WWUTT 2260 Q&A Unfaithful Pastors' Wives, Trouble With NAMB, Again on Cessationism

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If a pastor's wife were to commit adultery, is the pastor now disqualified? What are the issues with the

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North American Missions Board? And what are some disagreements between cessationists and charismatics? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's word, that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

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For questions and comments send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who is not with me this week. I am flying solo, but still doing what we like to do on Fridays, and that's responding to questions from the listeners.

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You can get those questions to us via email, whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com,

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or send us a voicemail. Go to wwutt .com. There's a voicemail tab right there in the top right corner of the page.

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Click on that, and either through your phone or your computer, you've got about 90 seconds to record your question.

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You can send us a word of encouragement, too, if you like. We've played those also. It's always great to hear from the listeners.

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Thank you so much for listening and sticking with me, even though it's just me this week and not

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Becky, too. Let's come back to our scripture reading before we get to some questions. Today I'm starting

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Proverbs 5. Let me read here verses 1 through 6. Hear the word of the

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Lord. My son, be attentive to my wisdom. Incline your ear to my understanding, that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge.

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For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil.

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But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two -edged sword. Her feet go down to death.

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Her steps follow the path to Sheol. She does not ponder the path of life.

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Her ways wander, and she does not know it. Relevant passage to be reading in light of things that have happened lately regarding Steve Lawson.

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You've heard that name come up as a man who has been unfaithful to his wife, been removed from all of the different ministry responsibilities that he has had, including the preaching that he did at his church in Dallas, his founding of One Passion Ministries, the work that he was doing with Ligonier and with Grace Community Church and Master's Seminary.

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All of that done because he went after the forbidden woman instead of remaining faithful to his wife.

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So the wise man here, of course, Solomon, at the start of Proverbs 5, saying, my son, be attentive to my wisdom.

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Incline your ear to my understanding. And we know that these words that we're reading here, they're not just words of a wise man.

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They are wisdom that comes from God. When we keep God's word close and not just hear it, but do what it says, as James says, then we will keep to the path of life.

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But you forget those words or you don't—like remembering Christian in Pilgrim's Progress who didn't check his book, right?

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He didn't know which way to go. He comes to a fork in the road instead of looking at his book as to which way he should go.

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He follows his heart, so to speak, and ends up going the way that would lead to death.

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That's where we get to at the end of verse 6 here, the forbidden woman's ways wander and she does not know it.

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They lead to Sheol. So read the book, know what

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God's word says, and follow that word and that counsel. Continue to hide the words of God in your heart that it may govern your steps.

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As we had read previously in Proverbs 3, lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.

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We also know from Psalm 119, a verse that you may have memorized as a child, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

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And so it is said, keep discretion and your lips may guard knowledge. So lips being particular to these wise words instead of lips going after the lips of the forbidden woman.

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That's the contrast that you have there between verses 2 and 3. So for the lips of a forbidden woman, they drip honey.

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Her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two -edged sword.

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You know, even apart from the immediate application here, which of course would be warning a son against adultery or fornication.

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There are also those false teachers whose words will drip and they will flatter you with what it is that they say.

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They'll tell you the things that your flesh will want to hear. And as Paul warned about this with Timothy, that people who have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will wander from the truth away into myth.

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And so false teachers in this same way, it's like they appeal to the lusts of our flesh.

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And we must be very, very careful that we don't get carried away by those smooth and flattering words.

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As the apostle Paul warned the church in Rome, Romans 16, 17 to 18, watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught for it is by smooth talk and flattery that they deceive the hearts of the naive.

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The Bible warns that false teachers, they'll whisper sweet nothings in charming tones, but what they speak is not the truth.

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Again, we got to come back to the book, check all things according to what the Bible says and let that be our guide that we may keep our steps to the path of righteousness.

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We'll come back to more of Proverbs. We're reading a little bit of Proverbs at the beginning of every Friday episode.

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In the meantime, let's get to some of your questions here. This is from Ryan. Here's his voicemail.

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Hello, Gabe and Becky. This is Ryan Roatan from Keokuk, Iowa. And Gabe, recently you read my email on the podcast pertaining to Steve Lawson's situation.

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And I've been thinking a lot about it and have a question about qualification. If a pastor's wife gets caught in command adultery or some sexual sin, is the pastor disqualified or is the pastor disqualified for not keeping his house in order?

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I just want to know your thoughts about that. Thanks for what you guys do in your ministry. I keep seeking after the Lord and listen to you guys all the time on my mail route.

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Thank you very much. God bless you. Ah, that's fantastic. A mail route. I should have waited on that question until Becky was here.

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Her dad was a what was the postmaster?

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Yeah, I was going to say mail master, but that wouldn't be correct. Anyway, he retired as a postmaster and then became a pastor right after that.

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So that's what he does now. He's still pastoring a church in Kansas. But thanks for listening to us on your route.

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So the question being, if a pastor's wife commits adultery, is he therefore disqualified?

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My immediate answer to that question is no, he's not. But I think it would be good for the other elders or even the church to examine if he has kept his household in order.

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So your question, Ryan, had to do with if his wife has committed adultery, does that now disqualify the pastor because his house is not in order?

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I think it would be good for that investigation to happen just to make sure to keep the pastor honest and the church can therefore clear him of any wrongdoing and saying, no, this was not him.

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It was the wife that had made this decision. So if it's all on her, there's no reason why that would have to disqualify him.

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She made that decision. And just because she made that decision doesn't mean that he failed to keep his house in order.

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It was her heart that was rebellious. Let's come back to remembering the qualifications for an elder overseer, pastor that we find in places like First Timothy three,

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Titus chapter one. I'm going to stick with the First Timothy three reference. So verse two, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober minded, self -controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

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So we're taking for granted here that in the scenario you've asked about, the pastor has been faithful to do all of these things.

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His character is still in line with what we've read thus far in First Timothy three, verses two and three, verse four.

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He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.

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For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? It's interesting that it doesn't say he must keep his wife submissive so she can become rebellious.

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And that is not on the pastor. He does have a responsibility to keep his children submissive.

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And as the father, he has the authority to be able to do that. His wife is an adult woman and she might become rebellious, who knows.

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And so therefore, if she becomes rebellious and the household is in disorder, was that because of her rebellion or was it because the pastor was not keeping his house in order?

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So that examination should happen. Even if she is unfaithful, there should be an examination of the home to either call the pastor out if he hasn't handled things in his home the way that he should or to clear him of any wrongdoing.

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It was only on her. There's nothing here that would therefore cause him to be blamed and would therefore not meet that first qualification of being above reproach.

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I have seen this happen before, very unfortunately. And I can tell you in the scenario that I know of where a pastor's wife committed adultery, he did resign immediately after the news came out.

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He announced it to his elders and then wrote a letter of resignation that the elders read to the congregation and he stepped down.

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And mostly the reason why he stepped down was because his heart was so incredibly grieved.

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He did not think that in that season that he was going to be able to fulfill his duties as a teaching pastor.

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But after that resignation, the elders tested him, examined the things that were going on in the home, had confronted the wife who had slept with somebody who was in the church.

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She committed adultery with someone else that was actually on staff at the church. And so anyway, it was discovered that this was all on the two of them.

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It wasn't the pastor's fault at all. It wasn't that he was neglecting his home. They didn't even feel like he was more devoted to his work than his family or anything like that.

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And so once they cleared him, he was invited to resume his teaching responsibility, but he declined.

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And that was his decision to make. And he just decided that he couldn't do it. And that's perfectly fine.

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But the church would have been okay with him stepping back into the role and even invited him to come back into the role.

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But he just felt it was better to resign. Now, that family actually stayed at that church, the pastor and his wife.

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They remained there at the church. They reconciled. They became faithful members of the church. As far as I know, he never stepped back into that pastoral role.

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I know of one elder there, at least, who remained there for a while, and then he ended up pastoring another church.

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They ended up hiring another pastor. Anyway, it was great to see that over a span of time, you really saw how the grace of God worked in that church.

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It's still a thriving church to this day. Very sad, very tragic when all of that happened the way that it did.

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But wonderful to see the grace of God poured out on the lives of sinners that went through a disciplinary process, repented of their sin, were restored to fellowship, and are now growing in the grace of God still as active members of that church.

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Great question, Ryan. Good things to be thinking about. This next one comes from Allie. This is an email.

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Dear Pastor Gabe, don't forget to mention the transcripts. You told Becky last week to remind you before the end of the show, and y 'all forgot.

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Love you guys. Okay, we both forgot. I remember that now. I had told Becky, hey, remind me to mention something about the transcripts.

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Then we got to the end of the show. She didn't remind me, and I didn't remember either. So the podcasts on Apple, every word that I am saying is put in transcript form.

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I'm sure it takes a few hours after the episode gets uploaded, so it's not ready right away.

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But I think the first time I checked it, it was that day's episode. I'm amazed at the accuracy, because there were even occasions when

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I said what, and it didn't spell out the word W -H -A -T in the transcript.

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It spelled out W -W -U -T -T. It was amazing to me that whatever

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AI program they might be using to generate these transcripts knew when I was using the word what that it wasn't the word that's a question.

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It was the name of the podcast, and it actually spelled that out in the transcript. That was impressive.

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So it's pretty accurate. I don't think it paragraphs real well. There were certain places where I was like, yeah, that's not where that belongs.

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This is a completely different thought, and it's still sticking it in the same paragraph. But just wanted to let you know, in case you like reading the podcast instead of listening to it, maybe my voice is annoying to you.

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I don't know. You can also read the transcript. I will tell you, there is a podcast out there.

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I like the information that they put out. I really don't enjoy listening to it. And so I like to go and read what it is that the guy is reading on the program.

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So I like the transcript feature for that purpose. And I've been pulling that up at night, like when

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I'm laying in bed, I'll pull that podcast up and just kind of read the transcript of their show.

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And that's been really enjoyable. So I've already been enjoying this feature. Just wanted to let you know that that's something that you can take advantage of as well.

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If you enjoy reading even more than you enjoy listening. This next question comes from Austin.

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This is kind of like the question that Ryan had asked a little bit here. So Austin says, if I committed adultery before I was a believer, am

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I disqualified of being a future elder or pastor? My answer to that question,

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Austin, is it depends. I think that's going to have to be something that's handled on a case by case basis.

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I think the extent of the sin is part of it. Did you have a child with this other person?

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See, I think that that would factor into that question as well. Because if you become a pastor, but it's known to others that you have a child with a different woman who is not your wife, there are people that are going to formulate opinions about that out in the community.

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And remember that one of the requirements of a pastor is that he must be thought of well by outsiders.

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So going back to 1 Timothy 3, verse 7, Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace into a snare of the devil.

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And so as the church that might hire you would think through those things, what sort of reputation is this man going to have with the people in the community that we are reaching out to with the gospel?

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And we're calling out sin and pointing to the hope that is in our Savior by faith in Jesus Christ.

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As we're doing those things, are people going to be looking at that pastor going, well, he has a child with another woman that is not his wife.

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And that would cause other people to look at us as hypocrites, even if they don't know the whole story.

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I think that's something that needs to be taken into consideration. Even in that scenario, I'm not positive that that would automatically disqualify you since it was something that happened before you were even a

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Christian, before you even became a pastor. Though I would say if something like that happens as you're a pastor, then you are, yeah, you're permanently disqualified.

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But remember the passage that I read from Proverbs 6, when

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I was talking about all of this with regards to the news about Lawson. Proverbs 6 .32

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says, He who commits adultery lacks sense. He who does it destroys himself.

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He will get wounds and dishonor and his disgrace will not be wiped away.

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There is something about this sin, that whether you committed it as a believer or as an unbeliever, you can't just wipe it away.

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Yes, in the registry of heaven, when it comes to the record of debt that you have because of your sin against God, when you put faith in Jesus Christ, Jesus wipes your sin away.

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As we read in Colossians 1, the record of debt is canceled. It is nailed to the cross. And as Jesus proclaimed from the cross,

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Tetelestai in Greek, it is finished. So the work of atoning for our sins, there is no sin that Christ has not paid for by his death on the cross.

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Whoever believes in him will not perish because of any sin, but will have everlasting life.

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That's the promise that we have in Christ Jesus. You have eternal life by faith in Jesus.

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There is no sin that disqualifies you from eternal life.

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But in the practical sense of it, when it comes to the real world consequences that we have to face, that doesn't automatically mean that you're now qualified for a pastoral position, no matter what sin it is that you've committed in your past.

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Not every man is going to be called to be a pastor. There are some that is just not what

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God has in store for you. There's many other ministry things that you can do. You can go be an evangelist downtown.

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You can do open air preaching. You can share the gospel with others. You can lead up, you know, mercy missions of some kind or something to that effect.

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There are other things in ministry that you can do, but it may not be for you to become a pastor.

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Now, this is not a blanket statement, okay? So don't hear me saying that, yeah, just because you have committed adultery ever at any point in your life, that means that you are permanently disqualified from becoming a pastor.

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I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is that this is a, it is a serious sin. It is a different kind of sin.

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It is something that, as I said, when talking about the Lawson situation, it is something that in the

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Old Testament would have resulted in death. If you were guilty of adultery, you were stoned to death.

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In 1 Corinthians 6, the apostle Paul says, flee from sexual immorality.

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Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

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That's 1 Corinthians 6 .18. So one of the things that Paul is saying there is that there is a uniqueness to sexual sin that is different than any other sin.

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Now, further in that context, he goes on to say in verse 19, do you not know that your body is a temple of the

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Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own for you were bought with a price.

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So glorify God in your body. That's only the believer.

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A person who is not a Christian doesn't have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. So their sin is still a sin that's committed against their own body.

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But it's not a sin that is committed against the temple of the Holy Spirit because not being a

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Christian yet, they don't have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. So I'm saying that to say that if you had committed adultery before you got married, that's not immediately disqualifying.

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You can never be a pastor. If this happened as a pastor, then certainly that is permanently disqualifying.

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How about as a Christian, but I wasn't yet a pastor. I would lean on the side of you being disqualified.

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If I was hiring a man to become a pastor, I'm hiring an associate pastor.

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And I know that as a Christian, he had committed adultery. I wouldn't hire him.

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That's a personal position that may not be the same for everybody. But I would say in at least in my case, in what

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I'm going to be hiring that man to do and bringing him on staff with my church, if he had committed adultery in the past as a believer, as a

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Christian, I'm saying, then I wouldn't hire him. I have biblical reasons for that. And there are more scenarios that we could go through than just what

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I've thought of here or what Ryan has brought up. But we'll sit on that for now.

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Before ending this segment, I wanted to come back to something that I had mentioned last week. The first question that Becky and I responded to was with regards to a pride parade that was coming to a town in North Carolina.

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And what kind of advice would I give? So I want to come back to those comments. If that parade is even still going to happen,

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I mean, with all of the storm damage that has happened in the Carolinas, in North Georgia, in Tennessee, because of Hurricane Helene, we are praying for people out there affected by this storm.

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At the time that Becky and I were recording this broadcast last week, I think the storm was just making landfall.

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So we didn't know anything about what it was doing or what kind of damage it was going to wreak.

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But now seeing the pictures of people stranded, entire towns being wiped away. If there's something that you can donate to, something that you can give to, a good piece of advice regarding to who you can donate to, look for those churches that are in the area and helping out in those communities.

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There's plenty of them. You could just do a Google search and find churches that are helping out with Hurricane Helene.

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Churches Hurricane Helene. You could probably type that in and you'll find churches that are collecting items and sending them into those ravaged places.

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Churches are going to be like the best on the ground, hands and feet work that can be done.

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FEMA is obviously not pulling it off. Samaritan's Purse is another one that I know of.

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That's doing some good work. And Southern Baptist, you know, I'm very critical of the Southern Baptist Convention, but Southern Baptist Disaster Relief is about the best out there that there is.

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That was one ministry that I was proud to not just fund, but even be a part of in Southern Baptist circles.

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So if you know of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief going into the area that you can give to, that would also be a big help to some of the disaster relief.

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Anyway, coming back to my comments from last week, I had mentioned that if you have a pride parade, what can you do?

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Prayer being the best tool that we have. You can also do evangelism.

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And I had also said that maybe you want to consider a strategy regarding going to the pride event, even if it's just to collect data.

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So you know what happens at these parades, what happens at these events, and arm yourself for the kind of information that you might need to bring up before your city council to prevent anything like this from happening again.

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There were a couple of people that had emailed me and did not like that advice and asked that I would rethink it.

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I'm not going to go back and delete the show or anything like that. My comments are what they are, but I just want to clarify that this is not something that anyone has to do.

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All I'm doing is offering potential strategies. When I was thinking about what to say and how to answer this question and thinking about what

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I've done in the past, because I've been involved with evangelism teams that went into pride events, even shared my own personal experience with my first pride event, living in a small southwest

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Kansas town where nothing like that had ever happened before, probably anywhere in that part of the state.

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And it happens in this small little farming community. Just thinking about what we did and how we responded to that and reacted to that, things like that, all of that kind of played into my counsel and my advice.

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But it's not something that you have to do. No Christian has to go to a pride event. And I tried to decorate that language as best as I could with telling you to be very, very careful with it.

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So don't just go into it without a strategy, without a plan. Don't do it by yourself.

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Have some accountability. I want to say that I am not the only pastor that has recommended that maybe you need to go to the pride event.

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There was an article that came out in the summer just a few months ago, back in June, when, of course, that's pride month.

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When all this stuff is kind of at its height during the year, it really ramps up in the middle of the year.

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There was an interview that was done with the Washington Stand and they interviewed Votie Bauckham and asked his advice regarding pride parades and pride month and how should a

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Christian respond to this. It says the pastor and bestselling author had some surprising advice.

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This is from Votie Bauckham, quote, there's a couple of things that I would say about pride month. Number one,

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I would say, and I say this hesitantly and anybody who's experienced it will understand why

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I think more Christians need to experience a pride parade. He paused to let that sink in.

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All that most people know about pride month and these pride parades is what they see on the news.

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They don't realize that the news is very selective in what they present and what they present is a small snapshot of what is not at all the norm at a pride event because the norm at a pride event would not be allowed on the evening news.

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Essentially, Bauckham said, what we've seen has been sanitized for us. I believe I use the same word. We have no concept of the level of debauchery that is being celebrated this month.

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His second piece of advice, be prepared to be unpopular because it's going to be demanded of us that we celebrate this, that we celebrate things that we simply cannot celebrate and we can't get around it.

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The reality is all this month talking about June, people are demanding that we bow the knee and confess that Caesar is

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Lord, that we bow the knee and confess that Caesar gets to tell us what marriage is or Caesar gets to tell us what a man is, what a woman is.

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Caesar gets to change pronouns and grammar and everything else. And we have to say, no, we have to be ready to deny ourselves, take up our cross, follow him and confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord. My friends, we've got the message of the gospel. We should be heralding the news of judgment that is coming.

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God will judge the unrighteous, the immoral. And the only way to be saved is by faith in Jesus Christ.

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And so Paul says in Ephesians 5, 5, you may be sure of this, everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

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Let no one deceive you with empty words. Same thing we started talking about in this segment. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

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Therefore do not become partners with them. For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the

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Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.

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And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

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For it is shameful even to speak of things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible.

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For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

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Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

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Thank you so much for listening. God bless. What is discernment?

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Hebrews 5 .14 suggests that those who are mature have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

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Spurgeon explained, it's not knowing the difference between right and wrong, but knowing the difference between right and almost right.

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Discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Greek word used for discernment in Hebrews is the same word used in 1

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Corinthians 12. Among the spiritual gifts, one of them is an ability to distinguish between spirits.

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1 John 4 .1 says that not every spirit is from God, and we are to test the spirits, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

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It's popular to think of discernment as recognizing false teachers, but more specifically, it's spiritual warfare, knowing the spirit of truth from the spirit of error.

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We must remember that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces. We are to correct opponents with gentleness, for it is

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God who grants repentance, leading to the truth and away from the devil's snares. All Christians should be discerning, but some, by a gifting of the

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Spirit, are more discerning than others. They are a benefit to their church. At least they're supposed to be. Like all spiritual gifts, even discernment can be abused.

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We often think of the Apostle Paul rebuking the Corinthians for behaving like wild charismaniacs, but he also rebuked them for boasting in their knowledge.

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It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the

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Lord. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. So let us use our gifts from God in loving service to one another, when we understand the text.

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I've got one more voicemail and one more email to get to here. Let's start with the voicemail.

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This is from Joel. Pastor Gabe, my name is Joel from Michigan, and I have a question about church planting.

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Our church recently has decided to join the SEND network to start planting a church, and I have some deep concerns based on the limited knowledge that I have of it.

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I know in the past that they have planted churches, supported churches that have women pastors, and that's a great concern to me.

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So I'm curious, how do I approach this with my elders? Are there any other resources out there that I could go to, read, listen to, to get more information before I have a meeting with an elder of our church?

31:46

I just have some great concerns over it and the liberal drift that I have seen in the

31:53

SBC. Especially the SEND network. Please, any advice would be great.

32:00

Thank you so much for your ministry. I have been greatly blessed and encouraged through not only these questions and answers, but the daily

32:09

Bible study that you provide. May the Lord bless you and keep you. I appreciate that so much,

32:16

Joel, and I'm burdened for you because I've been here before. I was part of a church in Kansas, the

32:22

Southern Baptist Church that I was pastor of, at the time was called First Southern Baptist Church. They've since changed their name to Providence Baptist Church.

32:31

So I'm pleased to have been a pastor of two Providence churches now. Here in Casa Grande, Arizona, it's

32:38

Providence Reform Baptist Church. Pastor Ryan Sickinger up there in Junction City, Kansas, changed the church's name to Providence Baptist Church.

32:47

So that was providential in and of itself. But yeah, when I was a pastor there in Kansas, our church was looking at NAMM and we were actually supporting

33:00

NAMM, had a lot of support that we were putting into. The North American Missions Board is what that is short for,

33:06

N -A -M -B. We had a Palauan congregation. Becky and I have talked about this before, but there was a group of Palauans from the island of Palau, they were living in Kansas, that had started a church in Junction City and they wanted to join ours.

33:21

It was about 20 to 30 of them. And so we just brought them in with our congregation, their pastor, we brought on to our pastoral staff.

33:28

We let them use our facilities and everything. It was not another church that was just using our building.

33:34

We just became one church. But in the stuff that they were doing, which included church planting in some other places, also paying that pastor that came on with us, we had inquired of NAMM to see if they would help to fund that sort of a thing.

33:51

They used to do that in the past, but they were not doing that anymore. NAMM had kind of changed their philosophy where they weren't helping existing churches anymore.

34:01

They were only looking at planting new churches. And this has been a problem that's been going on in the Southern Baptist Convention for decades.

34:08

We've seen this problem happen across evangelicalism, where there seems to be a greater emphasis in church planting than helping and sustaining already existing churches.

34:17

It's like that conversion mentality. Let's get the conversions, but we're not so concerned about the discipleship.

34:25

So NAMM was kind of functioning in that way as well. And they declined. They turned us down for any kind of funding.

34:31

Well, there was a church in Hutchinson, Kansas. It was one of the largest churches in Kansas. It probably still is the biggest church as far as like satellite campuses go.

34:42

NAMM was helping them. A huge church was helping them with doing their satellite plants.

34:50

Now their satellite plants were not independent church congregations with independent pastors shepherding those people.

34:58

The main pastor who was preaching in Hutchinson, his face was being beamed out to these other locations.

35:07

And NAMM was helping them, was helping them with their church plants, even though they had the money to fund all of that or could get into those communities and help a community raise that money.

35:19

So NAMM was helping that church beam that pastor's face into other satellite campuses.

35:26

They wouldn't help us, nor were they even planting churches in communities that had no

35:32

Southern Baptist Church at all. Some of these satellite campuses were going into communities where there was already a

35:37

Southern Baptist Church. Why in the world was NAMM funding that? And that really, really bothered us as a congregation in Junction City.

35:46

So my elders and I, we had done quite a bit of research on this. I had talked with various pastors.

35:51

This was a months long process, if not more than a year, where I was even sitting down with guys from NAMM and we had these conversations.

36:00

I tried to make an appeal for why this wasn't a good thing. There was better uses of our money than this.

36:07

We're not even planting new churches. We're just helping an existing megachurch get even bigger.

36:13

And this pastor's face go out into all of these other satellite campuses. But none of them saw it my way.

36:20

They thought it was a great thing. They were like, why would you want to oppose this? You're opposing the spread of the gospel and things like that.

36:26

So we as elders brought this before the congregation and the vote was unanimous. The congregation immediately was like, yeah, we do not want to fund this.

36:35

So we withdrew all funding from NAMM. It was the whole philosophy was off to us.

36:42

It wasn't even the whole matter of women pastors, at least not at that time. We did not want to fund the way that they were spending their money.

36:51

We thought there was a better use for that. So the money that we were putting into NAMM, we withdrew and we started putting into our own fund, which we were going to use to church plant.

37:04

So that became an effort for us and it became, it was also like as a church, we weren't just dumping money into the cooperative program and it was kind of out of sight, out of mind.

37:15

At that point, we were taking some responsibility upon ourselves to plan and prepare and having some ambition to do our own plant or even use that money to help what the

37:27

Palauans were doing from our own congregation. And that kind of began a process of withdrawing funds over a period of time.

37:35

We didn't like what the ERLC was doing, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. I even had somebody at the

37:41

ERLC say some pretty horrible words to me. And when I showed those things to the congregation, they were like, yeah, we don't, we're not in favor of this, them talking to our pastor this way.

37:54

And so we withdrew funding to the ERLC. It got to the point where the only things that we were funding were the

38:00

International Missions Board and Southern Baptist Disaster Relief because our church had been involved with disaster relief even there in Kansas.

38:09

The trailer for the Kansas -Nebraska Convention disaster relief team was in our parking lot.

38:16

So we were very involved in that ministry and it was a joy for us to be able to support that.

38:22

But yeah, as far as our involvement with NAM was concerned, we were out. Now, I eventually became a pastor of another church and what we had concerned ourselves with at that church was

38:35

NAM's appointing of women pastors, or rather they were planting churches that would have women pastors.

38:41

And I won't go into all of that information. It sounds like, Joel, that you were even somewhat aware of that. So what are some things that you can do to kind of bring this to the attention of your elders so that your church is not partnering with or getting involved with NAM?

38:56

One of the biggest problems going on with NAM right now, this is one of the big things that many critics are bringing against NAM, even within the

39:06

Southern Baptist Convention, and that is their lack of transparency. There's a website called reformnamnow .org.

39:14

So reform, R -E -F -O -R -M -N -A -M -B -N -O -W .org.

39:22

And some of the issues with transparency with NAM is mentioned there. That might be a good place for you to go.

39:29

And then you can kind of gather that information, the problems, the changes that need to be made.

39:36

I mean, personally speaking, I would say Kevin Azzell has to resign. Somebody either needs to fire him or he needs to resign.

39:42

I have been on the receiving end of outright lies that Kevin Azzell had said to our church with his name on the email that came to our church, and we could show that he was lying.

39:54

So it was, yeah, there's all kinds of abuses that are going on there. It is a top -down problem.

40:00

And it's even like other aspects of the Southern Baptist Convention, because they're all protecting him, what we call the platform in the

40:09

SBC, protecting Kevin Azzell and kind of preserving NAM in what it is that they're doing.

40:15

They will put out these numbers every year that is supposed to show them accomplishing or being successful at the mission that they have, but it's not true at all.

40:26

Churches are on the decline in the Southern Baptist Convention. There are 30 % less baptisms, 50 % less church plants.

40:35

There are more churches shutting their doors and closing down in the Southern Baptist Convention or leaving the

40:42

SBC than there are churches being planted. The decline in the number of memberships are going down tremendously, but the amount of money coming into the

40:54

SBC is still increasing. That's the weird thing. How is it that we're getting so many more, fewer people in Southern Baptist churches, fewer baptisms, fewer conversions, fewer church plants, and yet the assets, the money is increasing.

41:10

What are they doing with that? It's a total lack of transparency that's going on there.

41:16

So again, Reform NAM now, go to that. There is also a video on YouTube, some of the information in this video

41:23

I contributed to. Part of the job that I had at that particular time was doing research on certain churches that were in the

41:31

SIN network or as a part of the North American Missions Board. And so some of that research that I did, you actually find in this video, but it's called this, you can find it on YouTube.

41:40

It is NAM President's Lies, N -A -M -B President's Lies, The Truth About Supporting Women Pastors.

41:47

Look for that video. And there you have the women pastors problem that exists in many of these

41:53

NAM and SIN churches. I'll be praying for you, brother. Sorry that you have to go through this, but it kind of comes with the territory of being involved in the

42:04

Southern Baptist Convention, quite frankly. This next question comes from Brian in Oklahoma.

42:09

He says, hey, Pastor Gabe, I loved your contribution to the cessationist documentary.

42:15

We watched it at our church. Are you going to be at the cessationist conference in Mustang this weekend?

42:21

Which is going on right now. In fact, I believe that conference, the first day of the conference was just yesterday.

42:27

So obviously I'm not there. I'd love to meet you, he says, if you're coming. Have you seen this guy's response to the documentary?

42:35

And if you have responded to it, could you send me a link to that episode? I think his full response is something like two hours.

42:42

This is just the last four minutes or so. Tell us if you're ever in any more docs,

42:49

Brian. Well, I appreciate that, Brian. Like I said, I'm not at the conference. If I was still living in Texas, I probably would have tried to make it.

42:57

But man, it is amazing how far the Midwest is now from us in the

43:03

Southwestern portion of the United States. When I was living in East Texas, I was closer to my parents 10 hours from East Texas to Georgia than I am from here in the

43:13

Southwest portion of the United States back to our former home in East Texas. That takes about 16 hours for us to get here.

43:21

So we really we moved far West. I'm kind of further away from everything that I used to be a part of as a

43:28

Midwesterner. And now I have to get used to attending things out here in the Western portion of the

43:33

United States. So no, I wasn't able to make it to the cessationist conference, nor was I invited to be a part of it.

43:39

But I hope it's a good one. I love many of the speakers that are there and glad that something is able to be right there in Oklahoma.

43:47

Remember, previously, that conference was going to be in California. That would have been much closer to me.

43:53

I could have made that one, but I can't get out there to Oklahoma. God bless you and the conference of the work that they're doing this weekend.

44:01

So this video that Brian sent to me, this is from a fellow by the name of Daniel Kolenda.

44:07

I've heard of this guy. I did see some things that he did. I think they were clips that were taken from the overall response that he had made to the cessationist documentary.

44:19

And I did not watch his whole rebuttal. I did watch several episodes of what

44:27

Remnant Radio was doing. Some of you might remember the response that I gave to what they did on their program.

44:34

And that was sometime the end of last year. I listened to Gavin Ortlin's response to the cessationist documentary.

44:42

I didn't ever respond to it on the podcast, though I think I intended to do something there and just never did.

44:47

This guy's I haven't watched the whole thing, but here is a portion of it. This is four minutes. I don't know if we'll get through all of it.

44:54

Obviously, very against it. And in fact, he goes as far as saying that cessationists are actually functional atheists.

45:02

I think Mark Driscoll has made the same criticism of cessationists, but here we go.

45:07

We'll start this and see how far we get. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in John. Okay, let me stop first.

45:12

So the beginning of this is not Daniel Kolenda. The first verse that you are hearing here is actually

45:19

Jim Osmond. So he is responding to Pastor Jim Osmond, wonderful brother, and Justin Peters, who's going to be the voice that comes up after his.

45:28

I think he plays a portion of Jim, then you'll hear Daniel Kolenda, and then I'm going to break in and give my critique.

45:34

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in John chapter 11, there were some Pharisees and unbelieving Jews who were present there.

45:41

And when they left and went back to the other Pharisees and began to have discussions about how they would deal with Jesus, none of them questioned the legitimacy of Lazarus.

45:50

What they did instead was plot a way to kill Lazarus and kill Jesus because they could not deny that that miracle had happened.

45:59

Neither believers nor unbelievers ever tried to deny that the miracles were real. The only thing the

46:05

Pharisees could come up with was that they could attribute the miracles to someone other than God, and they attributed it to the devil instead.

46:13

Matthew chapter 12, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. They were attributing to the devil the works of the

46:19

Holy Spirit. That was the best that unbelievers could come up with. What about when Jesus himself was resurrected, which was a far more amazing and important miracle, by the way.

46:29

Aren't these guys aware that the word on the street at the time was that the disciples stole his body in the night?

46:36

And just imagine how these critics would have handled that very situation if they'd been around back then. Hey, if Jesus really rose from the dead, it's simple.

46:43

Just have him walk down the street or have him show up in the temple. How come this is all being done in secret?

46:49

How come he's only showing himself to his followers behind closed doors? Look, Jesus never caters to the unbelief of the critics.

46:56

He didn't do it back then and he doesn't do it today. No, Jesus' resurrection was very, very public.

47:02

It was seen by hundreds of people. 1 Corinthians 15, 3, for I delivered to you as of first importance what

47:09

I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12.

47:23

Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time.

47:28

Most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Absolutely absurd criticism that Daniel is making here because Jesus' resurrection was very public.

47:40

It was not secret. It was known and seen by many and could have even been seen by some of Jesus' critics, but they just would not acknowledge it.

47:51

They were not going to go out and see it so that they would not have to be put in a position of telling people that no, he didn't rise from the dead.

48:00

No, I didn't see him risen. They just would not go out to where he was, but he was very publicly known to have risen from the dead at the first preaching of the gospel at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2.

48:14

That's one of the appeals that Peter makes. He's risen from the dead. You know where David's buried.

48:20

You can go to his tomb. Where's Jesus' tomb? If you go to it, it's empty.

48:25

Everyone knew, and so with Peter's preaching of the gospel, this became convincing to more than 3 ,000 souls at the preaching of Pentecost, recognizing and even cut to the heart that their sins was the reason why

48:43

Jesus had been crucified. They put him to death, though he was the sinless one, the son of God who had been sent, the

48:51

Messiah who had been prophesied, and he rose from the dead and showed himself. The proofs were known, and they were cut to the heart, it says.

49:00

So they say to Peter, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter says to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the

49:12

Holy Spirit. So this was an actual public thing. So Daniel's argument there is ridiculous.

49:21

And notice that he ignores what it was that Jim Osmond said. And that's the way that he argues throughout this presentation,

49:29

I believe. At least in this four minutes is the case. I don't know if he does it the whole time. He does not actually respond to the argument that's being made.

49:37

He just comes up with his own counter -argument. I did pull up another portion of the long video and listen like in the middle somewhere, and he was doing it there too.

49:47

So he doesn't ever, whenever an argument is raised in the cessationist documentary opposing continuism, he doesn't have an answer for that.

49:56

He just gaslights is what it sounds like he's doing because he says there and makes a false accusation. He's slandering who should be his brothers in the

50:04

Lord by saying, see, these guys would deny that Jesus rose from the dead. They would say that he needs to walk down the middle of the street.

50:10

Well, he did. He was seen publicly by hundreds of people. The resurrection of Lazarus was a public miracle.

50:19

The people knew about it and it was one of the reasons why, according to John's gospel, it was one of the reasons why so many were gathered at Jerusalem when

50:29

Jesus came in riding on a donkey to the shouts of the people saying, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the

50:35

Lord. This is the prophet who raises the dead. It had been publicly seen and known.

50:42

And so Daniel is kind of creating absurd scenarios here to disprove cessationism, but not responding to any of the arguments that are actually made against continuism.

50:53

Now, as I hit play here, the next clip is going to be Justin Peters making a comment and then Daniel responding to him.

51:00

When Peter and John healed the man who had been born lame from his mother's womb and he was laid at the gate that is called beautiful, this was a genuine miracle, a genuine sign and wonder.

51:14

And everyone knew it. And seeing the man who had been healed, standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply.

51:23

What shall we do with these men for the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place through them as apparent to all who live in Jerusalem and we cannot deny it.

51:33

The New Testament miracles could not be refuted. I can absolutely refute the fake signs and wonders being purported in the charismatic movement today.

51:44

I can absolutely refute what Todd White does out on the street when he lengthens people's legs by a half an inch.

51:52

That's a parlor trick. The very fact that there is a debate is self -evident proof that these signed gifts do not continue.

52:02

No, what this means is that these cessationist teachers have more unbelief than even the

52:08

Pharisees of Jesus' day. Now, that is a crazy accusation.

52:14

See, I don't even make that accusation of all continuists that they are being pharisaical.

52:22

Some of them are. Whenever I hear the argument that is pharisaical, I'll call that out. But I'm not saying that continuism is pharisaical.

52:30

Daniel Kolenda does say that about cessationism. That is way overboard. Now, as he's going to give a response to what

52:36

Justin just said there, he's never going to address the fact that the so -called miracles that Todd White does are frauds.

52:47

They are cons. And Todd White knows that. He knows that what he is doing is a lie because he is deliberately, intentionally doing something to make a person think that their leg is growing out when that's not really what's happening.

53:06

And yet Daniel Kolenda here is not going to respond to that at all. That statement that Justin has made about,

53:12

I know as a matter of fact that Todd White is not lengthening anyone's leg.

53:18

He is not healing anyone. And Daniel's not going to respond to that. All he's going to do is attack the cessationist position.

53:26

One of the things that I talked about in my podcast series about cessationism is how this way of thinking that you see represented by these cessationist teachers actually comes out of the anti -supernaturalism of Enlightenment era philosophy.

53:40

And that's total nonsense. It's complete nonsense. You just heard Jim Osman and Justin Peters make their statements on what the

53:51

Bible says. It is not supernatural denial at all. And furthermore, we who are cessationists don't take the position that God is not doing miracles of any kind.

54:02

That has never been a true cessationist position. Now there are some kind of radical cessationists out there who do go that far and say there aren't any miracles happening at all.

54:12

I've met some of them. Hyper cessationism, you might call it, but that's not the general cessationist position.

54:18

It's not the position of anybody that appeared in this cessationist documentary. It wasn't a position that was presented in the documentary.

54:24

It is not a statement to say that there are no miracles happening, but just the regularity of the apostolic sign gifts.

54:33

That's not the way that God operates anymore. He did that specifically in the New Testament period for a reason to verify that the message that was being preached by the apostles was a word that came from the

54:47

Lord. The apostle Paul even says in 2 Corinthians 12, 12, the signs of apostleship were clearly demonstrated among you.

54:55

So there are certain gifts, miraculous gifts that were going on during that time in the first century with the spread of the gospel that were authenticating that the message came from God.

55:07

That doesn't mean that God doesn't do miracles anymore. He just doesn't do them like that. There aren't faith healers.

55:13

There aren't prophets that are revealing new things that would that would be an actual word from the

55:20

Lord. Every bit as authoritative as what we have in scripture. There are not people, I mean, except in some very rare circumstances,

55:28

I suppose there are not people that are speaking languages, speaking in tongues, uttering languages that they did not previously know.

55:35

And the gibberish thing that that charismatics will do is not speaking in tongues.

55:40

It's just gibberish. Those miraculous sign gifts are not continuing. There are still miracles.

55:47

People will still get miraculously healed, but it's not through a particular person that God has given a gift of healing to that that person is therefore able to now go out and heal everybody.

55:58

I believe that exorcisms are still a thing, but it doesn't mean that there's one person in particular who has that gift of exorcism and can just, you know, lay hand on somebody and boom, cast out a demon.

56:09

There are special circumstances in which these things happen. And James chapter five says, if any of you is sick, go to the elders, be anointed with oil, let the elders lay hands on you and pray so that he may be healed, confessing your sins.

56:23

I've done that as a pastor. So I absolutely believe in the power of prayer to heal.

56:29

But I would not dare say that I have some ability to just lay a hand on somebody and heal them or lay a hand on somebody and cast out a demon.

56:40

This is a cessationist position. And I'm in the documentary. So, of course,

56:45

I have to be a cessationist. But a cessationist still believe that God does miracles. He's just not doing them in the way and in the fashion in which you see it happening in the

56:55

New Testament. It's also not happening to the degree that the charismatic churches are claiming that it is.

57:02

I was in the charismatic church for over a decade, for over 10 years. And I never one time saw anything that could possibly be considered a miracle, not a miraculous healing, certainly not a speaking in tongues, not a casting out of a demon, and definitely no genuine prophetic revelation.

57:27

I saw a lot of people doing those things. And at the time when I was a continuous or a charismatic,

57:33

I believe that that stuff was really happening. I thought that most of it was not genuine, but I still wanted to think

57:41

I wanted to think the best of my brothers and sisters in the Lord. So I wasn't calling people out on it or anything.

57:48

And there's some things I would just kind of roll my eyes at. I didn't really take it very seriously. But when

57:54

I got out of that, when I finally came to understand what the scriptures have to say about this, even when I came out of charismatic churches,

58:00

I didn't give up my own charismatic leanings for another five or six years. And once I finally came out of all of that, when

58:07

I was looking back on it, realizing I never saw never saw one genuine example of anything miraculous, anything that the that the charismatics would claim ever taking place.

58:21

As a matter of fact, almost every one of the charismatic friends that I had in college had all apostatized because they knew too that they had never seen anything genuine in what they had professed his belief at that time.

58:40

And instead of realizing that, you know, the gospel is true, just this charismaticism is false.

58:46

They ended up leaving the faith altogether. Very, very sadly. But anyway, continuing on with with Daniel's answer here, something that obviously didn't exist in the first century.

58:55

The Pharisees and the scribes, they might have hated Jesus, but they weren't pre committed to a cessationist worldview.

59:01

Cessationists have to reject charismatic stuff. It's baked into their worldview and into their theological system.

59:08

It's codified, formalized, systemic unbelief. Well, that is I mean,

59:13

I can say the same thing to him about his denial of cessationism. It's the same thing. It's baked into your system.

59:20

You are going to deny cessationism. You are going to see a miracle where you want to see a miracle, even if no miracle had ever happened there.

59:28

It's baked into your belief because I was there. I was in those charismatic churches, and that's exactly the same thing that I would have said.

59:36

I would have defended something that the charismatics were saying was a miracle. I would have. I would have defended it to my death.

59:42

I would have gone to the stake over it. I would have let somebody put me like somebody's got a gun to my head.

59:48

You deny that that is a miracle or I'm going to shoot you. I'm going to say no, it was a miracle. It is baked into the charismatic system to believe it that way.

59:56

So again, Daniel's not making any kind of argument here against cessationism. The same basis on which he makes that argument defeats his own cause.

01:00:06

And you know, if they watched a miracle happen right before their eyes, they find a way to reject it because they'd have to.

01:00:12

Their worldview requires it. If it was a genuine miracle, no, we wouldn't. Not at all.

01:00:19

There are things that I've seen that I can't explain. I don't know that I would call them miracles, but I just can't explain them.

01:00:25

I don't think they were scientific. I don't think they have any naturalistic cause behind them. They were an answer to prayer, very clearly an answer to prayer.

01:00:34

God doing something amazing in a person's life. The reason why I would hesitate to call it miraculous is because it's not something like someone's withered hand got restored or someone who was paralyzed from the neck down suddenly just got up and walked.

01:00:47

It didn't look anything like that, but it was definitely God working in a person's life and healing them.

01:00:53

So I don't deny that at all. God working to accomplish his purposes. I see it all the time.

01:01:00

And if a if a miracle were to happen right in front of my face. Or somebody who's leprous is suddenly clean and healed and is walking around just fine and and no uncleanness to their flesh whatsoever.

01:01:13

Oh, I would absolutely acknowledge that that's a miracle. So this is just slander that Daniel's throwing out here.

01:01:19

He is predisposed to hate the cessationist position and even to slander who would be his brothers and sisters in Christ.

01:01:27

I say who would be because maybe maybe Daniel's not a Christian. Just go read some of their most influential theologians like Benjamin Warfield, who adopted the rationalism of guys like Hume and Harnack and Spinoza and Conyers Middleton to dismiss and reject all post biblical miracles.

01:01:46

And even when he was faced with things that seemed clearly miraculous and for which there was no natural explanation, he just said, we are content to say that in no case was it a miracle.

01:01:58

If they applied those same arguments that they use towards charismatics, if they applied that skepticism to the

01:02:04

Bible and to Jesus himself, they'd all be atheists. It's enough to make even a Pharisee cringe.

01:02:10

Oh, man. Oh, goodness. Help you, Daniel, because God does not take lightly the the the destruction of his church, which is what

01:02:20

Daniel is doing. First Corinthians 316. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you?

01:02:26

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy.

01:02:32

And you are that temple. And though Daniel probably thinks that he's defending the church, he's actually trying to tear it down.

01:02:41

I mean, the Apostle Paul thought that he was defending the word of God when he was going out and persecuting

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Christians, when he was rounding them up to even be put to death. He was on his way to Damascus to do that very thing when

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Jesus appeared to him and said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Paul thought he was doing the right thing, talked about it in Philippians chapter three.

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It was out of zeal for God's word that he persecuted the church.

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He was wrong. I thought he was doing the right thing. Sounds like Daniel kind of has that same approach.

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But Daniel, if you don't repent, and I really am concerned about the judgment that you will have to stand before God and face, we can disagree.

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And I've got cessationist or sorry, I am a cessation. I've got continuous brethren.

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I've got charismatic brethren, brothers and sisters. I know that are still in this way of continuism and we disagree with one another.

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We'll push back on each other. That doesn't mean that there are any less brothers or sisters of mine.

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Daniel sounds like he's just outright breaking from anybody tells you that they're cessationist. They are not of God.

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They're functional atheists. That is a crazy radical direction to go with that.

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And yeah, I hope that he repents. I'm not sure how judgment goes for such a one that would say something about a brother or sister in the

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Lord like that. But anyway, the documentary is still available. A lot of places where you can stream.

01:04:12

I know you can go on Amazon and you can rent the documentary cessationist and watch it that way or purchase it even.

01:04:18

But I thank you once again, Brian, for sending me that and glad you enjoyed it also.

01:04:24

Thank you so much for listening. Once again, if you want to send us a question, you can email it to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

01:04:30

or you can send us a voicemail. Go to www .utt .com and then click on the voicemail link that's right there on the top right corner of the page.

01:04:40

For those of you who've been praying for us, we thank you so very much. Our house in Texas still has not sold.

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It has now been on the market for over 300 days. We have it on the market for 10 ,000 less than we paid for it.

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And it is tens of thousands of dollars under market value. And we still can't move the house.

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We are praying. We know the Lord has a reason for this. We rejoice in God for bringing us here to Arizona and the work that we're doing here and through our church.

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We know that he's got a reason and a purpose for this, but I still got to tell you, we pray every single day that the house would sell and that it would move soon.

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So we appreciate your prayers for us in that way as well. But guys, you know, there are people in the country that are going through stuff way worse than what we're going through right now.

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We love everybody's support and your contributions to us have helped tremendously. They've gotten us out of real binds,

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I want to tell you for sure. But there are people right now whose entire their entire homes have been wiped away by this storm.

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So remember them also and be in prayer. And as you're able to help those causes with some of that disaster relief, please do so and be in prayer for those churches.

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Also, there are churches that have been wiped out and washed away. And I pray that there are the means and the resources available to help them rebuild and even be able to provide for people in their community, not just materially, but most especially with the gospel.

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Even in times of trials such as this, this is really where God shows himself faithful.

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Remember what he said to the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

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Heavenly Father, I pray for those who have been affected by these storms, and I pray that the needed help is getting in and providing for those people still a lot who are stranded and waiting for help to come to them, as I have read about.

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So make that way, open it up, that people are able to get in there and save those whose lives have been washed away, literally washed away by the rain and the flooding that came about as a result of Hurricane Helene.

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I pray that the gospel will shine forth in these communities, that we realize the stuff that is here on this earth is not going to last.

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It can easily be destroyed, which is why Jesus said to us in Matthew 6, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where even the flood rains cannot wash it away, or where our treasure is, there our heart will be also, and we are to seek the things that are above where Christ is.

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May the gospel shine into a dark place so that people will know it is by faith in Jesus Christ that we are forgiven our sins and given everlasting life and there is laid up for us a home in glory that is above all of this corruption that exists on this earth because of our sin.

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The reason why disasters and sickness, disease, destruction, all this other kind of thing, why all of this happens in the world is because we sinned against God and creation was cursed.

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And so we are reminded of our need for a Savior and may the gospel of that Savior go forth even in trying times that we may look to the

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Lord Jesus Christ, be forgiven our sins and have everlasting life with God.