and, as typical American Evanjellyfish go, it could be either one of those.

It seems like anytime I see talk about Christian Nationalism online, I’ll ask them if they’ve read Douglas Wilson’s FAQs on Christian Nationalism so that they’re sure of what they’re talking about, and they don’t want to engage with it. They just want to engage with what their idea of Christian Nationalism is, and until that nonsense stops, no real discussion can be had.

Now, after reading all of that, you might wonder whether or not I myself am a Christian Nationalist. I’m a Christian Nationalist in the sense that I believe “the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”2 I don’t know if I would be a cookie-cutter Christian Nationalist in the way that the Moscow Mood tends to present the idea, but I will say that I much favor what they have to offer rather than all Russell Moore-ons of the world who would probably rather our nation just forget God altogether for fear of us being accused of espousing Christianity.

More than being a proponent of Christian Nationalism, I’m a proponent of fighting well and fighting fair, and I don’t see a lot of those things from anyone over at Relevant Magazine, Christianity Today (with the exception of maybe Bonnie Kristian and I’ve even had to take her to task at least once), or any other platform that tends to get their jollies off on accusing staunch conservative Christians of all of the “isms” and “phobias” that they can find in their dictionaries.

THREE // Paul’s Writings Are Kind of a Big Deal

The only ministerial alliances I’ve been a part of disbanded and fell off into the ether not too long after I joined the fold. Maybe what they say is true; perhaps I am ugly, and my mother dresses me funny. Or, maybe I’ve worked in a funeral home too long, and the smell of death and embalming fluid passes from me onto whatever endeavor I put my hand to. Or, maybe those alliances were already on the decline when I got there, and I just happened to show up late to the party.

I’m being dramatic. It was the third one. Anyway, the first ministerial alliance I was a part of had a Messianic Jewish congregation as a fellowshipping congregation. I didn’t have a problem with this because my general assumption was that Messianic Jews were generally just Christians who insisted too much on the Jewish fasts and practices of the Old Testament. While I might squabble with them over how necessary those things are for New Testament believers, the important thing was that we affirmed Jesus as Lord and Messiah, and that we wanted others to do the same.

However, as time went on and I got the opportunity to ask our representative from the Messianic Jewish community some questions, I quickly realized that maybe there wasn’t as much basis for fellowship as I had originally thought. One day at a community prayer event, I asked her point blank, “So, what do you do with the entire book of Galatians?” The response I got was startling.

“We don’t really believe that Paul’s writings have any authority. We just go by the Old Testament and the four gospels and maybe the book of Revelation.”

Now I realize that Messianic Jew is a broad term, and there might be some Messianic Jews who disagree entirely with her response, but what she said had confirmed some of my suspicions all along. They were blatantly just picking and choosing which parts of the Bible to follow and which ones not to.

A.M. Hickman, quoted by his wife in her excellent article, When I Was a Judaizer, identifies exactly what I was seeing play out before my eyes.

My wife’s family is “Messianic,” meaning they’re gentile Christians who observe Torah law.

There’s a big problem in their communities: many adherents eventually become suspicious of the Pauline Epistles, and then, over time, come to reject the New Testament as well as the divinity and even the historicity of Christ. In time, many even come to engage in animal sacrifices again (!)

They seem to start with the Seventh-Day Adventist type contention about the Saturday Sabbath, then start digging deeply into the Old Testament to abide by its laws. The result are numerous gatherings for the feast of Sukkot in places like Oklahoma and Arkansas, where Scots-Irish looking rednecks are blowing shofars on their ATV’s and wearing things like camo Yarmulkes and Teffillin to all-night “Midrash” debates about obscure re-readings of the book of Leviticus, etc.

“The Feast of Tabernacles” was easily one of the absolute weirdest, wildest things I’ve ever seen in America.

In time, their kids seem to either leave Messianism entirely or to eventually reject the Messiah altogether. They have no unified doctrine of any kind, either; every household seems to observe a mostly self-made religion that conflicts with that of basically every other adherent. It’s a lot of schisming, arguing, holding fast to mostly illegible traditions, etc. The joke many adherents themselves like to make is that Messianics are really into “Messy Antics.” It’s an apt witticism. (Source.)

While the group that was in fellowship with our ministerial alliance hadn’t entirely rejected the New Testament, alarm bells would go off in my head whenever she would talk about the feasts or invite us to any events that their synagogue would be doing.

It was concerning to say the least, but at the same time, there wasn’t much I could do. I could see the writing on the wall for the ministerial alliance for other unrelated reasons, so there wasn’t much point in trying to encourage us to disfellowship a congregation over not agreeing on which parts of the Bible were authoritative.

For me, however, it was a lesson learned. You’d better vet who you’re going to be in fellowship with.

FOUR // Meme of the Week

I think the last time I had a meme of the week, Confessional Corn Dog got the award. Maybe? I don’t remember, and I’m not going to go back and look. Either way, Confessional Corn Dog got it this time.

As always, if you like what you’re reading and want to support my work, then you can follow me on all my socials and purchase my merch and books at this link. Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. I really appreciate it!

Also, my new book, A Bitter Place, is out now! Order your copy at this link today!

Introduction

A few days ago, I saw a video from a content creator on TikTok who was talking about how Sony is going to discontinue physical media, and her whole argument was that they’re lying to you about doing this because they’ve already done it. Her argument was that if you go into a store, buy a game on a physical disc, take it home, and pop it in your system, the system will almost always demand an active internet connection to install and patch the software. The installation takes as long as it takes, depending on your internet connection speed. Her theory is that the disc you buy is actually a key that grants you access to the license to be able to download it from the PlayStation Store. Someone smarter and more knowledgeable than I am about such things can tell me if her theory is right or wrong. What I’m really concerned about is what she said next.

What you should be really mad about is how inaccessible gaming is about to be for people who are low income. Think about how many people out there could never afford a full price digital copy of a game that never seems to go on sale except for Christmas time, but they were able to afford a used physical copy at GameStop so that they can enjoy gaming. It’s gonna be completely inaccessible for the people that can’t afford to pay full price. That’s what you should be mad about. (Source.)

I watched that video with the same amount of curiosity you might have if you saw a dolphin suddenly start tap dancing. The one question that came to my mind was “When did this become an issue of social justice?” When did we as a nation go from “Poor kids are starving; we need to make sure they get food” to “Poor kids won’t be able to afford video games; we need to do something about it”? It honestly tells you how prosperous we are as a nation when one of the main concerns from the social justice warriors is making sure poor kids have access to all the latest video games. But just so you don’t think I’m sitting on my privileged high horse, allow me to tell you where I come from.

Where I’m Writing From

I grew up in the stereotypical “poor household.” My mother received government benefits in the form of SSI and food stamps (which would later be renamed SNAP). On top of that, she received child support payments from my father. We were in a situation where we didn’t have a house payment or rent, so you would think with our income and SNAP that we would do okay, and we would have had it not been for my mother, who was a selfish sociopathic narcissist who was also horrendous with money. My mother is a perfect illustration of why you can’t just expect to solve poverty issues by throwing money at people who are impoverished. They have to know what to do with what they are given, and my mother was never one of those people, and she never will be. People who don’t understand how the world works will always soak up resources like sponges and never contribute anything else to anyone, even their own families.

The essential bills like electricity and water were paid (most of the time), and we bought groceries on the 5th of every month, but somehow, after a week or two, the cabinets and fridge were nearly empty except for the Cokes or Dr. Peppers that only my mother was allowed to drink. I had Top Ramen a lot. My grandparents were the ones who really made sure I never went hungry. I went to their house every weekend. Every Friday, they would pick me up from school and bring me back home every Sunday night after church. Sometimes they would even send groceries home with me. If I brought anything into the house, I was emotionally manipulated into “sharing” it with her because, according to her, “I didn’t raise you to be selfish and not share anything.” This was rich coming from her.

And yet, in spite of our financially adverse circumstances, my mother always found a way to get cigarettes. We could have a nearly empty pantry, but Mom would have a pack of cigarettes. God only knows where or how she got them. Once, when she was dating a younger man, she traded food stamps to her boyfriend’s brother in exchange for cigarettes. That’s the only time I know for certain that it happened, but I’m sure it happened more than once.

I don’t say any of this to garner sympathy; I say this because my exposure to video games didn’t come from my mother. My exposure to video games started when I was 3, and my parents were still married. My dad bought an SNES, and the first game he bought with it was Zelda: A Link to the Past. From what I recall from my dad, my mother initially thought the console was a waste of money, and then she played with it more than he did. He worked all day, and she sat on her tuckus playing Zelda and watching soap opera.

When my dad did get to play games on his days off, I have fond memories of sitting in his lap, his arms wrapped around me, with the controller in my lap so I could see which buttons he was pressing. I was taught how to play Zelda, Tecmo Super Bowl III, and Civilization. To this day, these are my favorite games on the SNES.

After my parents divorced, my mom and I went to live with my maternal grandmother (hereafter referred to as Grandma Billie. My grandparents that I mentioned above are my dad’s parents.) I don’t remember what occasion it was for, but in '99 or 2000, Grandma Billie bought me a purple Game Boy Color. Along with that, I got Wario Land 3 and Pokémon Gold. To this day, I still can’t make it past The Peaceful Village, but I sure had fun trying.

Later, my grandparents got me a PS1. My childhood best friend later gave me her PS2 when she got a PS3. The games I had were bought and paid for by my grandparents at used game stores, or they were hand-me-downs. I was never on the cutting edge of gaming, and I’m still not. Video games were nice, but they were not necessary. While they did provide me with an escape into an otherwise bleak childhood, it would have been better for my childhood not to have been bleak and given me a reason to look for an escape.

You’ll notice that in all of the situations I mentioned above, it wasn’t my mother who was buying these things for me; it was other people. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not bitter or angry. If you think I’m somehow discombobulated over my mother not feeding my gaming habit, then you’re missing the point. My point is that we didn’t have extra money or extra anything else because my mother didn’t know how to steward the few resources that she had well. That’s what I’m really angry about. Even as I got older, I remember the arguments we had, where I told her that, as a teenager, I could take the money she made and make it stretch farther by being reasonable and responsible with it. It also wasn’t even that she didn’t know how to steward her resources well. As a mother, she didn’t know how to steward me well.

What’s Really Needed

You see, as enjoyable as video games were and still are for me, they’re not necessary.

When I was a kid, what I needed wasn’t a used copy of Smackdown 2: Know Your Role. I needed a mother who didn’t go wild after Grandma Billie died and started dating a new potential stepdad every few months. I didn’t need a used PS2. What I needed was a stable home life where my mother took me to church every Sunday, rather than just sending me with my grandparents or someone else who did go to church regularly. What I needed was a stable home life and assurance that I would have enough groceries to make it until the 5th of next month, when the food stamp card would be reloaded.

My fear is that when social justice warriors take to TikTok and say that low-income families “need” access to video games, what they’re really saying is that low-income families need an escape from reality so they don’t have to deal with the fact that they’re low-income. Rather than teaching people how to discipline themselves, steward their resources well, and better themselves, let’s make sure everyone has a console and some physical games. Forget the fact that there are websites where you can literally play those games in your browser for free.

Conclusion

If you walk away from this article saying, “Wow, Logan made a really good argument for why kids should never play video games,” then I’ve got to question your reading comprehension skills. I don’t want this to be a matter of “meeting needs good, meeting wants bad.” What I really want us to see is that the thing that kids from low-income households need most is stability. As someone who grew up low-income and knew other low-income families and households, I never once met another low-income family that wasn’t broken and dysfunctional in some way. I never met a low-income family where there were two parents in the home who didn’t struggle with addiction of some kind (whether it was tobacco, alcohol, drugs, or some other kind of addiction), and both worked to keep the bills paid and groceries in the house.

I have never once met a low-income family that was poor in the way that my grandparents described being poor when they were growing up, where both parents worked hard, but at the end of the day, they still had a meal around the table, and they were in church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, and even attended nightly revival services.

Every low-income family I’ve met was either missing a mother or a father, or if there were two parents in the house, one of them was a stepparent or “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” of the parent. They regularly used tobacco, alcohol, and/or drugs. Habits which all require money all while they struggled to keep the bills paid and groceries in the pantry.

My home was broken up when I was 6 years old. As tragic as that was, my life was still somewhat stable until the passing of my Grandma Billie when I was 10. After that, my childhood went through ebbs and flows of stability until I moved out at 18 to live with my grandparents in Dover and finished my senior year at Dover High School.

The reason our society thinks low-income families “deserve” and “need” access to video games in order to have an escape is because they don’t want to do what’s necessary to make sure kids don’t need an escape, and that’s tell their parents to repent, believe the Gospel, get involved in a Bible-believing church so they can be discipled as a family, and learn how to be disciplined enough to steward their resources well.

You want to play video games? That’s fine. Learn how to be stable first.

You want to have a cigar and a glass of brandy every once in a while after dinner? Cool. Make sure all your basic needs are met, and that you’re going to make it.

You can have your wants, but you have to understand that they are wants and not needs, and you have to be sure that your needs are met. It’s not complicated to explain, but for whatever reason, our society has a lot of trouble sorting this stuff out and putting it into practice.

ONE // Personal Updates, Trip to Texas, Etc.

Normally, in a Free For All Friday, I post links to articles and my brief opinion on the issues they cover, but this go-around, I’m just going to share some things that have been keeping me occupied over the last month, as well as a couple of interesting quotes and tidbits, and maybe a meme or two.

First, we found out that we had termites under our house, so we had to pay to have that addressed. By the way, shout to George Termite and Pest Control. They did a great job, got everything done in a timely manner, and did so at a great price. I can’t recommend them enough. Then, we have to figure out how to get the damage to the floor fixed. I don’t know very many reliable people whom I could call on to fix it that aren’t either incredibly expensive or incredibly booked up. I’m not as tool savvy as my grandpa was so I can’t really do much. I don’t really have that many skills to speak of other than reading and telling you what I read about, which is basically what sermon delivery is. (Yeah, yeah, I know. There’s a little more to it than that. Don’t be a keyboard warrior.)

After all that was taken care of, we went to Texas so that my wife could see her family and spend a little time with them. She’s always so happy to see her family in Texas. However, when I bring up the idea of possibly living there, she won’t even entertain it. She goes on a diatribe about the cost of living there, car inspections, and all kinds of other reasons why Arkansas is objectionably better. Despite it being in June, and despite the fact that we agreed a couple of years ago to never go to Texas in the middle of Summer again because it’s too dang hot, it really wasn’t that bad. The AC in our room stayed on 68 the whole time, and our dog, who really wasn’t feeling well, got along fine.

Speaking of our dog, Poppy had a huge tumor, a little larger than the size of my fist, on her abdomen. It had been growing for a while, but we didn’t have the means to get it looked at until recently. When we went to the vet, the vet didn’t like the look of it at all and wanted to squeeze us in for surgery the next day. So, we took our fur baby in the next day, and we waited and worried. I told my wife that we were never doing this with an animal again. Animals are not children, but you still love them, care for them, and dote on them. At her age and in her condition, there was a risk that she wouldn’t make it through surgery, but she did, and her recovery so far has been incredible. Not even a whole week out from surgery, we can tell that her stitches are healing up well, and she’s just as active as she was before. When I called her in from the yard yesterday, she even galloped up to the door with a speed that I haven’t seen her have in a while.

On our way out of Texas, my wife woke up with a sore throat and was sick. On our first stop, I got in the driver's seat, and she slept for most of the way home. I think I was even able to make a whole stop at a gas station without her noticing. She was so wiped out. Then, I started not feeling well. When we got back, I had to go to a rehearsal for a wedding that I was officiating, and then I officiated the wedding the next day, all with a sore throat, runny nose, and a persistent cough. I thank God I was able to get through it. It was a beautiful wedding, and I loved getting to meet the whole family. They’re such good people. I’m happy that God allowed everything to go as well as it did.

On the following day, which was Sunday, my wife stayed home because she was still sick, I drove the hour into Yell County, and preached at both of my churches. Then, when I went back home, I crashed. While I understand that some preachers have had worse than I have, and while I am incredibly thankful that things weren’t as bad as they could have been, I’ve also decided that reminding someone who is tired and suffering that it could be worse is profoundly unhelpful and doesn’t really solve any problems. However, that’s another sermon for another day.

On top of everything else, my schedule at my secular job keeps getting messed up, and my work routines have been disrupted for one reason or another. I guess I should just shut up, deal with it, and be thankful to have a job, but refer to the last half of the above paragraph.

All of this to say that June has been an eventful and expensive month. And of course, there are other issues and moving parts at work that I don’t talk about publicly because everyone (including myself) doesn’t post every detail of their lives online. So, there are other things that require my time, attention, energy, and/or money that I don’t want to discuss, but for the sake of this post, you should understand that they are there so you get an idea of where I’m coming from.

Here’s to hoping and praying that things get boring again. I don’t know if I have the stamina to keep this up. Prayers are appreciated.

TWO // Angry About What Exactly?

A couple of weeks ago, in response to what happened at the Southern Baptist Convention, I wrote this article. I’m not going to repeat what I have said because I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to do that, but I still think it’s interesting that the most outraged people are people who are outside the SBC and would never attend an SBC church under any normal circumstances.

If a church down the road that I don’t belong to makes a decision that doesn’t affect me or my church, then why should I, as a pastor, go online and raise a stink about it? Not only that, but it seems to me that much of the outrage is just posturing. In the article that I wrote, I said that the SBC was just posturing to appeal to the more conservative Reformed folks in their ranks, but I also think that many people online who are angry about it are just posturing for their audience as well because if you read the comments, you’ll mostly see things like, “Yes, Pastor Roxie, we’re so thankful that you stand for women in ministry in the Unitarian Femi-nazi Connexion Church. We get it. You’re so ✨BRAVE✨ and ✨STUNNING✨ to say that.”

You might say, “Logan, couldn’t someone make the argument that you yourself are posturing for your audience?” Ahh, yes, I, a nobody pastor in the middle of Nowhere, Arkansas, am posturing for all 4 and a half of my regular readers. Got to keep my fan base happy. I can’t let my platform collapse.

One of the healthiest responses I’ve seen from my denominational tribe on this issue has come from my friend, Rev. Elizabeth Kluender. I highly recommend her article, The Church is Fighting the Wrong War.

To those who might be against the idea of women in pastoral ministry, she says this:

…to those who do not support women in ministry: use your energy and fervor to preach Christ. If you are convinced that women should not serve as pastors, I respect the seriousness with which you approach Scripture. I simply ask that your primary energy be spent proclaiming Christ rather than opposing fellow believers. We may disagree about ordination, but we agree that a dying world needs the Gospel.

You can be against female pastors. As a theologically traditional clergywoman, I respect your conclusions. If you ask, I will gladly point you toward resources that explain the position better than I ever could. I understand the hesitation and even the disagreement because many of the women in ministry who receive public attention often represent theological positions that I would not embrace myself.

Abide in Christ.

Whether you agree or disagree, let’s not actively fight against one another.

I am not trying to convince anyone to be for or against women in ministry. I am not trying to get everyone to play in the same sandbox. Nor am I suggesting that we avoid difficult conversations because confrontation makes me uncomfortable. Conversations need to be had. Iron sharpens Iron.

Brothers and sisters, we need to be reminded that we are at war and it’s not with each other. The enemy would love nothing more than for the Church to spend its energy fighting itself while a lost world dies without Christ.

Amen. Couldn’t agree more.

THREE // A Deconstruction Meme

Here’s a good one from Confessional Corn Dog.

I’ve written a little about deconstruction here and here, but the second article I linked ties to a much better article about the topic by Michael Clary. Regardless, this excerpt from the second article is the gist of how I’ve observed people “deconstruct their faith.

They say each snowflake is unique, but they’re all cold and they’re made of the same stuff, so it is with deconstruction stories. They all have the same pattern, and they all fit the same bill. A person or someone they care about is participating in something that the Christian faith traditionally calls a sin, so they have to make a choice: (a) either repent or encourage repentance, or (b) continue participating in the sin or tolerating the sin if it’s in the life of someone they care about. They can frame it in all kinds of ways: “I didn’t want to believe in a God who would send people to hell for x,y, and z.” “The church is mean and judgmental.” Or, like Rhett, “I can’t find any respected voice who affirms the claims of Christianity.” To which, anyone with any amount of common sense should ask: “respected” according to which standard?

Apostasy has a clearly identifiable pattern that begins with a compromise on basic biblical truths. It can be any basic biblical truth, but because we live in such a sexually charged cultural climate, it usually comes down to wanting to hop in the sack and not feel bad about it. Of course, it never appears to be that simple. They might talk about how they believe the Bible contradicts itself, or they might question where God was when they were suffering, but pay attention to their life. Every person I’ve known who has “deconstructed their faith” has wound up shacking up, sleeping around, or embracing an “alternative lifestyle.” Deconstruction really isn’t all that complicated.

As always, if you like what you’re reading and want to support my work, then you can follow me on all my socials and purchase my merch and books at this link. Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. I really appreciate it!

Also, my new book, A Bitter Place, is out now! Order your copy at this link today!

The Check H has only been the Check H for the last couple of years, but before that, it was our local Western Sizzlin. After it changed hands and was renamed Check H, the menu, the buffet, and even the staff remained the same. It’s been a staple in this community for as long as I can remember.

When I was about eleven or twelve, my grandparents began going there on a regular basis, nearly every Sunday morning after church. Sometimes we would change it up by going to Ryan’s, KFC, or Pizza Meister/Berky’s Diner in Atkins, but Western Sizzlin was the staple. Most churches in the River Valley area had Sunday School at 10 AM, worship at 11 AM, and the service was over at 12:05 PM after about four good verses of “Just as I Am.” I was so hungry, and the zig-zagged line to get our drinks and plates before proceeding to the buffet was so long. God forbid it were a high holy day like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, or Easter—the line would be too long to bother with. It got to a point where we wouldn’t even eat out on those days because we knew it would be packed.

My grandpa seemed to know everyone. He knew preachers, politicians, and paupers alike. He would talk to anyone about anything. Sometimes he would make friends with people he didn’t know in the Western Sizzlin line. I didn’t know it at the time, but there was a word for this—networking. My grandpa might not have called it that, but that’s what it was. You see people, connect with them, and build relationships by asking simple questions like, “How are you doing?” “What have you been up to lately?”, or “How was church this morning?” If they were a preacher, you would ask questions like, “How many are you running?” or “What did you preach over?” I learned how to network in the line at Western Sizzlin by watching my grandpa.

When someone came into town to visit my grandparents, they were taken to Western Sizzlin.

When my grandparents and I had been in town all day, and Pa knew that Grandma would probably be too tired to cook, we went to Western Sizzlin.

When we were celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, or any occasion, really, we went to Western Sizzlin.

They knew Jamie, the manager, by name. He had been our waiter ever since he started working there. Even after he was promoted to management, he made sure to wait on us if he knew we were there.

After service on Sunday, we would often meet folks from our church there. We would share jokes and stories, and we’d even have informal business meetings. Many decisions were made, disagreements were had, hatchets were buried, and even relationships were strengthened all over a meal at Western Sizzlin.

When my grandpa died very suddenly in the summer of 2023, I took my grandma in there two weeks after he had passed, and our waitress (whose name escapes me, and I feel terrible for it) recognized us, said hello, and asked where my grandpa was. When I explained that he had passed, she hugged my grandma, and they both cried a little.

Since I’ve gotten older, I’ve sometimes continued the age-old tradition of going to Western Sizzlin (or as it was recently known, Check H) after church on Sunday with my wife, and it never fails—I’ll point out people to her and say, “That’s So-and-So, he pastors over at X Church,” or “That’s So-and-So, he used to run around with my grandpa.”

When the Western Sizzlin branding went away, I was afraid that I was yet again losing a place that had been special to my family and me, but when the Check H opened in its place, most of the food stayed the same. If there was any change at all, it was just that the food had gotten better, and there seemed to be more options on the buffet. A couple of months ago, they even added a chocolate fountain to the dessert bar. Business seemed to be booming, but then on Tuesday night, tragedy struck.

My wife and I were enjoying our meal at Brangus (which is just down the road from Check H) when we overheard our waitress say to another couple seated in our area that you could see smoke billowing from the Check H. When she turned to walk away, “Ma’am, did you say that smoke was billowing from the Check H?”

She said, “Yeah, it’s on fire. You can see the smoke from our parking lot. There are a lot of fire trucks down there.”

I was hoping that perhaps it was just a kitchen fire that had gotten a little out of control, and that after it was put out and the restaurant had a month or two to make necessary repairs, it would be back open, but it wasn’t to be. Thankfully, no one was harmed, and everyone made it out safely, but it was a total loss. One of the people that Aaron Thomas interviewed on the livestream on the scene from the River Country 102.3 KCJC page said that it was an electrical fire that started in the ceiling.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the owners and the employees. There are many people in the unknown right now due to the sudden loss of their jobs. If you’re reading this, please say a prayer for them right now. Pray that they’re able to move forward with strength in the face of this sudden loss. Pray that those who are unemployed will be able to quickly find employment, and that their needs will be met. Pray that this would be an opportunity for our community to see God’s goodness in action in the face of such a calamity. Also, if you’re able to do so, please give to the restaurant employee campaign that’s been set up to aid the employees during this time.

I hope this isn’t the end of the Check H and that this is the beginning of a new chapter, but whatever the outcome, I pray for closure, comfort, and peace for all those who were part of the Check H family. I would also be remiss if I didn’t say a quick word of thanks to all the firefighters who were on the scene and did their due diligence to put out the flames. I also want to say how thankful I am for the Russellville mayor, Fred Teague. He was on the scene nearly the whole time, providing help and encouragement to those who needed it. I can’t think of any other mayor who would drop what they were doing to be on the scene of an emergency as he did.

Nearly everyone reading this knows what happened. There’s not much need to rehash it, but here’s a summary anyway. Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, brought a motion that would amend the constitution so that there would be a formal ban on a woman being appointed to the office of pastor/elder/overseer, and it also forbids women from preaching to “an assembled congregation.” Looking past the vagueness of how they would define “preaching” or “an assembled congregation,” I have other opinions as a pastor in a denomination that ordains women to pastoral ministry.

1. While I was Southern Baptist for a brief period of time, I am no longer one now, so whatever they do is their business, and therefore, I do not have a dog in whatever fights they have.

2. The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) is already clear that they don’t allow women to serve as pastors. That has been the norm in Baptist history for as long as there have been Baptists. That has especially been the case with Southern Baptists. Any deviation from that norm has been practiced by offshoot Baptist denominations, such as the CBF, which has become more liberal and progressive with every passing year since its inception in 1991.

3. People are online getting angry about a ruling that doesn’t really affect anything. Sure, they can disfellowship churches that have women pastors, but their polity allows them to do so anyway, and they did that last year with two churches. This is nothing new or revolutionary. In my humble opinion, what this ruling appears to be, more than anything, is an act of institutional posturing designed to retain the loyalty of the Convention’s more confessionally Reformed constituency so that they don’t just all run to the Conservative Baptist Network and make it into its own denomination.

4. It’s always been funny to me how Southern Baptists tout the autonomy of the local church, and yet when an autonomous local church makes a decision that they don’t like, they want to pretend that they’re an authoritarian episcopacy. Baptists are funny like that.

5. The ordination of women doesn’t have to be a “gateway drug” to more progressive or liberal ideology. The Assemblies of God, the Pentecostal Church of God, the Church of God (Cleveland), and many other Pentecostal denominations that ordain women have managed to remain — whatever one’s disagreements with their theology — consistently conservative on Scripture and doctrine. The suggestion that women’s ordination is by its nature a gateway to progressive drift is not borne out by the evidence.
   
   Where women’s ordination has historically preceded theological liberalism, careful analysis reveals that the ordination of women itself was not the catalyst. The accelerant was an eroding confidence in Scripture’s authority — a prior decision, whether formal or functional, that God’s Word could not be trusted to govern the life and order of the Church. Once that conviction collapsed, those denominations began to take their cues from the surrounding culture rather than from the sacred text.
   
   This played a large role in why I left the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. It is my hope and prayer that my own denomination, the Global Methodist Church, will not make the same mistakes that the CPC and the United Methodist Church did, and that it will formally and doctrinally affirm the inerrancy of Scripture. Because if they do not, it is only a matter of time before they become UMC 2.0. Those who left the UMC to form the GMC did so for reasons that were serious and costly. Those reasons need to be encoded in the structure of the institution, or the institution will, given sufficient time and cultural pressure, rediscover them the hard way.
   
   I’ve seen a lot of GMC folks say that we just need to move on and never talk about the UMC because “that’s all behind us now,” but if you don’t talk about it, then you’ll relive the experience all over again, and even if you don’t, your children and grandchildren might. The clarion call in the Old Testament is for Israel to remember that the Lord brought them out of Egypt. Why is that? It’s because if they forget that they were brought out of Egypt, then Egypt will return, but it will return inside them. When Paul was leaving the church at Ephesus, he warned them, “ I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.”1 If the GMC is going to move forward with strength, then they must remember why they left the UMC, or they will once again become the UMC.

6. As I mentioned earlier, I am not a member of the SBC, but neither, as it turns out, are most of the people online who have appointed themselves to adjudicate this controversy. They come from Pentecostal churches, Methodist churches, nondenominational churches, PCUSA churches, Christian (Disciples of Christ) churches, and a variety of other communions, each with its own governance structures and unresolved internal disputes that might profitably occupy their attention. And yet here they are, in full voice, on every available platform, expending an incredible amount of energy protesting a decision made by a body to which they have no membership, no accountability, and no obligation. The optics don’t look good. Or to say it more bluntly, it makes them look incredibly stupid.
   
   I’m not saying that one isn’t allowed to have opinions on what the SBC did; I certainly do, but at the end of the day, my opinion doesn’t matter to them and will not be accounted for in their decision-making processes, but if some cage stage egalitarian with too much time on their hands think their opinion carries that much weight, then more power to them, I guess.

__________________________________________________________________________________

As always, if you like what you’re reading and want to support my work, then you can follow me on all my socials and purchase my merch and books at this link. Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. I really appreciate it!

Also, my new book, A Bitter Place, is out now! Order your copy at this link today!

ONE // Thoughts on Comraderie

I’ve been working at my new job for a couple of months now, and I love it. My new job in many ways is a lot less stressful, but more than once I’ve caught myself reminiscing to my wife about my time at the funeral home.

One day, I said, “You know, sometimes I think I miss working there.” She said, “I think what you really miss is the camaraderie.” I said, “You’re probably right.”

I think one of the things that makes a job enjoyable is working with people who have the same goal that you do and are motivated by the same things that you are. That’s also true of the Church.

The mission statement of the Global Methodist Church is, for example, “to make disciples of Jesus Christ and spread scriptural holiness across the globe.” Many times, when people leave a church or when, God forbid, there’s a church split, it’s not over the color of the carpet (even though we like to joke about that a lot), it’s over a disagreement concerning the mission of the church and whether or not that mission is being carried out.

Think about it. There are both valid and invalid reasons for leaving a church, but it all comes down to what people believe the church's mission ought to be.

If someone leaves because they got their feelings hurt because the pastor preaches against their sin, then they think the mission of the church ought to be “non-judgmental.” If someone leaves a church because they’ve tried suggesting different ways the church could do evangelism, and the church simply isn’t interested in doing evangelism, then the person or people leaving the church believe that evangelism ought to be central to the mission of the church. If someone leaves a church because the leadership is worldly and allows worldly influences to dictate how they worship, then the party that’s leaving believes that what’s essential to the mission of the church is to worship the way God has commanded in the Scriptures. Again, there are both valid and invalid reasons for leaving a church. The first scenario is an invalid reason, whereas the last two scenarios are valid reasons.

Worshipping together every week is a lot more enjoyable when people are there for a common cause - to lift up the name of Jesus and make Him known in their world. Fracture and division are caused in the body when someone somewhere isn’t making it their mission. The fault could be with the pastor or the church leadership, or with a person or party within the congregation, but when someone, somewhere, fails to hold up their end of the deal, there’s always discord. However, when all parties involved come together to love Jesus and serve Jesus, then there’s camaraderie.

TWO // Spurgeon Being Sassy

I love Charles Spurgeon. We are almost opposites in every way. He’s Calvinist, and I’m a Wesleyan. He pastored a huge church, and I pastor two small ones. I believe in infant baptism, and he was dead wrong on baptism and now knows the truth of the matter in glory. Regardless, I just can’t get enough of Spurgeon, especially when he’s being sassy. Here are two instances of his sass that I came across this week.

First, you’ll notice that he had a low tolerance for lethargy among his people.

I remember, once in my life, having a sleepy congregation. They had been eating too much dinner, and they came to the chapel in the afternoon very sleepy, so I tried an old expedient to rouse them. I shouted with all my might, “Fire! fire! fire!” when, starting from their seats, some of the congregation asked where it was; and I told them it was in hell, for such sleepy sinners as they were.

~ Charles Spurgeon, Sermon: The Enchanted Ground

Next, you’ll see that he even had less tolerance for boring preachers.

Whatever you may know, you you cannot be truly efficient ministers if you are not ‘apt to teach.’ You know ministers who have mistaken their calling, and evidently have no gifts for it: make sure that none think the same of you. There are brethren in the ministry whose speech is intolerable; either they rouse you to wrath, or else they send you to sleep. No chloral can ever equal some discourses in sleep-giving properties; no human being, unless gifted with infinite patience, could long endure to listen to them, and nature does well to give the victim deliverance through sleep. I heard one say the other day that a certain preacher had no more gifts for the ministry than an oyster, and in my own judgment, this was a slander on the oyster, for that worthy bivalve shows great discretion in his openings, and knows when to close. If some men were sentenced to hear their own sermons, it would be a righteous judgment upon them, and they would soon cry out with Cain, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.” Let us not fall under the same condemnation.

~ Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students

“Worthy bivalve.” Gets me every time.

THREE // A Defense of the Longer Ending of Mark

As many of you know, I’m an advocate for the Textus Receptus and translations that use the Byzantine Manuscript family as their basis. The three main versions are the King James Version (KJV), the New King James Version (NKJV), and the Modern English Version (MEV). A few years ago, when I was an active podcaster, I had the privilege of talking about this issue with my close friend, Dr. Robert Willis. You can find the link to that video here. Although it’s unrelated to this topic, you can also find Dr. Willis’ newest book here. All of this to say, I am a member of a Facebook group called Textus Receptus Academy, where folks discuss various TR issues. While the group has its fair share of nuts and bolts, there are some serious scholars among the bunch. One of them shared this post, and when I asked him if I could post it here and give him the credit, he simply told me that I didn’t have to credit him, so I won’t. Nonetheless, this is a helpful breakdown of why the longer ending of Mark is reliable.

“Why the Long Ending of Mark Has Still Not Ended

In the past hundred years, some scholars have adamantly insisted that Mark should end at verse 8, but the traditionally received text continues through verse 20. Their position sounds firm, even unbreakable, but history is the hammer that shatters that anvil. The overwhelming manuscript tradition, the universal reception of the early church, the testimony of the fathers, and the physical evidence of scribal hesitation all strike the same direction. The long ending is not a late invention — it is the historically attested conclusion of Mark.

1. Textual Reasons

The manuscript evidence is not “mixed” — it is a landslide.

Over 1,650 Greek manuscripts contain Mark 16:9–20.

Only three end at 16:8.

This is not a 50/50 debate.

It is a 99.8% majority tradition.

The long ending is the default reading of the church’s textual history.

2. Church Reception Reasons

For nearly two millennia, the global church — East and West — read, preached, memorized, and liturgically used the long ending.

Ancient lectionaries include it.

Early translations include it.

The church never treated it as optional or suspicious.

Reception matters because the church is the steward of Scripture.

3. Patristic Reasons

Early Christian writers quote the long ending long before the manuscripts that omit it were copied.

Irenaeus (2nd century) quotes Mark 16:19 explicitly.

Tatian includes it in the Diatessaron.

Hippolytus references it.

This means the long ending existed before Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.

4. Scribal Tampering Reasons

The two famous manuscripts that omit the long ending show physical evidence of editorial interference.

• Vaticanus leaves a blank column — the only blank column in the entire NT — exactly where the long ending should be.

• Sinaiticus has replacement leaves for Mark, written by a different scribe.

This is not a clean omission.

This is scribal hesitation or deliberate removal.

5. Logical Reasons

Ending Mark at 16:8 is narratively absurd:

• no resurrection appearances

• no commission

• no ascension

• no closure

• the women flee in fear

• the Gospel ends mid‑sentence in Greek

Even scholars who reject the long ending admit 16:8 is a literary cliff collapse, not a conclusion.

6. Why Scholars Invented the “Short Ending”

The “short ending” theory was not discovered — it was invented to solve a problem:

“If Mark didn’t write 16:9–20, then how do we explain the abrupt ending at 16:8?”

So scholars proposed:

• Mark died

• Mark’s manuscript was damaged

• Mark intended an abrupt ending

• A page was lost

• A scribe added a conclusion

• A later editor supplied a summary

These are hypotheses, not evidence.

They exist only because 16:8 is too awkward to defend.

The short ending is a modern academic patch, not a historical reading.

7. Why the Long Ending Is Still Not Ended

Because every line of evidence — textual, historical, patristic, scribal, and logical — points in the same direction:

The long ending is ancient, overwhelmingly attested, widely received, and impossible to dismiss without inventing theories to replace it.

It has survived every attempt to erase it.

It has outlived every scholarly trend.

It remains because the evidence remains.”

Speaking of helpful breakdowns, James E. Snapp published an article back in 2019 answering some of James White’s objections to the longer ending of Mark. Here’s an excerpt.

While we are on the subject of patristic evidence: when someone claims that early church fathers never use the contents of Mark 16:9-20, that person shows that he is not qualified to give an informed opinion on the subject. Lots of patristic writers mention material from Mark 16:9-20.

In the 100s, Justin Martyr alluded to Mark 16:20. Tatian incorporated almost the whole passage in his Diatessaron. And Irenaeus, in what is now France, specifically quoted Mark 16:19, in his work Against Heresies, in Book Three. In the 200s, passages from Mark 16:9-20 are used in Syriac in the Didascalia Apostolorum, and in a Latin statement by Vincent of Thibaris at a council in Carthage, and in the Latin composition De Rebaptismate, in the 250’s.

In the late 200s or early 300s, the pagan writer Hierocles, in the area that is now Turkey, used Mark 16:18 in the course of mockingly challenging Christians to select their leaders by poison-drinking contests. Also in the 300s, the Latin writer Fortunatianus mentioned that Mark told about the ascension of Christ. In the same century, the unknown author of the Acts of Pilate used Mark 16:15-16, and so did the author of the Syriac text of The Story of John the Son of Zebedee. Meanwhile, Aphrahat the Persian Sage utilized Mark 16:17 in his composition First Demonstration, in 337. Elsewhere, Wulfilas included Mark 16:9-20 in the Gothic version in the mid-300s. In Syria in the late 300s or early 400s, the translators of the Syriac Peshitta included Mark 16:9-20. Meanwhile in Milan, Ambrose quoted from Mark 16:9-20 in the 380s.

In 383, Jerome made the Vulgate, stating specifically that he had consulted ancient Greek manuscripts for the purpose, and he included Mark 16:9-20. A little later on, in the early 400s, Jerome made a reference to the interpolation known as the Freer Logion, and said that he had seen it “especially in Greek codices.” Metzger proposes that the Freer Logion itself was composed and inserted into the text between Mark 16:14 and 16:15 sometime in the second or third century.

In the 400s, Patrick quoted from Mark 16:16 in Ireland; Augustine quoted from Mark 16:9-20 in North Africa – and he casually mentioned that his Greek copies affirmed a reading in verse 12 – and Macarius Magnes used it in Asia Minor, and Marcus Eremita used it in Israel, and Eznik of Golb quotes verses 17 and 18 way over in Armenia, and five forms of the Old Latin chapter-summaries, displayed for instance in Codex Corbeiensis, refer to the contents of Mark 16:9-20.

How many names of patristic writers who utilized Mark 16:9-20 are found in The King James Only Controversy in the section where James White focuses on external evidence about this passage? Is Justin mentioned? No. Tatian? No. White mentioned two Georgian copies made after the time of Charlemagne, but did he mention Irenaeus? No. He mentioned the Slavonic version from the ninth century, because he thought it supports non-inclusion (it actually supports inclusion), but did he mention the Gothic version from the fourth century? No. Why not?

James White didn’t mention the evidence from Justin, and Tatian, and Vincent of Thibaris, and Hierocles, and Fortunatianus, and Wulfilas. But why should his readers feel as if they have been misled?

James White didn’t mention Acts of Pilate, and the repeated quotations of Mark 16:9-20 by Ambrose in Italy, or by Augustine in North Africa. He didn’t mention that Augustine’s Greek manuscripts had Mark 16:9-20. But why should his readers feel misled?

James White didn’t mention Patrick’s use of Mark 16:15-16 in Ireland, or Macarius Magnes’ extensive use of the passage in Asia Minor, or the use of Mark 16:18 by Marcus Eremita in Israel – but he did not lie to anyone. Maybe his readers just misunderstood what they were being told.

White didn’t mention that Pelagius, Prosper of Aquitaine, and Peter Chrysologus used Mark 16:9-20. But his readers have not been lied to.

James White did not mention a single one of these Roman-era witnesses that support Mark 16:9-20. He did not mention that Irenaeus, c. 180, had a manuscript that contained Mark 16:9-20, over a century before Vaticanus was made. But why should anyone feel misled by White’s selectivity in choosing what evidence to share, and what to hide?

It doesn’t matter if it’s in writing or in person during a debate; it never fails to make me giddy watching someone prove on no uncertain terms that James White doesn’t really know anything about which he claims to be an authority.

FOUR // New Book Release

A few years ago, one of my friends and mentors, Bill Hampton, invited me to preach for him on a Sunday night at Pleasant Grove Community Church. The message the Lord laid upon my heart was “When You Come to a Bitter Place.” Later, I preached that same message at the church I was pastoring at the time, then I preached it again 2 or 3 more times over the course of my itinerant ministry. Then I preached that message again this past January at the two churches where I currently pastor.

Every time I preached that message, someone would tell me that that’s exactly what they needed to hear. After I preached it this last time, I felt very strongly I needed to get it in print, so I went to work on this project.

This book is relatively short - only 38 pages - but it addresses a real issue that many people wrestle with: bitterness. It is my hope and prayer that this little book on bitterness will be of some help and encouragement to you. If you buy this book and like what you read, then please leave me a good review on Amazon. This helps my work get more eyes on it so that this message can go out farther.

And if you buy the book and don’t like what you read, then keep it to yourself! This book is now available on Amazon as a paperback or Kindle e-book.

BONUS // I Feel Better Already

As always, if you like what you’re reading and want to support my work, then you can follow me on all my socials and purchase my merch and books at this link. Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. I really appreciate it!

Also, my other new book, A Pastor, A Pest, and a Positive Parishioner, is out now! Order your copy at this link today!

When I was taking a class at Wesley Biblical Seminary, my professor told me that John Calvin never spoke of God as love. As someone who used to be in the Young, Restless, and Reformed camp, and as someone who had read extensively through Calvin’s Institutes many years ago, something about that claim didn’t sit right with me.

I’m no longer a Calvinist, but I still think John Calvin’s work has a great deal to offer the Church. I also think we, as non-Calvinists, don’t do ourselves any favors by making a strawman out of the Calvinist position. That being said, I went looking through the Institutes today to challenge this claim, and here’s what I came up with.

First, let’s look at the biblical claim that God is love.

He who does not love does not know God, for God is love… And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. - 1 John 4:8, 16, NKJV

It’s true that Calvin never explicitly engages with the ontological claim that God is love from this passage. If you look at the Scripture index in the back of Beverage’s translation of the Institutes, it seems that Calvin simply doesn’t address these texts, although he does reference other verses that speak of the love of God in 1 John 4.

In the class discussion with my professor, it was clear that he was trying to portray Calvin as someone who believed God exhibited sovereignty and authority but not love. If one of my classmates or even my professor happens to see this and feels that I misinterpreted what he was saying, then I’m with being corrected. However, if you read Institutes II.16.3-4, you see fairly quickly that Calvin speaks about the love of God quite warmly. Speaking of our sin nature, Calvin says, “All of us, therefore, have that within which deserves the hatred of God.” We are “offensive to God, guilty in His sight, and by nature children of hell.” However, Calvin quickly moves to the remedy for our sin.

But as the Lord wills not to destroy in us that which is His own, He still finds something in us which in kindness He can love. For though it is by our own fault that we are sinners, we are still His creatures; though we have brought death upon ourselves, He had created us for life. Thus, mere gratuitous love prompts Him to receive us into favour… Therefore, in order that all ground of offence may be removed, and he may completely reconcile us to himself, he, by means of the expiation set forth in the death of Christ, abolishes all the evil that is in us, so that we, formerly impure and unclean, now appear in his sight just and holy. Accordingly, God the Father, by his love, prevents and anticipates our reconciliation in Christ. Nay, it is because he first loves us, that he afterwards reconciles us to himself. But because the iniquity, which deserves the indignation of God, remains in us until the death of Christ comes to our aid, and that iniquity is in his sight accursed and condemned, we are not admitted to full and sure communion with God, unless in so far as Christ unites us. And, therefore, if we would indulge the hope of having God placable and propitious to us, we must fix our eyes and minds on Christ alone, as it is to him alone it is owing that our sins, which necessarily provoked the wrath of God, are not imputed to us.

To those who might take exception to Calvin’s harsh language about us being “offensive to God” and “by nature, children of hell.” Calvin isn’t saying anything other than what the Bible says. In Ephesians 2:1-3, Paul says that we were “dead in our trespasses and sins.” In Romans 5:10, we are told that we were enemies of God who have since been reconciled to Him. John 3:36 tells us that whoever doesn’t believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. In Romans 8:1, we are assured that there is no condemnation in Christ, but the inverse of that statement is that if we are not in Christ, then we are condemned. For Calvin, these truths are what make God’s love incredible.

As a matter of fact, in his commentary on 1 John 4:9, Calvin extols “the gratuitous love of God” as the reason for creation.

For if it be asked, why the world has been created, why we have been placed in it to possess the dominion of the earth, why we are preserved in life to enjoy innumerable blessings, why we are endued with light and understanding, no other reason can be adduced, except the gratuitous love of God. But the Apostle here has chosen the principle evidence of it, and what far surpasses all other things. For it was not only an immeasurable love, that God spared not his own Son, that by his death he might restore us to life; but it was goodness the most marvellous, which ought to fill our minds with the greatest wonder and amazement. Christ, then, is so illustrious and singular a proof of divine love towards us, that whenever we look upon him, he fully confirms to us the truth that God is love.

He calls him his only begotten, for the sake of amplifying. For in this he more clearly showed how singularly he loved us, because he exposed his only Son to death for our sakes. In the meantime, he who is his only Son by nature, makes many sons by grace and adoption, even all who, by faith, are united to his body. He expresses the end for which Christ has been sent by the Father, even that we may live through him: for without him we are all dead, but by his coming he brought life to us; and except our unbelief prevents the effect of his grace, we feel it in ourselves.1

Whatever our faults might be with other points of Calvin’s theology, it would seem that if we’re being intellectually honest, we can’t even hint at the claim that Calvin didn’t believe that love was an essential part of God’s character. But sure, let’s focus on the fact that Calvin doesn’t address two specific verses in his Institutes.

[A few years ago, I preached a three-week sermon series on Biblical Integrity. The first sermon was titled “The Path of Integrity” from Psalm 26. The second sermon was “Restoring Someone with Integrity” from Galatians 6:1-5, and the third sermon was “The Cost of Hiding Your Sin” from Joshua 7:1-26. As a little experiment, I uploaded my sermon notes to Claude AI and asked it to summarize this series into seven practical takeaways.

I personally view AI as a tool, and like any other man with a set of tools, I like to pull them out and see what they can do every once in a while.]

1. Integrity begins with repentance, not willpower.

It’s tempting to think that becoming a person of integrity is just a matter of trying harder. But the series opens by grounding David’s declaration of integrity in Psalm 26 against the backdrop of Psalm 25 — a prayer for forgiveness. Before David can say, “I have walked in my integrity,” he first had to say, “Do not remember the sins of my youth.” The path of integrity doesn’t begin with self-improvement. It begins with repentance.

And repentance, as the first sermon is careful to point out, is not the same thing as regret. Regret feels bad, and move on. Repentance turns around. It’s entirely possible to feel awful about something you did and still have no real intention of changing. Real repentance is marked by a genuine turning from sin toward Christ — and that’s the only foundation on which integrity can actually be built.

2. You cannot live in both directions at once.

Psalm 26 and Psalm 1 share the same instinct: the closer you move toward God, the farther you move away from wickedness. The series makes the point plainly — you cannot spread yourself between the blessings of God and fellowship with sin. When you try to mix holiness and moral compromise, what you end up with is a lot of compromise and very little holiness.

This is a practical reality, not just a spiritual platitude. The people and patterns we keep close to us shape who we’re becoming. Moving in the direction of integrity sometimes means moving away from things and people that pull you in the opposite direction.

3. Clean living and authentic worship are inseparable.

Psalm 26:6 draws on the priestly imagery of washing before making an offering. The sermon draws a straight line from that to Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 — if you’re bringing an offering to the altar and you know something is broken between you and someone else, go fix it first. Worship offered with unaddressed sin is worship God does not accept.

This is a convicting practical takeaway: if your private life is out of order, your Sunday morning worship is not unaffected. Integrity is not just about how you act publicly — it determines the quality of your relationship with God.

4. Hidden sin doesn’t stay hidden. It just gets more expensive.

Joshua 7 is where the series really sharpens. Achan took what God had designated for destruction and buried it in his tent. He convinced himself no one would ever know. What followed was the death of 36 Israelite soldiers, a humiliating military defeat, and ultimately the destruction of Achan and his entire household.

The longer sin is hidden, the higher the price tag. What starts as a private decision rarely stays private. And the cost is almost never paid by the person hiding the sin alone.

5. Your sin has a blast radius.

One of the most sobering observations in the whole series is this: the 36 soldiers who died at Ai did nothing wrong. They put their armor on, showed up to the battle, and died — because of one man who wasn’t even on the field. They were chased to a place the text calls Sherabim, which means “brokenness” — and they died there because of someone else’s sin.

This is not abstract theology. People around you — your family, your church, your community — can be driven into places of brokenness by your choices. Sin is never as private as we tell ourselves it is.

6. When someone falls, the goal is restoration — not condemnation.

Galatians 6:1 is the anchor of the second sermon: when someone is caught in transgression, restore such a one in a spirit of meekness. Paul’s word for the kind of burden-bearing he’s describing is baros — a genuinely crushing, heavy weight. When someone hates their sin enough to come forward and confess it, the response of the church is not to pile on. It’s to help carry the load.

The sermon uses the image of the nine trapped coal miners in Pennsylvania who survived not by every man for himself, but by huddling together to share warmth when one another got cold. That’s the picture of a healthy church body: pulling together when someone goes down.

7. When helping others, stay humble — because that could be you.

The series closes this thought with a sharp warning from Galatians 6:3-4. The same passage that calls us to restore others also calls us to examine ourselves. It is entirely possible to develop a savior complex — to start believing that people would just fall apart without you — and in doing so, set yourself up for the exact fall you’re helping someone else recover from.

The practical takeaway is humility. Treat people with the same dignity you would want to receive.

Taken together, these three sermons form a complete picture: integrity grows out of genuine repentance, requires consistent alignment with God’s standards, is devastated by hidden sin, and is ultimately preserved and restored within a community of humble, Christ-centered people. It is not a personality trait. It is a daily, ongoing walk.

[On the first Sunday of July, I began my current assignment of pastoring at the Plainview and Ola Methodist Churches. I felt a strong leading of the Lord to give a message that would set the tone for my time at these churches. When I began to pray and think about what I wanted my ministry to be defined by, the image that kept coming to my mind the most was of people encountering freedom through an encounter with the Holy Spirit of God. People aren’t going to remember every word I say in a pulpit, but they will remember a powerful encounter with a holy God who sent His Son to die for their sins and set them free from the bonds of sin. That’s what I want more than anything for people - to know the freedom that is available to them in Christ.]

Introduction

I said, “Lord, what do you want me to say that will set the tone for my ministry there?” And it seemed like, as I was driving home, one day last week, the Lord reminded me of this verse and put this outline in my spirit.

I want us to look at the Scriptures this morning and consider three things about the Holy Spirit to meditate on. You and I are going to face difficulty. We’re going to face hardship. We’re going to encounter conflict, and the only way we’ll be able to work through those things is if we have help from God’s Spirit to enliven us, to quicken us, to tell us what we ought to do, and instruct us on what decisions we need to make. I’m reminded of a story I read this week about a man who lost a watch while working in an old icehouse.

Icehouses had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses, and covered with sawdust. Often, the ice would last well into the summer.

One man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch.

Amazed, the men asked him how he found it.

The boy said, “I closed the door, lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon, I heard the watch ticking.”1

Often, we don’t hear the Holy Spirit's voice because we don’t take the time to listen.

So, as we look at the Scriptures this morning, I want us to see three things that will happen when the Spirit of the Lord is present.

1. People are Set Free

2. Battles are Won

3. Prayers are Answered

People Are Set Free

In 2 Corinthians 3:17, where we just read, the text says that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (or, freedom). A couple of days ago, we celebrated the 4th of July. Why do we celebrate the 4th of July? It’s to celebrate the freedom that we have as Americans. Listen, I’m proud to be an American. I love my country, and I’m glad we have the freedoms we do, but the freedoms we have been granted by our constitution don’t compare to the freedom we have in Christ.

There might come a day when we have real dictators in Washington who try to change or do away with the Constitution, but even if that happens, they’ll never take away the freedom that we have in Christ.

If you look at Ephesians 1:13, I want to show you something. We’re going to look at a few different passages this morning. As we do, I want you to have our main text from 2 Corinthians 3:17. That means that whenever you’re reading the Bible and you see the Holy Spirit mentioned, you think about liberty. You should think about freedom because that’s what the Holy Spirit always brings into every situation - freedom.

In Ephesians 1, Paul celebrates the sovereignty and glory of God at work in our salvation, as he says in verse 13.

In Him (Jesus) you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, - Ephesians 1:13, NKJV

When you trusted in Jesus for your salvation, you received the Holy Spirit. That’s what the text says, and when you received the Holy Spirit, He brought freedom to your soul.

I think many Christians are bound up today because they don’t realize that freedom has already been given to them by the power of God’s Holy Spirit within them. Imagine that you’re in a jail cell, and the cop says, “You’re free to go, your bail has been posted,” and you say, “Well, I don’t know. I’m pretty skeptical of this freedom stuff.” That would be silly, wouldn’t it? But I think that’s how many Christians are. We don’t realize the freedom that we have.

Jesus didn’t die on a cross and rise again just so you sing for a few minutes on Sunday, listen to a short sermon, and get on with your week. He died and rose again so that you could live a new life in Him, freed from the bondage of sin and death!

In Christ, your sin is gone. In Christ, your shame is gone. In Christ, your guilt is gone.

Every single one of us in this room has had or does have sin in our lives that needs to be dealt with. We’ve all made mistakes, and I’m sure there are regrets that are associated with a lot of that.

We might think, “I wish I said this,” “I wish I had done that,” “I wish I had made better decisions when I had the chance.” There are regrets that all of us have had, but in Christ, your regrets don’t have to define your life.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and because there is freedom, people are set free.

Alright, #2, Where Spirit of the Lord Is, battles are won.

Battles are Won

I’m not going to read the whole chapter, but in 2 Chronicles 20, Judah is preparing for the fight of their lives. They’re not fighting one army, but three. They’re going up against Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir. This could truly be the end for them. Many of them (if not all of them) believed that they were truly walking into their deaths. However, there are four key points in this chapter that you should take note of.

A Prayer

In 2 Chronicles 20:6-12, King Jehoshaphat began to pray. You’ll not see battles won in your life until you begin to pray. Prayer is the best weapon you’ll ever have in your arsenal. Don’t use prayer as a last resort. Let that be the first thing you do when you encounter conflict in your life. For the sake of time, I’m not going to walk through Jeshoshaphat’s prayer, but I want you to notice how he ends the prayer in verse 12 - “we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.”

Sometimes the only thing you can say is, “God, I have no clue what’s coming down the line, but I’m trusting you anyway.” Judah was in a place where, had God not intervened, defeat would be certain. It was three against one. The math didn’t add up. But then, after Jehoshaphat prayed, the Holy Spirit showed up and delivered a word of encouragement through Jahaziel. After the prayer, there’s a prophecy.

A Prophecy

Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah… ¹⁵ And he said, “Listen, all you of Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat! Thus says the Lord to you: ‘Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s… ¹⁷ You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you. - 2 Chronicles 20:14-15, 17, NKJV

There might be some people in this room who have been fighting their own battles for years. Maybe you don’t believe that God is concerned about your battles. Maybe you’ve been doubting God. Maybe you’ve been second guessing yourself. I want to tell you, this morning, that if you will simply stand your ground and let God fight your battles, then He will deal with whatever is coming against you far better than you ever could have. King Jehoshaphat and Judah saw this firsthand. After the prayer and the prophecy, there was praise.

A Praise

After they heard the word of the Lord through Jahaziel, they began to go to church, praising God. Jehosaphat bowed his head and began to worship, the Levites and the musicians of the temple began to lift their voices in praise. Now, notice this in verse 21, “And when he (Jehoshaphat) had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to the Lord, and who should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army and were saying: “Praise the Lord, For His mercy endures forever.”

Now, tell me something, if you’re a General in an army, are you going to send out a worship team into battle IN FRONT OF your army? Who does that? I’ll tell you who does that: somebody who heard a word from God and is taking Him at His word.

How many of you remember that there was a time in our nation when a man’s handshake meant something? It didn’t matter if you were buying, selling, or trading; if someone shook your hand and said they would pay x for y, then you could count on it. Nowadays, it’s not like that. You’ve got to get contracts, guarantees, and paperwork involved. Sometimes that involves lawyers. Why is that? It’s because you can’t trust anyone anymore. But let me tell you something about God’s word: it’s always reliable. It’s more reliable than a man’s handshake used to be. It’s always been reliable, always is reliable, and always will be reliable.

Jehoshaphat went in with the attitude that said, “If God is going to fight this battle, and all He wants us to do is show up, then we’re going to show up, giving Him some praise.”

Now, I want you to notice something else in the text. Look at verse 22, “Now when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were defeated.”

According to that verse, when did God set the ambushes in place? When they began to sing and to praise. When they started praising God, God started dealing with their enemies. You will encounter moments in your life when you are backed into a corner, and you won’t know what’s coming around the corner, but there’s one thing you can do - you can pray, and as you pray, thank God that His mercies are new every morning. Thank God that He fights your battles. Thank God that there’s not a problem in your life that He can’t cause you to overcome!

In 2 Chronicles 20, there’s a prayer, there’s a prophecy, there’s a praise, and finally, there’s a plunder!

A Plunder

As you continue reading the story in 2 Chronicles 20, what you’ll find is that the three enemy armies wound up turning on each other and destroying one another so that when Jehoshaphat and the men of Judah showed up, they just found all their bodies strung out everywhere, and they went around looting the bodies, and collecting all the valuables they could find. However, notice what verse 27 said, “Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, with Jehoshaphat in front of them, to go back to Jerusalem with joy, for the Lord had made them rejoice over their enemies.”

During the Brownsville Revival, Lindell Cooley used to sing, “I went to the enemy’s camp, and I took back what he stole from me. He’s under my feet, he’s under my feet, Satan is under my feet!”

I want you to know that Jehoshaphat and the men of Judah got back what the enemy stole from them, but it wasn’t those valuables and those spoils of war; it was their peace. Don’t you know that when they went out in the Wilderness of Tekoa to meet their enemies, they were so relieved to find that God did just what He said He would? I truly believe that even if they hadn’t found any valuables or loot, they would have still come back to Judah praising God.

Why? Because they saw that where the Spirit of the Lord is, battles are won.

In summary: where the Spirit of the Lord is, people are set free. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, battles are won. Finally, where the Spirit of the Lord is, prayers are answered.

Prayers are Answered

We saw a little of this in 2 Chronicles 20, but I want to show you an example from the New Testament, specifically from Acts 4:23-31. Before I read that passage, I just wanted to give you some context. In Acts 3, Peter and John healed a lame man at the Beautiful Gate, which leads into the temple complex in Jerusalem. They use this healing as an opportunity to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and give witness to His resurrection. The Sadducees didn’t like this, so they had Peter and John arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin. Peter again shares the Gospel before the Sandhedrin, and since he and John didn’t technically do anything wrong, and there was a lame man who was healed in the process, there wasn’t any real charges they could keep them on so they said, “Alright, we’ll let you go, but don’t and preach and teach in the name of Jesus anymore.”

Peter and John said, “You can decide whether it’s right for us to listen to you rather than God, but we can’t help but speak about the things that we’ve seen and heard.” So, as they left the Sanhedrin, they returned to the Church, reported everything the Sanhedrin had said, and began to lift their voices in prayer.

Now, I want you to notice something: Peter and John were bold already. They didn’t kowtow to the Sanhedrin. They didn’t lick the boots of the empire. They stood their ground, and when they went back to the Church, the rest of the Church saw this as an example and said, “Lord, we want boldness like that.” So, I want to read you their prayer from Acts 4:23-31 and show you what happened as a result of it.

And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: “Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, who by the mouth of Your servant David have said:

‘Why did the nations rage, And the people plot vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.’

“For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus. - Acts 4:23-30, NKJV

So, that’s the prayer. Now look at how it’s answered in the next verse.

And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. - Acts 4:31, NKJV

They pray for boldness, and Luke, the writer of Acts, reports that they spoke the word of God with what? Boldness, but notice what happens right after they pray - “the place where they were assembled together was shaken.”

Can you imagine if we were here on a Sunday morning, sharing our prayer requests and praise reports as we did this morning, and then, right after we finished praying, the place began to shake, just as it did in Acts 4?

What would be our first thought? I can tell you what our first thoughts would be. First thought, “Oh Lord, what was that? I hope everyone is okay.” Second thought: “Oh no, I hope it didn’t do any damage to the building.” And then we just assume that it was an oddly timed act of nature. Why is that? It’s because we’re so used to our routines that we can’t imagine God showing up immediately when we pray.

But when the place was shaken, the apostles and everyone else there knew what was happening, as the text says, “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Now, here’s another interesting tidbit in the text: if you’re following the book of Acts, you might read this and think, “Weren’t they just filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 2? Why does it say here that they were filled with the Spirit again?” It’s because being filled with the Holy Spirit is not a “one and done” experience. You continually need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You continually need to seek more of the Holy Spirit’s power in your life. This is why Paul tells the Church in Ephesus, “Do not get drunk with wine, which is debauchery, but be filled by the Spirit.”2

If you begin to seek out the Holy Spirit’s power and ask God to show you where He’s at work in your life, you will begin to see prayers answered. I can promise you that!

Conclusion

I’m going to close, but I’m going to tell you one more thing, and then we’ll transition to the Lord’s Supper. When I was pastoring at my first church, we included a sheet in our bulletins listing our prayer requests on one side and our praise reports on the other. Over the course of a few weeks, we noticed that as we gathered for prayer on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights, the more we prayed, the shorter the list of prayer requests and the longer the list of praise reports. I know God answers prayer, and if we seek out the Holy Spirit’s power in our lives, then we’ll see God at work in ways we could never imagine.

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. - Hebrews 4:15-16, NKJV

I. The Worthiness of the Savior

If we were to try to tell all of the reasons that the Lord Jesus Christ is worthy of our praise and worship, we find ourselves exhausted before we ever reach the end of the list. However, Hebrews 4:15 tells us that one reason He is worthy is that He was “tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus is the only one who has ever walked this earth without sin. He perfectly fulfilled the offices of prophet, priest, and king, and He stands as the spotless lamb of God slain from before the foundation of the world whose blood cleanses us from all sin!

II. The Welcome for His Saints

Verse 16 tells us that we may come boldly before the throne of grace. There has never been a king, an emperor, a president, or a prime minister who has an open-door policy like Je’s. If you want to talk to a high-ranking official, then you have to schedule an audience or an appointment. However, you can go to God in prayer right now, and He hears every word.

III. The Well of His Supply

The final thing to notice in this text is that we are welcomed so that we may obtain mercy and find grace in our time of need. If you and I are being honest, then there never comes a time in our lives when we don’t need the mercy and grace of God. We never graduate beyond our need for grace. The prophet Jeremiah declared that the mercies of the Lord are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). Every day we need to fill up on God’s mercy and grace so that face the day ahead.

As always, if you like what you’re reading and want to support my work, then you can follow me on all my socials and purchase my merch and books at this link. Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. I really appreciate it!

Also, my new book, A Pastor, A Pest, and a Positive Parishioner, is out now! Order your copy at this link today!

Introduction

When Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross arrived in the United States in 1958, she was taken aback by how hospitals handled patients who were nearing the end of life.

“Everything was huge and very depersonalised, very technical,” she told the BBC in a 1983 interview. “Patients who were terminally ill were literally left alone; nobody talked to them.”

Determined to change this, she began hosting a seminar for medical students at the University of Colorado. In these sessions, she interviewed dying patients about their thoughts and feelings on death. Her approach initially met strong resistance from colleagues, but soon her lectures were packed to capacity.

These conversations eventually led to her 1969 book On Death and Dying. The work opened with insights into how patients expressed their experiences of dying, then offered suggestions for improving end-of-life care.

What captured the public’s imagination most, however, was her observation that people diagnosed with terminal illnesses often pass through a series of emotional stages in response to the news of their illness.

Kübler-Ross identified five stages in particular:

• Denial – “No, not me. This can’t be happening to me. I’m a perfectly healthy human being.”

• Anger – “Why me? Why not someone else?”

• Bargaining – “If I live through this, I promise to be a better person.”

• Depression – “This is the end, there’s no way out.”

• Acceptance – “I’ll be okay, death is just a final rest before a long journey.”

She described these as natural defense mechanisms — ways of coping when confronted with extremely challenging realities. I would like to argue, this morning, that as we come to the 4th chapter of Jonah, we find Jonah not just angry, but grieving. He seems to be grieving over the oddest thing - grace. Jonah is grieving because God chose to exhibit grace rather than justice. I want to put a pin in that thought and come back to it.

After last week, you would think that the story would stop there. Everything has a sense of closure. The sailors repent in chapter 1. Jonah repents in chapter 2. Nineveh repents in chapter 3, and everything seems to be wrapped up, and has a happy ending, but as it turns out, Jonah isn’t so happy.

Jonah’s Pout

Generally, when someone goes through the five stages of grief, the first thing they exhibit is denial, but in our text, the first thing we see is anger.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. - Jonah 4:1, NKJV

In Hebrew, the word that’s used for anger is “burned up” or “hot.” It might be accurate to say that Jonah was burning up with white-hot rage. But, where does this anger come from? Look at verse 2, and we’ll see.

So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. - Jonah 4:2, NKJV

If you ever do a deep dive into the book of Jonah, where you start reading commentaries, listening to sermons, and going over all of the literature that’s available from scholars and theologians, you’ll find that there are two camps regarding Jonah’s attitude here. One camp says that Jonah’s anger here is a sign that he didn’t really repent while he was in the belly of the fish. The other camp, which I agree with more, says that Jonah did, in fact, repent, but he allowed his feelings and emotions to drive him back to the place where he was before.

Jonah’s Anger

You see, Jonah is angry at God’s grace and mercy toward a people that clearly don’t deserve it, but if they deserved it, it wouldn’t be grace. As one Reliant K song says, “The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.” How could Jonah be angry at God showing grace to Nineveh?

In 1994, there was a Church of Christ minister named Roy Ratcliff who received a phone call from a gentleman who said that he knew of a prison inmate who had questions about the Bible and thought he might want to be baptized, and the man asked Pastor Roy if he would be interested in talking to this young man. So, of course, Roy Ratcliff obliged.

When he accepted the offer to help disciple this prisoner, he didn’t think to ask who it was or what he had done; he just went because that’s what you do when you’re a preacher. Someone calls and you just go.

When Ratcliff got to the prison, he saw that the man who wanted to be discipled was none other than Jeffrey Dahmer. For those of you who don’t know Dahmer (and I’d be surprised if you didn’t at this point), he was a serial killer who confessed to raping, killing, and eating 17 young men and boys.

Roy Ratcliff had been watching the news, he knew who this guy was. Some preachers might have backed out of the deal at this point, but Ratcliff saw this as an opportunity to witness God’s grace at work in even the vilest of sinners.

After meeting with Dahmer for a couple of months, he agreed to baptize him. After the baptism, Ratcliff started coming under attack from fellow Christians who told him that they couldn’t believe that he would “have the audacity to grant God’s blessings upon the devil,” and they said they didn’t want to be in a heaven that included the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer.1

That’s how Jonah felt about the population of Nineveh. “God, I knew you would be gracious and merciful. That’s why I fled to Tarshish.” Jonah realizes that God is far more merciful and kind than he is, and He doesn’t want to see God’s kindness and mercy on display. He wants to see God’s justice, but here’s the thing - it’s God’s kindness, it’s God’s justice, it’s God’s grace! Jonah even admitted it back in 2:9, “Salvation is of the Lord!” If it pleases the Lord to grant salvation to a wicked nation such as Nineveh, He can!

Not too long after 9/11 happened, an evangelist was holding a revival at a local AG church. As he got up to the pulpit, he said, “How many of you want to see all of those terrorists rounded up and put to death for their crimes?” Every shouted and hollered, “AMEN, PREACHER!” Then he said, “Now, how many of you want to see them come to know Christ, repent, and go to Heaven when they die?” The room fell dead quiet, and then he began to preach on how the Apostle Paul was a murderer and persecutor of Christians until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Do you know why Jonah was angry at grace? For the same reason we get angry when we think about the possibility of Jeffrey Dahmer or terrorists being in heaven because they’ve repented and believed the gospel. That anger stems from a place of pride: It’s pride that says, “I’m more deserving of God’s grace than they are.” It’s pride that says, “My sin isn’t as bad as theirs.” It’s pride that grades on a curve and says, “They deserve wrath. I deserve mercy.”

It’s pride that says, “We’ve worked all day. Why are those people who came in at the 11th hour getting the same wage that we are? They deserve less.” Who are you, O man, to tell God what He can do and not do with the riches of His grace?

Jonah’s Bargaining

Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!” - Jonah 4:3, NKJV

We’re going to see this again in a few verses, but Jonah is so angry that he says, “Lord, just go ahead and take my life from me! If I have to watch them be spared then I don’t want to live!” Jonah jumps from anger to bargaining. Jonah - tiny, mortal, finite Jonah - tries to emotionally leverage God into ending his life so that he doesn’t have to see Nineveh spared because God’s graciousness toward Nineveh doesn’t meet his standard of justice. It looks kinda silly, doesn’t it?

Look at how God responds in verse 4.

Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” - Jonah 4:4, NKJV

I like watching Dr. Phil, and one of the things he always asks people who are acting dumb is, “How’s that working out for you?” So, God asks Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry? How’s that working out for you?”

Notice that when God asks Jonah if it’s right for him to be angry, Jonah doesn’t answer; he simply walks away. He walks away from the conversation. He might have been thinking, “Of course it’s right for me to be angry.” We always think our anger is justified. Jonah, in his anger, walks away from the conversation, and in so doing, he allows his anger to create distance between him and God.

When [Jonah] gets mad, he secludes himself from the very presence of God. If you and I are not careful, when that anger gets hold of our lives, we’ll pull away from what’s right. …[We’ll] create a distance there. That’s dangerous.2 - Scott Dotson, Jr.

Have you ever been so angry that you allowed your anger to create distance between you and someone you love or someone who loved you? Have you ever allowed your anger to create distance between you and God? Not only is Jonah angry and trying to emotionally bargain and manipulate with God, but now he’s in denial.

Jonah’s Denial

Notice that he already knows that God is going to be gracious and kind to the city, but notice that verse 5 said, “[Jonah] went out of the city and sat down east of the city and made for himself a booth there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would happen to the city.” There’s a part of Jonah that’s in denial about what’s going on. Everyone down there in the city is enjoying their repentance; they’re enjoying the blessings of God, and now Jonah is looking down on the city, seemingly above it all, hoping that God will go ahead and destroy them, but he just sits there and waits.

So, that’s Jonah’s Pout, now, notice Jonah’s Plant.

Jonah’s Plant

And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant. - Jonah 4:6, NKJV

Notice that the text explicitly tells us that God prepared that plant. The more you read this book, the more you’ll notice that God is actively working in Jonah’s life.

• 1:4 - When Joah got on a boat to Tarshish, that verse said, “The Lord sent out a great wind.”

• 1:17 - “The Lord prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.”

• 4:6 - “The Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah.”

Now, it seems like Jonah is going to get some relief from the heat. Perhaps his mood is starting to improve. The text tells us that he was very grateful for the plant. But look at what happens next.

But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered. - Jonah 4:7, NKJV

“God prepared a worm.” God was at work in the creation of that shade plant, and now He’s at work in its destruction. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”3 Isn’t that what Job said?

Now, we see Jonah spiral into depression.

Jonah’s Depression

And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”- Jonah 4:8-9, NKJV

Jonah wants to die AGAIN, and God asks him yet again, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

This time Jonah doesn’t walk away from the conversation. He says, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!” Of course, Jonah’s not right, but at least this time He’s talking to God about it!

I want to tell you something that maybe no other pastor will tell you: God is a big boy! He can handle your anger! But you’ve got to talk to Him. You can’t just bottle everything up inside and hope it will go away. You’ve got to let it out, and the best place to let it all out is in prayer.

If you were to visit one of my churches on Sunday morning, you might notice that when we pray collectively for our prayer requests, I quote 1 Peter 5:7 nearly every Sunday: “Casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you.”

It doesn’t matter what the ‘care’ in question is; give it over, Jesus! I’ve heard people say, “If it matters to you, then it matters to God.” I don’t think that’s true. I don’t, for one second, think that many of the things that concern us concern Jesus. I don’t believe that God is concerned with whether or not the school’s football team does well this year or not, but I do believe that God is concerned with us, and because He’s concerned with us we can take those things that weigh on us - no matter how big or small they might be in actuality, and lay them at the feet of Jesus.

Remember this promise that Jesus gives us.

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. - Matthew 11:28, NKJV

Jesus doesn’t qualify this promise by saying, “You know, it’s got to be really bad before you come to me.” He simply says, “Come to me.” The only qualification you have to meet is that you have to be heavy-laden - you have to be burdened.

If we’re being honest, we’ve all got things that weigh us down, and Jesus says, “It doesn’t matter what it is, bring it here.”

Going back to Jonah 4, here’s the last thing God says to Jonah about the whole situation. Finally, we see God’s Pity.

God’s Pity

But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?” - Jonah 4:10-11, NKJV

The great irony of the whole situation is that the plant that rose up over Jonah to give him shade was a Ninevite plant. At the beginning of the chapter, Jonah goes and sits up on the east side of the outskirts of the city, and he waits. He’s still in the area, so the materials that he made his shade with were probably loose pieces of the Ninevite wood. The plant that God caused to come up over Jonah for shade was a Ninevite plant.

This plant - this temporary, fleeting plant was the source of comfort and joy for Jonah, and when it went away, Jonah just wanted to crawl into a hole, eat worms, and die.

God was saying, “Look, in the same way you care for this temporary Ninevite plant, I care for the Ninevites themselves.”

Conclusion

Jonah runs through the stages of grief - anger, bargaining, denial, and depression. The only stage of grief we don’t see is acceptance. We’re not told whether Jonah finally came to a place of acceptance. If he authored this book, which bears his name, then I imagine he did, but there’s nothing in the text to indicate whether that’s the case or not.

So, why was he in such a state of grief in the first place? Specifically, it was because justice wasn’t served on his terms, but more broadly, it’s because God didn’t do or act in a way that Jonah thought God should. Jonah was grieving over the loss of His idea of what God’s will should be.

I think if we’re all honest, then there’s a part of us that might also be grieving for that same reason. Our lives didn’t turn out the way we thought they should. God didn’t allow us to get that job or make that move we wanted. God didn’t open the doors we thought He should have. There’s a sense of loss that we experience because we think we’re missing out on what we think is better. However, the truth is that just as God specifically prepared and orchestrated the events of Jonah’s life, so He is preparing and orchestrating the events of your life, and if you’ll stay faithful to God, you’ll see that His will and His plans are so much better than yours.

Introduction

A preacher named Owen Murphy wrote a little book called When God Stepped Down from Heaven. In this book, he recalls a revival that broke out in the Hebrides on the Isle of Lewis. One church got concerned about the spiritual condition of their community. They didn’t read books on church growth. They didn’t attend conferences to find out what the new fads were. They didn’t start small groups. They went to the Lord in prayer. For weeks, the pastor and four other men from the church went to this barn on the side of the road and prayed for God to send revival. They would meet in this barn at 10 p.m. and pray into the wee hours of the morning, begging God to send revival.

For months, they waited; for months, they gathered in the little barn three nights a week and waited upon God until 4 and 5 o’clock in the morning, determined to wrestle with God until the answer had been given. Then, one night, a young man, a deacon from the Free Church, arose from his knees and began to read Psalm 24: “WHO SHALL ASCEND INTO THE HILL OF THE LORD? OR WHO SHALL STAND IN HIS HOLY PLACE? HE THAT HATH CLEAN HANDS AND A PURE HEART SHALL RECEIVE THE BLESSINGS OF THE LORD.”

“Brethren,” he said, “We have been praying for months for revival, waiting before God, but I would like to ask you now: ARE OUR HEARTS CLEAN? IS THE HEART PURE?” In response to this searching challenge, they fell upon their knees in confession and rededication, and again began to travail in prayer, even more earnestly. An hour later, three of them were lying prostrate upon the floor—they had prayed until they were exhausted! By five o’clock, revival had come! The barn was suddenly filled with the Glory of God, and the power of God that was let loose in that barn shook the whole community of Lewis.1

A Presbyterian minister named Duncan Campbell was invited to come and preach a series of meetings. They told him about the prayer meetings and what the Lord had done, and now they were ready for revival to be manifested in their community. The first night, the place was packed. They sang a few hymns and Duncan Campbell preached his heart out, but it seemed just like a normal service. Nothing groundbreaking happened. Campbell was somewhat discouraged, and one of the deacons from the church came up to him and said, “Preacher, don’t be discouraged! I can hear the wheels of Heaven’s chariot. Revival is on the way.”

That second night, Duncan Campbell went into the church expecting another ordinary service. However, as the service continued, Campbell soon realized that this was anything but ordinary.

The events of the second night will never be forgotten by those who were privileged to attend. Buses came from the four corners of the island, crowding the church. Seven men were being driven to the meeting in a butcher’s truck when suddenly the Spirit of God fell upon them in great conviction, and all were converted before they reached the church! As the preacher delivered his message, tremendous conviction of sin swept down upon the people! Tears rolled down the faces of the people, and from every part of the building came cries of men and women crying for mercy. So deep was the distress of some that their voices could be heard outside in the road. A young man beneath the pulpit cried out: “O God, hell is too good for me!”

The meeting closed with the Benediction, and the people began to move out. As the last person was about to leave, a young man began to pray. Under a tremendous burden of intercession, he prayed for three quarters of an hour and, as he prayed, the people kept gathering until there were twice as many

outside the church as there were inside! When the young man stopped praying, the Elder gave out Psalm 132, and as the great congregation sang the old hymn, the people streamed back into the church again, and the meeting went on until 4 a.m.2

On the Isle of Lewis, God began to do a work because one deacon stood up and said, “If we’re going to see the presence of God manifested in this place, then we need to have clean hands and a pure heart.”

In Nineveh, God began to do a work because one prophet, who had had an experience with God, began to walk in obedience and proclaim what God had told him to say. If you want to see a work of God in your community, then it has to begin with obedience and repentance. This chapter of Jonah is all about the power of repentance and what happens when people turn to the Lord.

Jonah Repents

Last week, we saw that Jonah had a moment where he came to himself. If you look back at Jonah 2:9, you’ll see where he said, “I will pay what I have vowed.” He’s saying, “Alright, Lord, I give up. I’ll do it.” This is where we see Jonah’s second chance.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.” - Jonah 3:1-2, NKJV

If you notice, what God told Jonah in verse 2 is nearly identical to what God said in Jonah 1:2. So, God is hitting the reset button. He’s giving Jonah another chance to do what God had originally told him to do.

Going back to the place where you got off track and starting again is standard in repentance. Repentance isn’t saying the sinner’s prayer. Repentance isn’t asking God for a clean slate. Repentance is change. Specifically, it is a change of heart which leads to a change of mind which leads to a change of will and action.

A second chance for Jonah means that he’s got to be willing to go back and do what he did at first.

Here’s the thing about second chances: God will take you right back to the place where you said, ‘No.” Sometimes you just want to ignore that. [You might think that your disobedience was an] irreconcilable difference [that] you [get to] move on from. There are never irreconcilable differences with God. You were wrong. He was right… God’s not going to take you anywhere until you go back to the place where you said “no” to Him and say “yes.”3 - J.D. Greear

Until your “No” becomes a “yes,” you’ll never make any progress in your relationship with God. When Jonah’s no became a yes, he went forth in obedience and did what he was supposed to do in the first place.

That’s Jonah’s second chance. Now notice Jonah’s solemn cry.

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent. And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” - Jonah 3:3-4, NKJV

When we read what Jonah said here in the text, I don’t believe that this is the entirety of Jonah’s message. I don’t think Jonah walked through Nineveh repeating these eight words (5 words in Hebrew) over and over again. I think there was probably some more explanation on Jonah’s part, but these eight words are a summary of Jonah’s message - Nineveh will be overthrown in 40 days.

But while we’re here in the text, I want to take a moment to address a few things.

Notice that first of all, this is not how we would conduct a mission trip or evangelistic crusade today. In our modern society, we’re far too polite to preach the judgment of God to a people who don’t know who He is, and yet it’s precisely a message of judgment that triggers repentance. You might think, “Well, this is the Old Testament. Things are different now in the New Testament.” Not really, if you look at Peter’s first sermon on the Day of Pentecost after the Holy Spirit descends, he tells the audience there, “This Jesus, whom you crucified, is both Lord and Christ.” They were cut to the heart, and they said, “Men and brethren, what must we do to be saved?” Peter doesn’t tell them to pray the sinner’s prayer. He tells them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” Then, the Bible tells us that Peter gave a message that could accurately be described as one of warning and judgment - “Be saved from this wicked generation.”4 What happened after that? People didn’t get turned off because Peter was being “too judgmental” and “too hard on people.” They repented, and they were baptized!

Then, in Acts 17, Paul goes to Mars Hill, and he notices that the Greeks have all of these temples and shrines, and there’s even an altar there with an inscription that says, “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.” Then, Paul stands up and says, “Hey, this unknown God that you’re worshipping, I’m going to tell you who it is - it’s Jesus.” After explaining who Jesus is as creator and sustainer of the world, Paul says that there’s coming a day when He will “judge the world in righteousness.” You know what happened? Some people mocked him and walked away, but there were others there who said, “I want to hear more about this.”5

We want to shy away from hearing about the judgment of God, much less saying anything about it ourselves, but the reality is that God uses warnings all throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, to tell people about where they’re headed if they keep going the way they’re going.

If you’re on the interstate and you see a sign that says, “Little Rock 45 miles,” then where will you be if you stay on the interstate for another 45 miles? Little Rock. It’s not that complicated. When Jonah told Nineveh that in 40 days Nineveh would be overthrown, it’s not like Nineveh was just doing fine on their own, and then God planned to randomly destroy them, but he sent a prophet to give them a heads up first. There were things going on in that society that were already leading them down a path of destruction, and all Jonah was sent to do was tell them that their sin was going to catch up with them.

When God pronounces judgment as he did through Jonah, it is a declaration of what sin is already doing to people. God would overthrow them, which is exactly what their violence was already doing from within. There is no way that Assyrian society could have endured for many more generations—their manner of life was so violent and brutal it was killing them slowly. Their bad way of life was destroying them already, and God’s forty-day timeline merely expedited the process… Cultures and societies have chosen ways of living that are slowly killing those cultures and societies. Just as ancient Rome died from within, so modern societies are dying a long death because of the philosophies on which they are built. This long death is God’s judgment. As Paul wrote, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people” (Romans 1:18a, NIV). It is being revealed. Look around; a society without God eventually burns from within.6 - Nate Holdridge

Another thing that I want to be careful to mention is that there is an implied gospel in Jonah’s warning. God is under no obligation to give them a warning. God would have been within His rights to wipe Nineveh off the face of the map. God is infinitely holy, and the offense that sin brings against God is equally infinite. Instead, God gives them 40 days. If you notice, we’re not even told in the text that Jonah told them that they had 40 days repent. He may have said that, and it’s not recorded in the Bible, but it seems they came to the conclusion on their own that God might relent from destruction. In verse 9, part of the king’s declaration was, “Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?”

This warning itself is the gospel. Judgment is coming, but it’s not here presently.

In the Bible, 40 was always a number of trial and testing. After Noah and his family boarded the ark, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Israel was tempted and tested in the wilderness for 40 years. Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai. Jesus was tempted and tested in the desert for 40 days.

They had 40 days to prepare. Nineveh was told that they had 40 days to prepare for judgment, but you and I don’t know how long we’re going to have.

The Bible tells us that “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after that, the judgment.”7 But, the Bible also tells us that God is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance”8 and that God “takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.”9

Paul tells us that the wages of sin is death.10 That means that when we willfully engage in sin, when we live in sin, when we let sin dominate our lives, we’re going to reap a harvest of death. God calls us and woos us away from that by the riches of His grace, but if we harden our hearts and resist the Holy Spirit, then God will ultimately let us have the consequences of our sin.

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.11 - C.S. Lewis

What we see is that Nineveh did, in fact, repent.

Nineveh Repents

So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. - Jonah 3:5-6, NKJV

Notice that there is a progression of repentance in this chapter. It starts with Jonah, it goes to the people, and it works its way up to the king, who makes a national declaration of repentance.

I hear people all the time say that they want our nation to turn back to God and repent, and that’s good, but repentance won’t come to the White House until it starts in our house. We live in a chaotic world, but until we can get the chaos in our own households under control, we won’t have anything to offer the world that’s any different from how they’re living now.

And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. - Jonah 3:7-8, NKJV

I mentioned earlier that repentance is change. It’s a change of heart that leads to a change of mind, which leads to a change of action and will.

What does repentance look like for Jonah? Obedience.

What does repentance look like for the Ninevites? It looks like mourning, fasting, and a change in behavior.

Earlier, I used the example of being on the interstate going towards Little Rock. What happens if you see the sign that says Little Rock is 45 miles away, but then you get off the interstate? Well, you’re not going to Little Rock anymore. What the king essentially says to his people in this national decree is, “Hey, if we’re headed for judgment, then we need to get off at the next exit and turn around.”

One more thing I want you to consider about Nineveh’s repentance. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that when Jonah went to Nineveh, he was going to be arriving with a target on his back. If he’s an Israelite, and they’re Assyrians, then why wouldn’t they just kill him on the spot, or at the very least ignore what he has to say?

One of the things that the text of Jonah doesn’t explicitly say is how or what the Assyrians worshipped. You’ve actually got to go back and do some homework to figure this out.

It turns out that they worshipped a multitude of gods, but there was one that was prominent among them, named Dagon. Now, if that sounds familiar to you, it’s because in 1 Samuel 5, there was an incident where the Philistines stole the ark of God from the Israelites and set it up in their temple to Dagon. The Bible tells us that when the priests of Dagon came into the temple the next day, they found the statue of their false god, Dagon, face down on the ground prostrate toward the ark. So, they prop it up, leave, and don’t think anything of it. The next day they come in, and they find that not only is the statue of Dagon on the ground, but it’s broken into pieces so that the head and hands are broken off. Then God struck them with boils or hemorrhoids, and they got no relief until they returned the ark to the people of Israel.

You might be asking, “Okay, but what does this have to do with Jonah?” Fair question. You see, Dagon, this god that the Assyrians worshipped was believed to be a fish god. If you look up pictures of it, it looks like a mermaid.

When Jonah washes up on the shores of Nineveh, word starts to spread that this man had been swallowed by a big fish, and now he’s alive to tell about it. What do they worship? A big fish. A lot of liberal scholars will say, “Perhaps Nineveh repented because they thought Jonah was an emissary of their god, Dagon.” No, no, no. When Jonah preaches and tells the people the city is going to be overthrown, they believe him because in their minds, this individual went into the belly of their god, and he overcame. And the only way that Jonah can overcome is if he serves a God greater than their god.

What’s really interesting is that you see Him showing Himself stronger than all of these other false gods all throughout Scripture.

In Genesis 1, when we’re reading the days of creation, we read that the sun was created on Day 1. The sun isn’t created until Day 4. How does that make sense? It doesn’t make sense. You can’t have light without the sun. Think about the book of Genesis for a minute. Moses wrote the book of Genesis to record the creative power of God and the beginnings of His dealings with mankind for an Israelite people who had been enslaved in Egypt for over 400 years. What did Egypt worship? They worshipped the sun. By creating light first and then the sun, God is showing that he’s not dependent on the things that we prop up as gods.

In Exodus 7-12, when God sends the 10 plagues against Egypt for Pharaoh not letting His people go, each of those 10 plagues is meant to be a mockery of the gods and concepts that the people of Egypt worshipped.

• “You wanna worship gods that control the river, well, now the river is blood.”

• “You want to pay homage to frogs as symbols of fertility? Well, now you’ve more frogs than you know what to do with.”

• “You want to worship Ra as a sun god? Well, now it’s dark. What are you going to do about that?”

• “Oh, you worship a cow goddess? Now all your cattle are dead.”

Each plague sent a message to Pharaoh.

In 1 Kings 18, when Elijah has a standoff with the prophets of Baal, he says, “Let the God who answers by fire be God.” Elijah pours water all over the altar that he built so that when God answers, they know it’s God, and lo and behold, God shows up and answers by fire.

God, through delivering Jonah from this great fish, shows himself to the people of Nineveh to be greater than any of their false gods and idols.

I mentioned it last week, but I’ll mention it again here: Jesus tells us that He is greater than Jonah.12 What does that mean? It means that just as Jonah was consumed by a great fish - by something that was worshipped as an object of affection and life - so Jesus takes our sin upon Himself. Every time we have looked to something for life other than Him, every time we lust for the things of this world, every time we have lied to God, lied to those around us, or even lied to ourselves, Jesus takes the weight of all of our sin upon Himself, and He puts it to death on the cross. This is what Peter means in 1 Peter 2:24 when he says that Jesus bore our sins in His body on the tree.

Throughout the Bible, God crushes idol after idol, and He keeps crushing idols all the way to the cross.

So, when Nineveh sees the greatness of God in overcoming their god through this prophet, they repent, and God relents.

God Relents

Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it. - Jonah 3:10, NKJV

When we read this text, it is imperative that we see the mercy of God on display. God isn’t obligated to show mercy. Nineveh doesn’t deserve mercy. Jonah doesn’t deserve mercy. You and I do not deserve mercy, and yet it is not within the nature of God to deny mercy to those who are truly repentant.

When a spring of repentance is open in the heart, a spring of mercy is open in heaven.13 - Thomas Watson

Jesus says in John 6:37, “the one who comes to Me, I will in no way cast out.” The application of God’s mercy to our lives means that when we come to Him in faith and repentance, He doesn’t hold a grudge against us. He doesn’t bring charges against us for sins that He has already forgiven. Instead, the slate is clean, and the record is clear.

People might have a hard time trusting us. People might still be hurt over our sin. People might not forgive us.

The relationship between Israel and Assyria was never cushy after this, even though they repented and God decided not to bring judgment upon them at that time. As a matter of fact, 100 years after this. The nation reverted to its evil ways, and God finally brought disaster upon them. You can read about that in the short book of Nahum. But before the nation became corrupt again, there was a generation of Ninevites who heard what God had to say, heeded it, and repented.

Of course, this isn’t God being capricious. God isn’t flip-flopping back and forth over what He’s going to do with Nineveh every decade or so. In Jeremiah 18:7-10, God says, on no uncertain terms, that if He plans to bring destruction on a nation but that nation repents, He will relent and choose not to bring destruction on them. He also says that if He decides to bless a nation and that nation turns away from His voice and does not obey Him, He would relent of the good that would bring on them and bring destruction instead. Nineveh would later abandon their repentance and suffer the consequences for it.

Conclusion

What this means for us is that we have a choice. We can abandon our sin, accept the mercy of God, and live in that place of mercy, or we can just show up long enough to put a Band-Aid on our sin and run back out into the muck and mire that we were just in. But, listen, if you keep running back and forth, eventually you’ll get caught. This morning, let’s make a commitment to renounce our sin - renounce the things that are destructive to our souls, and surrender ourselves over to Christ.

[The names of people and geographical locations have been changed, but this story is accurate to the best of my recollection.]

Lawrence opened small box after small box of paperclipped index cards in front of me. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. This was all that was left after decades of ministry. No podcasts. No CDs. No cassette tapes. Just sermon notes jotted down on index cards, dated, paperclipped, and tossed in a box, most of which would never see the light of day again.

My grandfather and I preached revivals once a year and sometimes twice a year at a small, non-denominational church near Harrison, Arkansas. The church itself used to be affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, but after some conflict arose around their new pastor, who, in my estimation, did nothing more than let the Holy Spirit move in the services, the church left the convention, replaced “Baptist” with “Community” in their church name, and the rest is history. That, however, is another story for another time.

Lawrence and Bernice were a younger couple (younger compared to the average age of the church) in their early 50’s who attended the church. They were delightful people who loved the Lord, loved their church, and desired to see it grow. They were a big help to the pastor, who was blind, and whenever the church needed volunteers for any reason, Lawrence and Bernice were the first to sign up and offer their time, talents, and resources.

Lawrence and Bernice loved my grandparents, but for whatever reason, they took a particular liking to me. Maybe it was because we all had roughly the same amount of enthusiasm for evangelism and outreach. Maybe it was because I was younger and could see that they were actually trying to help the church instead of just trying to take it over like some of the older folks there thought. For whatever reason, I just seemed to get along with them well.

This happened nearly 15 years ago, so my recollection of these events might be a little fuzzy, but during one of the weeks we were holding revival at this church, Lawrence and Bernice invited me over to their house, and I happily obliged. Lawrence brought me into the kitchen and said, “I want to show you something.”

Lawrence was discipled in a restorationist Church of Christ congregation. I’m not sure how it happened, but through a fortuitous series of events, he eventually found himself in the Charismatic stream of faith. However, before he made the jump out of the restorationist movement, he felt the call to preach, and he wanted to answer. Lawrence asked his pastor whether he should go to seminary, and his pastor said he could sit him down with nothing but the Bible and teach him everything he needed to know, so that’s what happened. Over the course of about three years, they studied the entire Bible, cover to cover. Lawrence learned systematic theology, biblical theology, hermeneutics, and just about any other topic you might learned in seminary, all from the Bible while sitting in his pastor’s office, and he didn’t have to pay a penny for it.

Eventually, Lawrence’s pastor died. The pastor’s widow had the awful task of cleaning out her husband’s office and going through his library. It proved to be too much of a task for her. After she took some personal items that were valuable to her, she called Lawrence and told him that he could take what he wanted, and she would take care of the rest. Lawrence took everything he could fit in his truck and then some.

When Lawrence summoned me into his kitchen, he began opening small box after small box. Some of them were old repurposed recipe boxes, but the only recipes that were there now were recipes for fresh bread from ovens of Heaven. Lawrence explained to me that his pastor preached at the same small church for decades. The church didn’t have tape recorders, and they didn’t broadcast their services. Everyone has a high-quality camera in their pocket now, but back then, getting the equipment to record sermons with good audio or video would have been expensive.

Lawrence’s pastor would prepare sermons for every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night on index cards. He would preach his sermon, date the cards, clip them, and throw them in a box. A handful of the groups of index cards had 2 or 3 dates from different colored inks, with a few more notations here or there, indicating that the sermon notes had been revisited, revised, and reused at some point, but not many were in that condition. Most had only one date. Those boxes of index cards were a treasure that Lawrence would value as a testimony of his pastor’s consistent faithfulness to the Lord and to the congregation that the Lord had entrusted him with over the years.

One of the reasons I record my sermons, write books, and keep things the way I do is because I want to leave something behind that will serve as a testimony to the things I value most. This blog and my YouTube channel serve as my digital “index card boxes.” In some ways, it’s very personal because any time you post something on the internet, it opens you up to criticism, but in spite of all that, I want people to know what I believe in and what I stand for.

There was an old altar call song that was sung at the camp meetings a lot when I was a boy that said, “Leave behind, Oh leave behind / What Will I Leave Behind / After I leave for worlds unknown / What Will I Leave Behind?”

I want to leave a legacy of Christian faithfulness behind me. Even if it’s nothing more than boxes of index cards, I want to leave something behind that serves as a tangible testimony of my love for God and His word. He’s been so good to my family and me. His word is good, His promises are true, and I want so badly for people to know that God is faithful and that He can be trusted when no one else can be.1

If I leave nothing else behind, then I pray that I come leave something behind for someone, like those boxes of index cards were for Lawrence, that will encourage someone to keep pressing on in their relationship with God.

Introduction

Three pastors were having their weekly get-together in one of their offices, and they were talking about prayer and the appropriate postures you should take when you pray. As they spoke among themselves, a telephone repairman worked on the phone system in the background. One of the pastors said that he felt the key was in the hands. He said, “You’ve got to hold your hands together and point them up toward heaven when you pray.”

Another pastor said, “No, no, no. You’ve got to be on your knees when you pray. It shows humility.”

The third pastor said, “Well, if you really want to show humility, you’ll get on the ground, flat on your face to pray.”

By this time, the repairman couldn’t stay out of the conversation. He interjected and said, “Pastors, I found that the most powerful prayer I ever prayed was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty feet above the ground.”1

I want you to know that sometimes God allows you to be put in a desperate situation so that you will call on Him for help and recognize that, without Him, your life is going nowhere. You’re going to be stuck spinning your wheels until you realize that God is the only way out of your mess.

I have a friend named Robert, and we kinda bonded over our mutual love of pro wrestling. I was probably 17 or 18 at the time, and we were in his backyard, and we started wrestling, doing the moves that we saw on TV. There wasn’t hardly any give on that hard ground, so those slams hurt. There weren’t any ropes to grab for a ropebreak, so the only way out of a submission hold was to reverse it or tap.

I got Robert locked in a sharpshooter, and I leaned back and put pressure on his lower back just like Bret Hart used to do. I thought I was really killing him, but he held on for probably 2 or 3 minutes before he finally tapped and admitted that I beat him. What he said next always stuck with me. He said, “I didn’t tap because it hurt. I tapped because I couldn’t get out of it.” I was kinda disappointed. I thought I had him in a world of pain, but really, he was just stuck, and he wanted to get out. I thought about that this week, when I was going over our text.

Unlike my friend, Robert, Jonah probably thought he was in a world of pain, but in reality, God had him in a place where Jonah could be held until he realized that the only way out was to “tap out” by calling on God.

There will be times in our lives when we feel backed into a corner. We feel like we’re spinning our wheels. We feel like we’re exhausting all of our resources just to be stuck in the same old place, doing the same old things. When we feel like this, we have to consider two things:

1. The thing that has us stuck might be the thing that God is using to take us where He wants to go. We said this last week: the thing that looks like it’s going to destroy you is actually the thing that God is going to use to deliver you into your destiny. It wasn’t happenstance that a giant fish happened to be swimming by. Verse 17 says, “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish.” This is hard to imagine, but the trouble and uncertainty that surround you have been prepared by God for you. You might think, “Why would God prepare trouble for me?” It’s because, and this is the second thing we should consider…

2. This trouble that we’re in might be the only way God can get our attention.

We can ignore pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.2 - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Some parents raise their voices at their kids when they’re in danger because it’s the only way to get their attention. Even so, God might send difficulties and complications into our lives to get our attention. What does it say about us when the only time we think about crying out to God is when we’re experiencing difficulty?

It reminds me of a man who was on his way to a job interview. When he gets to the building, he discovers that every parking spot he comes across has been filled up. He’s driving up and down the parking lot. Finally, he begins to pray, and he says, “Lord, you know how important this job interview is. I’m out of work. I need to provide for my family, and it’s getting close to the time for the interview to start. Please give me a parking spot.” He didn’t even finish his prayer before a spot opened up, and he said, “Don’t worry about it, Lord, I found one!”

As we work through the text, we’ll see that Jonah finds himself in a situation where he can do nothing but pray, think, and reflect. There are a lot of things we could dive into with this text, but I really just want to boil it down to three major things we should consider this morning from Jonah’s prayer.

Jonah Acknowledges God’s Sovereignty

Isn’t it interesting how in Jonah 2:3, Jonah is talking to God, and he says, “You cast me into the deep.” We just read last week about how Jonah told the soldiers that if they would throw him overboard, the sea would become calm for them, and then they finally did, and now here he is in the belly of this fish saying, “God, you cast me into the deep.” So, which is it? Did God cast him into the deep, or did the sailors do it? The answer is Yes. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and.

Jonah says, “Your billows and Your waves passed over me.” The storm that you’re going through belongs to God. God owns the storm.

In Mark 4:35-41, Jesus and the disciples are in a boat, and Jesus says, “Let’s cross over to the other side.” As they’re going on their way, Jesus decides to lie down in the bottom of the boat and take a nap. While he was sleeping, a windstorm arose and the boat began taking on water. Finally, the disciples come down there, wake him, and say, “Master, do you not care that we are perishing. Then the Bible says that “He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. But He said to them, ‘Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”

And they began to talk amongst themselves and said, “Who can this be, that even the wind and sea obey him?”

When we read this text, we assume they woke Jesus to calm the storm, but their shocked response makes it clear that’s not what they expected. Maybe they woke Jesus so He would pray for them, as the sailors woke up Jonah in Jonah 1. Perhaps they woke Jesus so He could help them with the sails, in an effort to regain control of the boat. Whatever the reason was, they certainly didn’t expect him to calm the storm the way he did. But by calming the storm as He did, He showed them just how much control He had over the situation.

Of course Jesus can sleep in a storm. It’s His storm! He owns it! He’s the Lord over all of nature and creation! The disciples would’ve been fine if they hadn’t woken Jesus up because the Lord over all nature isn’t going to be taken out by His own creation.

When you encounter storms in your life, the first question you need to ask is whether Jesus is in your boat. If you have Jesus with you when you encounter difficulty, then things might be hard. There might be pain and suffering, but your pain and suffering will not get the final word. If Jesus is in the boat, then the storm won’t overtake you.

In Jonah’s prayer, he acknowledges that these are God’s waves. These are God’s billows. This is God’s storm.

Jonah Remembers God’s Temple

It’s not a coincidence or an insignificant thing that Jonah mentions the temple twice in his prayer. It’s worth noting that turning toward the temple in prayer was the act of orienting oneself toward the Lord.

When Solomon was dedicating the temple, he prayed, “When Your people go out to battle against their enemy, wherever You send them, and when they pray toward the city which You have chosen and the temple which I have built for Your name, then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.” Solomon goes on to say, “Lord, when they sin against you, and You become angry and deliver them to the enemy, if they say, ‘Lord, we have sinned and committed wickedness’ and when they return to You with all their heart, hear them from heaven, forgive your people, and grant them compassion.”3

Jonah is in a battle for his life, and he has sinned. He has been carried away into a type of exile as a result of his sin, just as Israel would be carried away into exile as a result of their sin, and now he comes to himself. Jonah expresses his repentance by looking to the place that existed as a physical symbol of God’s covenantal presence among His people.

As believers, where do we look today? We look to Jesus. In Matthew 12:6, Jesus says that He is greater than the temple.

What does that mean? It means that the temple was only a form and a shadow of Jesus. Jesus is the place where we meet God because, as the Son of God, He is the fullest expression of God. That’s what John means when he says in John 1:18 that “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who at the Father’s side, has made Him known.” A few verses earlier, John says that Jesus is the Word of God (or the logic of God) in human flesh, full of grace and truth.

When you see Jesus, you see the fullest expression of God. This is why Colossians 1:15 says that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.”

People have never seen God until they see Jesus. Every other portrait of God, from whatever source, is subordinate to the revelation of God given to us in Jesus Christ.4 - Brian Zahnd

You cannot answer the question, “What’s God like?” without looking to Jesus. Just as Jonah longed to look upon the temple when he realized that he had sinned and made a mess of things, we need to look to Jesus when we realize that we’ve sinned and are now dealing with the consequences of our own sinful attitudes and actions.

Do you know why I think we don’t do that? I think we’re afraid. We have the realization that God is immensely holy, and we are not, so we don’t believe that there is anything in God that would allow Him to look upon us with love and compassion when we’ve messed up. But the truth is that just as God pursued Jonah, so God is pursuing you. He pursues you all the way to the cross.

Remember John 3:16, I’m sure you learned it in Sunday School…

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” - Stop right there a minute. The motivation for God sending His Son is love. It’s not frustration. It’s not, “Well, they made a mess of things. I guess I’ve got to clean it up.” We did make a mess of things, and God does have to clean it up, but He’s not frustrated about it. God sending His Son for you is a sacrificial act motivated entirely by love because love is sacrifice, and there is no greater picture of a loving sacrifice than that of God’s Son bleeding and dying on an old rugged cross FOR YOUR SINS so that you could be reconciled to God.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. - John 3:16, KJV

Jonah remembers the temple as a place where he could meet with God, but as New Testament believers, we look to Jesus as the place where we meet with God.

Jonah Reflects on God’s Mercy

When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer went up to You, into Your holy temple. “Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. - Jonah 2:7-9, NKJV

Verse 8 is interesting because if you read it in different translations, you’ll get perspectives on what Jonah is saying, but the clearest translation of this verse, I believe, comes from the NET Bible.

Those who worship worthless idols forfeit the mercy that could be theirs. - Jonah 2:8, NET Bible

The Hebrew word that’s translated as mercy here in English is hesed in Hebrew, and it is often used to depict God’s covenantal love and faithfulness toward His people. It’s often translated as “lovingkindness” a lot in the King James Version.

When it comes to idolatry, we often make the mistake of assuming that because we don’t pray to false gods or have some kind of totem or statue that we pray to, we don’t worship false gods and therefore aren’t idolaters. However, that’s simply not the case. You see, an idol is anything you love, trust, or desire more than God. Anything that you place your love and affection on more than God is an idol. Anything that gives you a sense of more comfort and security than God is an idol.

I have a friend who works in the mental health field, and he’s worked with a lot of people who have dealt with addictions. I asked him one day, “How do you define what an addiction is?” He said, “Think of something beyond your basic necessities that you don’t believe you could go a year without. That’s what you’re addicted to.”

I realized that there are a lot of things we’re addicted to that we don’t even think about. If I were to ask you, “What’s something in your life that you couldn’t go a year without?” There are a lot of things that might come to your mind, but if you could go a year without praying, without reading God’s Word, without worshipping with the Lord’s people on the Lord’s day in the Lord’s house, but you couldn’t go a year without something else, then that “something else” is an idol!

What does Jonah say about worshipping idols? He said that those who worship idols forsake the mercy that could be theirs. They forsake the covenantal love of God.

There are people who believe that you can live anyway you want to and still be saved and still call yourself a Christian, but that’s simply not the case. Tragically, many people have walked away from the faith simply because they were pursuing the idols of pleasure, sensuality, and comfort more than they were seeking the covenantal love of God.

The only place you’re going to find the fullest expression of God’s mercy is in Christ, and the only way you’re going to fully experience that mercy is by giving up those things that try to draw your attention away from Him.

That’s why we sing that old song, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

Conclusion

Whatever it is you’re holding on to, let it go and take hold of Christ! Last week, we saw Jonah choose his own security, comfort, and preferences over the call of God, and we see where it got him, but now he’s had a change of heart and a change of mind. He’s ready to stop running, and now he’s ready to obey God.

Introduction

Today, my wife’s Uncle Earnest is a fine upstanding citizen, but when he was a kid, he was somewhat of a pill. His mama always called him a little turkey. He always found a way to get himself into trouble.

One day, when he was a kid (and by the way, I’m recalling this story to the best of my memory, so the details might be a bit fuzzy), he and this neighbor boy were playing with firecrackers and an open bucket of gasoline on Earnest’s front porch. (You can already tell this is going to be a good story.) They were taking a little gas, pouring it onto the concrete porch, lighting it on fire, and just watching it dissipate. Before long, they grew bored and began lighting the firecrackers and playing with them. Well, Uncle Earnest lit up a firecracker, and as he was about to throw it, it slipped out of his hand and landed in the open bucket of gasoline that was between him and the neighbor boy. Fire plumed up out of the bucket, and Uncle Earnest was able to dive out of dodge without a scratch on him. The neighbor boy, however, actually caught on fire, and Earnest helped him stop, drop, and roll to quench the flames. The kid, no longer on fire but still in pain, runs home to his parents, and Uncle Earnest quickly begins doing damage control, trying to get rid of the evidence. He hides the gas and starts scrubbing the black burn marks from the concrete. It’s a hot day, so the smells were evaporating fairly well, with the assistance of Earnest fanning the fumes away. And, as most kids are wont to do, he goes inside and pretends like nothing happened, waiting for his parents to return home.

Well, what he didn’t take into account was that the support pole of the porch where the bucket of gas had been had paint on it, and when that plume of fire shot up out of the bucket, it bubbled that paint. Also, unbeknownst to Earnest, the neighbor boy’s parents had gotten in contact with Earnest’s father, who worked as a roofer at that time.

A couple of hours go by, and Earnest’s dad returns home, greets him, takes him out on the porch, and says, “C’mere, Earnest, I want to show you something.” So, he takes him out on the porch, and he points to where the paint bubbled up on that support beam, and he says, “Ain’t that a sight. Earnest, how do you suppose that happened?”

Now, one thing you didn’t do with Uncle Earnest’s dad was lie to him. It made him madder than a wet hen for someone to lie to him.

Uncle Earnest says, “Well, Dad, it’s been a pretty hot Summer. I think it’s possible that the heat from the sun may have caused that paint to bubble up.” Before Earnest could even finish his sentence, his father did what a lot of parents should be doing today: he busted Earnest’s hind end.

You see, Uncle Earnest and the prophet Jonah had something in common - their sin caught up with them.

Over the next several weeks, I would like us to go through the book of Jonah together.

Generally speaking, I’m sure we all know the story of Jonah. God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach to the people there. Jonah decides to disobey God and go to Tarshish. Jonah climbs on board a ship. A big storm comes along, Jonah gets thrown overboard, and a big fish swallows Jonah whole. He takes the first air-conditioned submarine ride in the digestive tract of this fish, gets vomited up on the shore of Nineveh, where he proceeds to preach to and win the whole city of Nineveh to the Lord.

We all know the story. It’s a Sunday School classic! However, what we may know is how the story applies to us.

We tend to read stories in the Bible and assume that if we were in the position of the person we’re reading about, we would do the right thing.

“Those dumb Israelites worshipping a golden calf, I wouldn’t have done that.”

“Can you believe those Israelites didn’t believe that they could take the land? Don’t they know that with God, all things are possible?”

“Stupid Peter denying the Lord three times, I would’ve never done that.”

The truth of the matter is that we have a hard time relating to those passages because we have a self-inflated view of our own righteousness. So, when we read Jonah, we think, “Well, if God told me to go to Nineveh, I would go.” The truth is that you might not. I might not.

So, in this post, I want to explore three ideas from the passage.

A People Far From God

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me. - Jonah 1:2, NKJV

Up to this point in Scripture, there’s not much mentioned about Nineveh. Nineveh is mentioned a few times in Scripture in passing, but it has not been the real focal point of a story until now.

We know from the time of Genesis 10 that Nimrod went to Assyria to build Nineveh, and since then, it had been a staple territory of Assyria. To provide some historical context, at about this same time, the prophet Amos had been prophesying against the sins of Israel, saying that God would raise up a nation against her, namely, Assyria.1 So, while God is telling Israel that a gentile nation is going to overtake them, God is sending another prophet to preach to that gentile nation. If you’re familiar with the rest of the Old Testament, then you know that Israel had quite a history with Assyria.

Assyria was cruel and hateful towards people whom they considered to be their enemies. They ransacked cities, raped women, kidnapped children, and took them as slaves, and they even peeled the skin off people they captured, and they would decorate their city walls with that skin. If you visit the British Museum, you can see wall reliefs depicting Assyrian sieges. The famous siege of Lachish shows multiple images of Judeans being impaled, and stacks of Judean disembodied heads that were counted by Assyrian scribes because their soldiers were paid per head that they brought in.2

It’s for all these reasons that Jonah sees Nineveh as the archetype of wickedness. That’s what they’re doing to his people. It’s easy to see why he doesn’t want to go to preach to them. As a matter of fact, it’s more than going and preaching to them. The text says that Jonah is to “cry out against” them. If Jonah goes to Nineveh, he’s going to arrive with a target on his back. But, believe it or not, he’s not refusing because he fears for his own safety. We’ll see what his reasons are in just a minute, but in the meantime, I want to tell you this: Don’t let someone else’s sin be your reason to disobey God. How many of you have heard your parents or have even told your children: two wrongs don’t make a right?

So, Jonah had a bias, anger, and hatred toward the Ninevites. How do I know that? Because there are some kinds of people in our minds that we all have a bias or prejudice against. It may not be a race, it may not be a nationality, maybe it’s people who go to a different church than you do, maybe it’s people who aren’t from around these parts, maybe it’s people who have a certain last name. Maybe there’s some kind of Hatfield/McCoy levels of bad blood between your family and someone else’s. Whatever the issue may be, there’s a category of people that we all have implicit or explicit biases against.

Another way that we can tell what kind of attitude Jonah had toward them was that his primary fear was that they might repent and believe, and that God’s wrath would be turned away from them. In chapter 4 of Jonah, Jonah gets angry because God decides to spare Nineveh because they’ve repented, and we finally see his motivation for disobeying God in the first place. He says, “I knew it! I knew if they repented, You would be merciful!” He’s actually angry at God for being merciful to his enemies! But, the problem is that the mercy that Jonah is angry about is God’s mercy. It doesn’t belong to Him. God can extend mercy to whomever He pleases.

What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” - Romans 9:14-15, MEV

Take note of what Warren Wiersbe says about Jonah’s motives.

God commanded the prophet to go to Israel’s enemy, Assyria, and give the city of Nineveh an opportunity to repent, and Jonah would much rather see the city destroyed.

If you have to choose between seeing someone repent or seeing someone destroyed, and you choose destruction for them, then you hate them. You can’t hate people and reach them with the Gospel. If we don’t desire to see people hear the Gospel and be redeemed, then we should consider whether or not we have even understood the love of God toward us. John tells us in 1 John 3:15 that we can’t have hate in our hearts because if we have hate dwelling in our hearts, then it’s the same as being a murderer. John says that no murderer has eternal life abiding in them. This is something we can’t take lightly because we don’t get to pick and choose who God loves. We don’t get to pick and choose who needs the hope that is within us.

By the way, geographically speaking, do you know where Nineveh is today? It’s right about where modern-day Mosul, Iraq, is. Up until a few years ago, Mosul was under the control of ISIS. The situation with Jonah would be like if God spoke to one of us today and said, “I want you to go to Iraq, and preach the good news of God’s love in Christ to the members of ISIS.”

God may not be calling not be calling us to the Middle East, but God might be talking to us and saying, “You know that person or those people that you don’t care for, and you wish they would go away, that’s who needs to hear the reason for the hope that is within you.”

We can’t read this story and pretend that this isn’t for us. We can’t read this story and pretend that we’re not like Jonah… which brings us to our next point.

A Prophet Far From God

But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. - Jonah 1:3, NKJV

I think that last line in verse 3 is really interesting. Jonah is attempting to go from the presence of the Lord. You would think he would know better. Doesn’t he know Psalm 139, where David says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.” We’re not dealing with someone who doesn’t know who God is. We’re not dealing with someone who’s never had an experience with God before.

Jonah gets on the boat, and God sends a storm. Verse 4 says, “The Lord sent out a great storm.”

One of the themes you will notice throughout this book is that God superintends the circumstances of Jonah’s life.

• 1:1 - “The Word of the Lord came to Jonah.” - God speaks. He is personally interacting with Jonah.

• 1:4 - “The Lord sent out a great wind on the sea.” - God sends adverse circumstances into Jonah’s life

• 1:17 - “The Lord prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.” - God uses something that looks like it’s going to kill Jonah to take him to where he’s supposed to go. Here’s the application: The things in your life that look like they might kill you are actually the things that God is using to take you where you need to go.

The captain then entered the boat, where Jonah was sleeping, to wake him up. This is where we pick up in verses 6-9.

So the captain came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your God; perhaps your God will consider us, so that we may not perish. - Jonah 1:6, NKJV

They’re pagans. Their mindset is, “Let’s call on all the gods we can think of and maybe one of them will pick up the phone.” That doesn’t work, so they come up with another solution.

And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, “Please tell us! For whose cause is this trouble upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” So he said to them, “I am a Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. - Jonah 1:7-9, NKJV

Notice what their immediate response is in verse 10.

Then the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. - Jonah 1:10, NKJV

From Jonah’s perspective, it almost doesn’t seem fair. These men are living lives of rebellion, worshipping other gods. They probably get drunk from time to time. Maybe they’re from other countries where sexual immorality is the norm. And now God has sent a big storm to toss their boat back and forth, and it’s not because these men are living lives of rebellion; it’s because Jonah has chosen to disobey God.

One thing Charles Spurgeon said the book of Jonah taught us was that “God doesn’t allow his children to sin successfully.” What that means is that while everybody else in the world who doesn’t serve God may think they’re going to get away with their sin, selfishness, and rebellion. You, who serve God, should know better. You’re not going to get away with it.

Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you that the sea may be calm for us?”—for the sea was growing more tempestuous. - Jonah 1:11, NKJV

One of the things we’re reminded of in the book of Jonah is that our sin doesn’t just affect us. Our sin affects other people. Those men in the boat would’ve never been rocked by this storm if Jonah, in his disobedience, hadn’t jumped on the boat and involved them in his mess.

The reason some people are bad parents - the reason some people are bad spouses is that they allow their sin to affect the decisions they make in terms of how they interact with their kids or their spouses. If you’re selfish, closed off, and always thinking about your own needs and desires, your selfishness will affect your relationships. What it all comes down to is this: the greatest gift you can give to anyone is your relationship with God. When your relationship with God thrives, your relationships with other people thrive. I am never a better husband to my wife than when I am pursuing my relationship with God.

This brings us to our final point.

A Plan Orchestrated by God

And he said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will become calm for you. For I know that this great tempest is because of me.” Nevertheless the men rowed hard to return to land, but they could not, for the sea continued to grow more tempestuous against them Therefore they cried out to the Lord and said, “We pray, O Lord, please do not let us perish for this man’s life, and do not charge us with innocent blood; for You, O Lord, have done as it pleased You.” So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. - Jonah 1:12-15, NKJV

In his commentary on Jonah, James Bruckner points out that in this book, everyone calls out to God - the pagan sailors, Jonah, and even Nineveh.3 The first prayer that’s made to God in this book doesn’t come from Jonah, but instead from the mouths of people who, when we’re introduced to them, are calling out to false gods.4 Even when he’s trying to run from his calling, God is using him to cause people who don’t know Him to call on his name.

Notice what Philip Cary says in his commentary on this text.

This is one of the great surprises of this wonderful book, which we must not miss. The people on the boat are not just incidental to the story, instruments that the Lord uses to deal with Jonah. On the contrary, Jonah is the instrument that the Lord uses to deal with them, bringing them to a knowledge of the living God. Their coming to the Lord in humility and need, followed in short order by thanksgiving and worship, is one of the reasons that God made Jonah a prophet in the first place.

God will use the strangest people and most unusual things to accomplish His sovereign purposes. At the first church I pastored, there was a sweet lady who would say that God doesn’t just work in mysterious ways, He also works in mischievous ways. No matter how hard he might try, Jonah can’t run from who He has been called to be.

When I was a kid, my grandma did all kinds of crafts with plastic canvas and yarn. One time, when I was traveling cross-country with my grandparents in their 18-wheeler, we stopped at a truck stop where my grandma picked up a pattern book that showed how to cut out the canvas, allowing you to create these little Precious Moments scenes. One of the plastic canvas patterns she made was of a little boy carrying a hobo sack over his shoulder with one hand and holding a teddy bear in the other; the caption read, “You can’t run from God.”

To this day, in the back of my mind, I can still see that thing hanging on the refrigerator door at my mom’s house. In these verses in Jonah chapter 1, Jonah learns that lesson the hard way.

The story is clear. Jonah is trying to escape from God, but then he finally realizes that this storm is God’s way of getting his attention. Tragedies happen, and life is hard, and sometimes God uses the hard things in life to get our attention. So, what should we do? Submit to the storm. Allow God to use this to shape you and discipline you into the image of Christ. Jonah knew the best thing he could do was get thrown into the storm. It didn’t matter if he died in the process of getting thrown overboard; he knew he had to lean into the discipline that God was using.

If you’re going through a rough patch right now and you feel like God might be trying to get your attention, then lean into it because it will be over eventually, and when it is, it will produce a fruit of righteousness in your life. How do I know that? Hebrews 12 says so.

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. - Hebrews 12:7-11, NKJV

The plan of God was always for Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach. He could get there in a boat or he could get there in a fish, but either way, he was going to end up exactly where God wanted him. We will ultimately end up exactly where God wants us, but we have a choice. We can make the journey more painful by our sinfulness and stubbornness, or we can lean into God’s plan for our lives.

Jonah’s awareness of his situation and his self-sacrifice are what made the difference in his life and in the lives of those sailors. Look what happened after they threw him overboard.

Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice to the Lord and took vows. - Jonah 1:16, NKJV

It’s the sacrifice on Jonah’s part that leads to a point of real salvation for the sailors. They go from fearing the storm and crying out to false gods to fearing and crying to the real God who made the storm.

We don’t have to look very hard to see that there’s a certain irony in the book of Jonah. Jonah, who is supposed to be close to God, runs from Him, hops on this boat full of pagan sailors, and when it’s all said and done, Jonah is out of the boat in the middle of the sea, and it’s the sailors who have a relationship with God.

If we fast forward to Nineveh, Jonah preaches, Nineveh repents, Jonah is angry because they repented, and he’s now left in chapter 4 sitting under a tree waiting to die. From Jonah’s perspective, everything worked out for everybody but him. He wanted to see wrath and destruction. He didn’t care that people’s lives were made whole. He didn’t care that God extended mercy.

Conclusion

We have a choice: we can be like Jonah and hate our enemies, or we can be like Jesus and love our enemies.

There’s a story in John chapter 4 about Jesus approaching a woman at a well and asking her for something to drink. This wasn’t an ordinary nice Jewish girl. She was a Samaritan woman. Samaritans were different. Samaritans were basically the product of Jews procreating with Gentiles so they were considered half-breeds. Now, that doesn’t mean much to us. Some might say, “We’re Gentile Americans. Who cares if Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman at a well?” But, understanding cultural norms and expectations opens up the weight of this narrative. According to what was expected of Jewish men in the first century, it was already bad enough that Jesus was publicly talking to a woman and asking her to give him something to drink, but the fact that she was a Samaritan made this all the more scandalous. Then, as the conversation unfolds, we learn that she’s also an adulteress. This is a triple whammy.

When the disciples came back, they couldn’t believe it, but the Bible says that they didn’t ask, “What were you doing talking to her?” You know why? Because they’re not going to have the audacity to tell Jesus who He can and cannot talk to. But Jonah wanted to, and you know what? We do too. We have this tendency to think that the Gospel is for good people, but the truth is that Good and Bad are not the categories that divide humanity. There are only dead people and living people. There are people who are dead in their trespasses, and there are people who are alive in Christ. There is no neutral ground. The Gospel is that Jesus came to raise dead people to life through faith in Him.

After the Samaritan woman leaves, the disciples offer Him something to eat. He responds by saying, “I have food to eat that you do not know of… my food is to do the will of Him who sent me.” (John 4:32, 34)

So, my question is this: Do you want to do God’s will? Or are you content to do your own thing and live life on your own terms? Really, those are your only two options. You’ve got to pick between your will and God’s.

ONE // No Church, Snow Bad, I’m Sick

The snowpocalypse has hit Arkansas once again, and we have made the hard decision not to have services at both of my churches. This is the first bad snow of the season, which has hit and left us with anywhere from 6 to 8 inches of the fluffly white stuff. While this might be a walk in the park for someone who lives up north, it is unusual for those of us who live down here, especially when there are widespread power outages across the south. While those of us here in Arkansas currently have it easy with only roughly 3500 homes without power, Tennessee has more than 335,000 homes without power. Georgia has 105,000 homes without power, whereas Mississippi has around 175,000 homes without power. It’s not looking good out there, and I’m praying for those who don’t have generators.

In a way, this snowpocalypse couldn’t have come at a better time because I’m sick anyway. I couldn’t have gone to church today even if the weather were a perfect 69 degrees with a cool breeze. For the last two days, I’ve been coughing, hacking, and sneezing. My throat and my nasal passages both have felt like they were on fire, and my nose has profusely bled no more than 3 times over the last 12 hours. Before you ask, no, I haven’t gone and seen a doctor. The doctor doesn’t do anything anyway. They come in there, ask a handful of questions without making eye contact, and they’re out of the room in 3 minutes and tell you that they’ll send you in a prescription for antibiotics and a nasal spray that you could get over the counter without a prescription, neither of which works anyway.

I’ve been treating this as if it were a severe sinus infection because I, with the power of Google, a public high school diploma, and good ol’ common sense, have diagnosed myself. I was on a 4-hour rotation of Alka-Seltzer Cold & Flu with Sudafed until I ran out of Sudafed. Now it’s just Alka-Seltzer, but do you know what? I feel better than I did yesterday. I’m still tired. I’m still coughing a little, and my nose is running, but somehow still manages to feel as dry as the Sahara Desert, and there seems to be progress. A little progress is far better than feeling worse.

TWO // A Sermon on Snow

You don’t hear many sermons about snow, but John Piper has one titled, “What Is God Saying in the Snow.” Here’s an excerpt.

I just want you to imagine what the world would have been like had Hitler succeeded in taking the entire USSR for his own. Do you know what stopped him? The Russian winter. They fought well, and they won until the winter set in, in December of 1941. And it ended. God ended it. Got stopped Hitler with the snow and the cold on the Russian frontier.

One of Piper’s points in the sermon is that sometimes God will use disasters such as snow to stop His enemies in their tracks. Think about how much evil was prevented from being carried out by the snowpocalypse. While, yes, there was some good that was prevented too (like the cancelling of church services) there was probably also some evil that was prevented, and for that, we should be thankful. Give Piper’s sermon a listen, and maybe it will change your perspective on the snow and other natural disasters.

THREE // To Cancel or Not to Cancel?

Speaking of whether or not to cancel church, Johnathan Arnold, the President of Holy Joys, has some words to say to those of you who might be staring down your Pharisaical nose, judging churches that have chosen to cancel their services this weekend due to the weather.

If your church never cancels for snow, fine. ❄️ But please don’t boast about it. Don’t throw subtle barbs at those that do. Don’t guilt-trip the most sensitive.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an extremely high view of the Church. What goes on Sunday morning is the most important thing in the world. But it’s also important to love our neighbors by taking precautions for their safety, especially the safety of the most vulnerable. And for most churches, that means cancelling when there is bad snow and ice, and finding creative ways to minister. Our church has cancelled twice this winter and will probably cancel again. I hate doing it, but we feel that it was the right decision. All it takes is one conscientious person to venture out, wreck, and freeze to death.

Be radically devoted to Christ and to his holy Church. Be charitable and give other churches room to make decisions in matters of prudence. (Source.)

While I haven’t been seeing a whole lot of posts on my end, condemning people and churches for cancelling their services during this particular round of winter weather, I have seen it in times past, and I saw it a lot during the Covid-19 pandemic. I was pastoring a church that was closed a lot during the pandemic, but eventually I came to understand two things: (1) our church was closed was most of the time because we had members and elders who looked for any excuse to dismiss service because they were lazy and just wanted to do the bare minimum to keep the church in existence, and (2) we should have just treated Covid-19 like the Flu. If I had it to do over again, we would have never closed during that time, but we were working with the information that we had.

I say all of that to say that I stand in agreement with Pastor Arnold. When the information that you have indicates a severe safety risk to your flock, much like this Winter weather or much like some of us thought the pandemic did at the time, then prudence might be the best course of action.

Four // A Different Kind of ICE

Yet another ICE-related incident has resulted in someone’s death, and yet again, the social media sphere is going wild with accusations and speculations as to who was at fault and whether or not it was called for. In light of these events, I would like to share with you a Facebook post by Joseph Backholm, a Christian lawyer who resides in the great state of Minnesota.

Sadly, someone else has died in a confrontation with ICE. Here’s my current thoughts on all things ICE and ICE protestors.

1. I’m not the internet sleuth others are, so I haven’t watched every angle of every video of the most recent shooting. I’m open to the possibility that ICE did something wrong, and I’m open to the possibility they behaved reasonably under the circumstances. I just don’t know, and I also don’t think my opinion matters much on that subject. But there are some things I think I do know.

2. It is VERY easy to NOT be killed by ICE. Millions of Minnesotans have managed to pull that off. In fact, 99.999999999999% of people who have participated in a protest of ICE have managed to stay alive. Why? Because they did not confront ICE with a gun or a vehicle. Everyone knows ICE isn’t out there looking to shoot random Minnesotans, so if you’re a random Minnesotan looking to be shot by ICE, you gotta work at it. Please don’t.

3. Today’s leftists are the younger sibling who, on long car rides, would poke you relentlessly until you finally react then scream bloody murder that, “Billy hit me!!!!!” I recognize this instinct because I am the youngest sibling. I have done it. In any context, it is unrealistic to relentlessly pester people, then play the victim when you finally get what you’re looking for--a reaction.

4. ICE is saving lives. Just a few days ago, we learned of record-breaking decreases in violent crimes (20% or more year over year), and earlier this month, we saw a record decline in fentanyl deaths. This is not random. We saw big increases in crime and drug deaths during the Biden years when the border was effectively non-existent. Now we are seeing sharp declines as the bad guys and drugs are being removed. While every trend is multi-variant, this surprises no one.

5. The fact that good things happen when we remove bad people from the streets does not justify bad behavior to remove them. People still have rights even when they’re criminals. So, it’s good to have people ensuring we abide by our national values as we clean up problems. We won’t do that perfectly, but we shouldn’t fall into the trap of claiming emergency circumstances allow us to abandon commitment to fundamental rights. Remember COVID?

6. “It’s the tactics!” People critical of ICE assure us that they want the laws enforced, but it’s the tactics they object to. They acknowledge that Obama deported millions of people, too, but believe Obama did it gently while Trump operates like the Gestapo. The problem with this argument is that no one is complaining about tactics in places where local authorities are cooperating rather than obstructing. Obama-level cooperation seems to beget Obama-level tactics.

7. The Rage Merchants don’t want you to believe anything good can come from the current effort to remove dangerous people from the country. Why? Because if you were aware of the benefits, even while you’re concerned about the tactics, you might feel less rage, and they can’t have that. The midterms are coming, the midterms are coming.

8. Why is Minnesota the only place where people are dying? That’s not the only state ICE is operating in. There are other blue states where local authorities dislike the Orange Man, but no one is dying in confrontations with ICE. Is that because the ICE agents working in Minnesota are especially blood thirsty, or is that because the people there are behaving in a particularly aggressive and antagonistic way? Intellectual honesty requires us to consider both options, but one seems like a better explanation than the other to me.

9. I really dislike where this is going. Keith Olbermann has encouraged Gov. Walz to use his National Guard to arrest ICE agents. I know, it’s Keith Olbermann, but I think he speaks for more people than we realize. I worry that violence is looking reasonable for more and more people every day because we refuse to acknowledge the merits of arguments we disagree with. As a result, we increasingly see our neighbors as enemies rather than people who have a good point that we should work with to solve a problem. (Source.)

I have nothing meaningful to add or take away from what Backholm has said here, other than my name is Logan Dixon, and I approve this message.

As always, if you like what you’re reading and want to support my work, then you can follow me on all my socials and purchase my merch and books at this link. Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. I really appreciate it!

Also, my new book, A Pastor, A Pest, and a Positive Parishioner, is out now! Order your copy at this link today!

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. ~ Psalm 116:15, KJV

As I’ve begun working through Howard Snyder’s 932-page tome on the lives of B.T. and Ellen Roberts and the beginnings of the Free Methodist Church, I was struck by how Snyder opened the book with the death of B.T. Roberts. As I began to read his account, all I could think was, “When my time comes, I want to die like this man.”

By February 1893 Roberts’s editorial duties with the Free Methodist were over; the trying 1890 General Conference was behind him. He was busy in the round of travel, preaching, writing, and decision making that had marked his duties as denominational leader and editor of the Earnest Christian for over thirty years. In 1891 he and Ellen had completed a 6,500-mile transcontinental trip to California, Oregon, and Washington, returning through Canada on the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and in 1892 Roberts made a tour by train of the South. In 1888 he had journeyed across the Atlantic to England.

Roberts had promised to lead a quarterly meeting at Cattaraugus, New York, forty miles south of Buffalo, on Saturday and Sunday, February 25-26, 1893. Cattaraugus was only fifteen miles by train from his old home of Gowanda, where his elderly mother still lived, so on Friday the twenty-fourth Roberts “took the cars” west from his home in North Chili, near Rochester, to visit her and spend the night. Benjamin’s father Titus had died twelve years earlier at age seventy-seven, but his mother Sally Roberts, almost ninety, was still vigorous.

Early Saturday morning Roberts, “in noticeably good spirits,” said good-bye to his mother and boarded the train for the short ride to Cattaraugus. Four miles south, at Dayton, he had to change trains. As he hurried down the platform, suddenly a piercing pain gripped his chest. He managed to find his seat on the Cattaraugus-bound train, but the pain worsened during the twenty minute trip. With difficulty Benjamin walked off the train and up the platform to meet Rev. George Allen, the Free Methodist pastor at Cattaraugus.

“Why Brother Roberts, you look sick,” Allen said.

“Yes, I am very sick,” Roberts replied. Allen took him into the depot to rest while they waited for the sleigh to take them to the home of Brother and Sister Phillips, where Roberts was to lodge.

At the Phillips home, Brother and Sister Phillips and Roberts’s warm friendsBrother and Sister Allen tried to ease Roberts’s pain. He had recovered from similar attacks before, Roberts said, and with some rest would be all right. His friends suggested sending word to his wife Ellen, but Roberts said no. He didn’t want to alarm his family, and figured he would improve enough to return home Sunday.

But B.T. Roberts did not improve. “By vigorous efforts the impeded circulation was quickened somewhat, but never again became normal,” his son Benson wrote. Dr.Amelia Tefft, a “trusted friend and medical advisor” to Roberts, lived about ten miles away, so Roberts’s friends sent for her. But Dr. Tefft didn’t arrive until abouteleven o’clock that night. When she did arrive, she examined Benjamin and told him his condition was critical. He had better attend to any last-minute legal or personal matters while he still could, she said, and so he did.

Roberts remained at the Phillips home on Sunday, dressed and peaceful but very ill. “In the midst of his pain... he kept praying almost constantly,” but when the pain lessened he talked cheerfully with George Allen. “You wil have a good meeting,” he assured Pastor Allen, referring to the quarterly meeting at the Cattaraugus church.

Roberts bore the pain all Sunday night, attended by his friends. Through the night and in the early Monday morning he quoted Scriptures. At 5:00 A.M. Mrs. Allen found him lying on the couch, praying, “Oh! Jesus, take this pain away, take it away for Jesus’ sake. Amen. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!” Later he repeated someof the Beatitudes - “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Turning to George Allen, he said, “Brother Allen, these are precious promises. The Bible is full of precious promises, if we only meet the conditions.”

An hour or so later Roberts quoted a verse from Charles Wesley’s “O for a Thousand Tongues” :

Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;
‘Tis music to the sinner’s ears,
‘Tis life, and health, and peace.

“Oh! Jesus, give life, and health, and peace,” Roberts prayed. “Give it to me now,forJesus sake. Praise the Lord! Amen!”

A few minutes later when Brother Phillips came in, Roberts greeted him: “Good morning! How are you this morning? Praise the Lord!” And Roberts repeated aphrase from Charles Wesley’s hymn “O for a heart to praise my God” : “So freely spilt for me.” From time to time he quoted other Scriptures and snatches of hymns.

The Allens and Phillipses felt Ellen Roberts really should know her husband’s condition, despite Benjamin’s wishes. So early Monday morning, apparently, his friends sent word - probably a telegram - to Roberts’s family in North Chili. Ellen and their son Benson immediately set out for Cattaraugus by train, via Buffalo.They pulled into Buffalo about noon, but had to wait two hours for the connection to Cattaraugus.

Dr. Tefft had stayed the night, perhaps sitting up with the patient. About 7:30 A.M.Roberts thought he should get up and get dressed. Dr. Tefft asked him, “What are you going to do today?” (probably meaning, “Just what do you think you’re doing?!”).

“Oh, I am going to direct you today,” Roberts joked. He got up, dressed, andshaved himself.

When his friends had family prayers at 10:00 A.M., reading from Psalms 108 and 110, Roberts responded to almost every verse,“Praise the Lord! Amen!” The day proved to be sunny, and Benjamin thought a walk outside would do him good. Mrs. Allen noted that Roberts “Sent the Doctor to bed so he could get away.” He probably did not actually go out, however, though Mrs. Allen does not say.

Through the rest of the morning Roberts rested in a chair or on the couch. Atnoon he washed his face and hands. Brother F. R. Ballard, a local preacher in the Cattaraugus congregation, had come into the kitchen, so about 12:45 Roberts walked into the kitchen and shook hands with him, but said little. He evidently still was in pain.

Roberts went back to his chair and sat down, but then, taken with a fresh spasm of pain, he knelt at the couch and prayed, “Jesus, take away this pain.” The agony lessened and he lay on the couch and was heard to say, “Praise the Lord! Amen!”

Moments passed. Roberts groaned a few more times-then quietly passed tothe next life. It was about 1:00 P.M. Ellen and Benson were still at the Buffalo trainstation, awaiting their connection to Cattaraugus. They learned of Roberts’ death en route, probably at a station along the way. Benson wrote, “My father, our father, a loving, tender husband, a father in the Lord to many souls, adviser, counsellor to how many, only God knows, had gone to his home. He died at his post, clothed, ready for action, had strength been given.”1

“Praise the Lord! Amen!” What a godly way to go.

ONE // When Pastors are Abused

We hear all of these tragic stories in the news or on The Roys Report about pastors who abuse their power to commit all kinds of atrocious injustices. You won’t go very long without hearing of some pastor who had an affair, lost his temper with his staff, extorted money, or did something else nefarious. However, what you don’t hear about are the pastors who have been on the receiving end of abuse. What I would dare say is that the reason you don’t hear about it is because many people are foolish enough to believe that pastors aren’t capable of being abused because they are in a position of authority, but that’s simply not the case.

Every pastor who has been in ministry for very long knows this pain all too well. Right now, in some ways, this season of ministry in my life feels like a reward for enduring my first few years as a pastor, but some pastors never get to experience that kind of reward, at least not in this life. They become discouraged or burned out and eventually leave the pastorate, never to return.

Lutheran pastor Donovan Riley has a way of writing that cuts a straight line through the nonsense of our modern age, and his article When Pastors Are Abused by Their Congregations is no different. In this article, he lays out real, practical ways that pastors become abused by their congregations and how torment directed at that pastor is actually torment that’s directed at Christ.

How does a congregation torment its pastor? With weapons so ordinary they hardly seem weapons at all.

• Withholding: They sit in pews and give nothing back. No eye contact. No “Amen.” Just silence.

• Comparing: They weigh him against the last pastor, or the pastor down the road, and always he is found wanting.

• Undermining: They hold meetings in kitchens and living rooms, plotting how to rein him in, how to keep him from “going too far.”

• Neglecting: They let the parsonage rot, pay him less than a tradesman, and call it humility.

• Mocking: They make jokes at his expense, smiling while they cut.

There’s an old Siberian folktale that says, if you want to hurt someone, you crawl into their tent and close the smoke hole, so God can’t see them. That is what congregations do. They close the smoke hole above their pastor’s head, leaving him alone with his worries and anxiety, starved of divine air.

And yet he stays. He stays because Christ makes him stay. (Source.)

Riley continues,

When you torment your pastor, you torment Christ. When you mock him, you mock the One who sent him. When you withhold love from him, you withhold love from Christ’s body.

But when you honor him, even with a cup of cold water, you honor Christ. When you lift his arms when they are weary, you lift Christ’s arms. When you listen when he preaches, not with a critic’s eye but with a disciple’s heart, you listen to Christ.

The pastor is not Christ, but Christ has bound himself to the pastor’s words and the sacraments. To despise one is to despise the other. To torment one is to torment the other.

TWO // Ploductivity is FREE (for now)

It’s No Quarter November over at Douglas Wilson’s Blog and Mablog, and such is his tradition, he gives away free books on Kindle. There are a plethora of his books I could recommend, but one in particular has proven helpful enough that I want to recommend it here. That book is Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work and Wealth. I’ve decided to work through it at least twice and am about to go through it for a third time. In this volume, Wilson waxes eloquent and practical on the stewardship of our time and resources. Get it while it’s free.

THREE // Mental Health and Demonic Activity

My friend, Rev. Dr. Robbie Willis, is an author, pastor, podcaster, and one of the most brilliant theological minds of our day. I’ve had him out to preach at least once at every church I’ve pastored. Robbie’s doctoral dissertation was on mental illness, demonic possession/oppression, and how to tell the difference between the two. One of the biggest problems I believe pastors face today is that they are trying to counsel things that need to be cast out, or they are attempting to cast out things that need to be counseled. Through his and his son’s work at The Deliverance Dialogues and his dissertation on this topic, Robbie has brought to light this problem and how to go about troubleshooting it through both an educated and a spiritual lens.

Recently, Robbie was invited to lecture at Oral Roberts University’s Contextual Theology Seminar. In this session, Robbie explores how pastors and clinicians can discern between demonic oppression, trauma, and mental illness—offering a holistic approach to healing that integrates spiritual discernment, biblical theology, and mental health wisdom. Watch it, enjoy it, and be edified!

FOUR // Meme of the Week

As always, if you like what you’re reading and want to support my work, then you can follow me on all my socials and purchase my merch and books at this link. Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. I really appreciate it!

Also, my new book, A Pastor, A Pest, and a Positive Parishioner, is out now! Order your copy at this link today!

Introduction

I’ve been taking a Wesleyan History & Polity class, and last night we covered a little bit of John Wesley’s The Character of a Methodist. As a class, we were asked to discuss the question, “In light of The Character of a Methodist, what contrast do you see between the doctrine and discipline of early Methodism and that of today?” We were sent off into small groups to discuss the question, and then came back into class. I was the “spokesperson” for our group, so when asked what conclusion our small group came to, here’s what I said (this is a transcript taken from the class meeting1):

Me: Well, what we had decided when we were kind of thinking over the question was, it depends on who’s asking what a Methodist is. Because if we’re all in the GMC, and the GMC is returning to what Wesley said that a Methodist was, then there is no contrast. There’s contrast as far as culture goes, but we’re returning back to what Methodism was. And one of the extreme ideas that I suggested was that we actually probably need to define clearly what a Methodist is, and we need to say that if a particular Methodist body does not define itself in this way, then they’re not legitimately Methodist.

Professor: That’s pretty radical.

Me: I kind of got inspired by what GAFCON is doing, because you know, they rejected the Archbishop of Canterbury because she’s a woman, and they don’t believe in that, but what they’re saying is, since they’re going to consecrate their own archbishop, is that the Church of England is no longer a legitimately Anglican body.

Professor: Right.

Me: So, well, you know, that is an extreme idea, especially for us, since we do affirm that women have a place in pastoral leadership. Maybe we shouldn’t make it over that, maybe we should make it over, this is what a Methodist is, what a Methodist believes, how a Methodist lives and practices. So, if we set forth that definition, and we perpetuate that in our local churches, then we get to be the arbiters of what is and is not proper Methodism.

Professor: Well, that’s an idea, Wendell. I don’t know. Interesting idea, for sure. For sure.

Because there were serious time constraints, I didn’t really have time to think through what I was going to say or flesh it out very well, so I hope to do that in this article.

Why We Need a Definition

If there happens to be a United Methodist Church and a Global Methodist Church in the same town, and a person doesn’t really know the difference, but thinks they might want to check out both churches, should there be a clear difference? If not, then why was the Global Methodist Church created in the first place? My entire argument is that, to anyone with a functioning pair of eyes and a modicum of critical thinking skills, there should be a world of difference between United Methodists and Global Methodists (or Free Methodists, Bible Methodists, or Congregational Methodists). If you’re a Methodist and you’re not in the UMC, then there should be a clear difference between you and someone who is, and the difference is what you believe and how you live that out.

For the United Methodist Church, it’s quite obvious that even from the beginning, they wanted a “big tent” where everyone who claimed Wesley was welcome, but the problem is that not everyone who cries, “Wesley, Wesley,” is a Wesleyan. (See, “Queering John Wesley” as an example.) In his book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline, Kevin M. Watson lays out how “theological pluralism was simply asserted” in the initial theological one of the UMC’s initial theological documents, “Our Theological Task,” written by Albert Outler.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the 1972 statement of “Our Theological Task” was the apparent endorsement of theological pluralism. The statement began by asserting the need to “reappraise” and apply the gospel. And “this this task… theological pluralism should be recognized as a principle.” Theological pluralism was seen as a practical neccessity because “the theological spectrum in The United Methodist Church ranges over all the current mainstream option and a variety of special-interest theologies as well.”

Many of the things that were simply asserted in this statement as self-evident get at the heart of the disagreements about the meaning of the Wesleyan tradition throughout its history in the United States. “Our Theological Task,” for example, stated that “our history of doctrinal diversity in The United Methodist Church has been a source of strength.” The observant reader of this book is likely already aware of several counterarguments, as there were many people throughout the history of American Methodism who did not view doctrinal diversity as a source of strength. Moreover, many of them would have argued that Wesley himself wouls have been on their side. In other words, it is highly contested whether United Methodism’s doctrinal diversity is a source of strength or, more likely, a loss of identity.

Watson continues,

Part of what “Our Theological Task” was trying to do was find a way to hold everyone who was already in the United Methodist Church together. Unity was a challenge from the very founding of the UMC as one body. Outler’s solution to the challenge of diversity in United Methodism was to make it a virtue. He articulated a “big tent” vision for United Methodism that would accomplish two things. First, it would attempt to create room for everyone who was already in the UMC. Second, it would proactively check United Methodists who wanted to clearer boundaries and enforcement of doctrinal standards in the new church. “Our Theological Task” used theological pluralism to accomplish the first goal, and there were several statements that argued for the second. One example is found at the beginning of the statement, which “Our Theological Task” asserted: “We do not possess infallible rules to follow, or reflex habits that suffice, or precedents for simple imitation.” This statement would have been incomprehensible to the first generations of Methodists in the United States.2

Without a solid definition of who Methodists are, what we believe, and how we are to live, we are left with nothing but a hollow name under which there are no “infallible rules to follow, or reflex habits that suffice, or precedents for simple imitation.”

What Makes a Methodist a Methodist

Wesley’s “The Character of a Methodist” deals with just that - our character, but there are many non-Wesleyan Christians who embody (or seek to embody) these same principles, and they’re not Methodists, so what makes us distinctly Methodist? I would argue that there are three beliefs that lead to action that characterize Methodism as a whole.

1. The universal atonement of Christ for the sins of the world, which leads to evangelism. (We are not Calvinists.)

2. Sacramentalism, which leads to the baptism of infants and the proclamation of the real presence of Christ at the Table. (We are not memorialists.)

3. Holiness that leads to a lifelong pursuit of Christlikeness through engagement with spiritual disciplines, acts of love and kindness toward those around us, and involvement in our local communities for the furtherance of the Gospel and the spread of God’s kingdom. (We do not completely disengage from the world, nor do we allow ourselves to be influenced and oriented by it. We are to act as thermostats for society, not thermometers.)

There are two things I want to note here:

1. I’ve framed these three beliefs as broadly and as specifically as I did because I don’t want the Global Methodist Church to have the market on Methodism. I don’t want the Global Methodist Church to ever say, “We’re the only true expression of Methodism.” I don’t think there’s any chance of the denomination getting to that point, but I want it to be known that I don’t want the GMC to ever be that stringent. I would like the GMC to be able to build connections with The Wesleyan Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Free Methodist Church, and other orthodox Wesleyan bodies. I simply want to be able to define what orthodox Methodism is and what it isn’t.

2. As much as I would like to flesh all of these ideas out individually, I simply don’t have the time. Writing for anything other than a sermon, a paper, or a case report is a lot of work for me these days, with pastoring two churches, working at a funeral home, and taking seminary classes. Maybe I’ll make some YouTube videos or try to get back into podcasting to really lay these things out, but in the meantime, I think Methodists should clearly define who we are and not be afraid to say that the United Methodist Church (and/or other theologically pluralistic “Methodist” denominations) is an illegitimate Methodist body.