Isaac Crockett: Hello, I’m Isaac Crockett and joining me today on this broadcast is your regular host, Sam Rohrer, the President of the American Pastors Network and your other cohost, Dr. Gary Dull, the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Pastors Network and Senior Pastor of the Faith Baptist Church in Altoona, Pennsylvania. One of the three musketeers, Dave Kissler was unable to be with us today, but I’m glad you’re here with you and I’m glad that Sam and Gary are with us.
Isaac Crockett: Sam, we’ve been praying for him, this last week we were saying he had lost his voice. He’s still trying to find it, I guess you could say, but it’s coming back. So Sam, we’re glad to have you on. And then, Gary, has a pain in the neck, and we won’t say who gave him the pain in the neck, but-
Gary Dull: [inaudible 00:00:44]
Isaac Crockett: But both are here and ready to go today. So today instead of having a special guest I just want to chat with these two guys about some of the issues going on in our society today. In fact, right now I just want to talk about … You hear the old saying silence is golden, and as a parent with three younger children that are home-schooled sometimes silence does seem golden at times when I get a chance for some reflection, but silence is not golden when it comes to our pulpits preaching about wicked issues going on in our culture. In fact, a friend recently sent me an article written by Pastor John Burton, and the title of this article was Seven Reasons Pastor Stay Silent in our Wicked Culture.
Isaac Crockett: Now, before I go into some of that reasoning, Sam, let me just ask you real quickly your perspective as the President of the American Pastors Network, you travel, you work with a lot of people, you get a lot of feedback from the viewers of your daily radio show here, Stand in the Gap, as well as your weekly TV show, both are national, how much of a problem are we facing when it comes to pulpits being silent on current issues? I don’t know if there’s any estimate or a percentage of pastors that are not preaching on those topics, or maybe any examples you have of maybe people wanting to hear about that from their pulpit, but their pastors are afraid or unwilling to do that.
Sam Rohrer: Well, Isaac, we know, I mean I think all of us, you know, Gary, Dave who’s on the program, all of us who interface a lot, we hear this, meaning we hear the fact that there are too many silent pulpits. We hear that very often. When it comes to try and quantify that I would have to take probably for the most sophisticated piece of research, and that was done by George [Barnahoo 00:02:26] who’s been on this program, as our listeners know, quite regularly, he did a survey a couple of years ago now in which he found that the numbers evidenced the fact that 92% of those in the pews of our churches, including our Evangelical churches, not just the liberal churches, it’s basically all of them, where people are going … 92% say they are very, very hungry, they strongly desire that their pastors and the pulpits preach the word of God, take biblical principles, the purpose being that they apply those principles to the issues of the day, the things that are happening outside the walls of the church. So it could immigration and borders, or taxes, or all the abortion thing taking place, or impacts on marriage, all of these things that impact us all in our families they want. 92% want their pastors to take biblical truth and say this is what it says about these issues.
Sam Rohrer: The reason they say that is so they understand how to think and interpret the news of the day. The bad news is only 9% of those in the pulpit will actually do it. That is the problem and that is what I think many equate with silence of the pulpits and when you go to 92% want information, only 9% will. I would say that definitely quantifies as a silence in the pulpit.
Isaac Crockett: So, Gary, this is obviously a very real issue, it sounds like we’re at a remnant of pastors, according to that poll, probably less than 10% who are actually willing or able to do it. So, Gary, in the article I mentioned a few moments ago, The Seven Reasons Pastors Stay Silent in our Wicked Culture, it was interesting because one of the first things is one we would expect, and that was the fear of men and there were some things about being afraid to be political, that politics shouldn’t be in the pulpit, and those are things we hear, but some of the things that he pointed to were kind of surprising to me. One of the points he made, one of the seven points, was that some pastors say, well I just want to preach the bible. We talk constantly about the bible, biblical context on this program, biblical world view, is it justified for a pastor to say, well I’m an expository preacher, I’m preaching the word of God, therefore my preaching won’t address the cultural issues of the day? Is that even a justifiable excuse?
Gary Dull: Oh my goodness, Isaac, no, because if a person is preaching the word God from an expository position, I should put it that way, he is going to be dealing with the cultural issues of the day. So if a father comes along and says, well I’m an expository preacher and so therefore my preaching won’t address the cultural issues of the day, he does not understand what expository preaching is all about. I want to remind everybody that the Scripture teaches us very clearly what we as preachers are to do. Take it from the Apostle Paul who said in Galatians chapter one, in verse 10, “For do I not persuade man or God or do I seek to please men. For if I yet please men I should not be the servant of God.” So what we find is that we, who are preachers, have the responsibility to preach the word of God and, if we are truly expositing the Bible, the word of God, we will be dealing with the cultural issues of the day. We can’t get away from it.
Gary Dull: One of the reasons why I like expository preaching is that as you go through the Bible, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book, you come across those cultural issues of the day. You can’t get around it. You must present that truth to the congregation.
Isaac Crockett: I wholeheartedly agree with that. Real quick, Sam, quick followup, a couple more points in that article, one was that John Burton pointed out that many times it’s a lack of prayer life in the pastor, why he’s not willing to do that, and another one he said, and I’ll quote from his article, he said, “There are streams today that only focus on what is positive and encouraging,” and if it wasn’t positive or encouraging some didn’t want to preach on that, we have about a minute left, what would you say to that, Sam?
Sam Rohrer: Well, I know that that is true, Isaac, that is the case, and I ask this question of everyone who’s listening and all of us here, isn’t it definitely preferable and nice to be able to talk only about those things which are nice? Yeah, it really does make you feel nice. But unfortunately, even when it comes to the gospel and salvation, until a person first hears the bad news of sin and separation from God, which sin produces, only then, when the horrendous nature of the separation from God that sin has brought into our life, only the is the news of salvation and redemption, good news. So we have the wrong idea to think that bad news always ends in disaster, no. Properly framed, bad news of sin and what that is puts us in a position where we now recognize really good news of salvation, which brings with it hope, and restoration and redemption.
Isaac Crockett: Thank you so much, Sam, for putting it so concisely.
Isaac Crockett: Well, welcome back to the second segment as I continue to ask Sam and Gary some questions about our society and culture. On this program we have discussed a lot of issues that have to do with the “progressive moment”, and as our friend Pastor Mat [Racker 00:07:52] from New York City, he called it the regressive movement, because many of the ideas, if not all of the ideas, seem to be very old ideas that are cropping up again in somewhat different wording but really the same old thing disguised again. But these goals, again, not anything really new, it’s, again, man-centered and they have been working for a decades, for centuries really, to chip away at our culture, working to make us more accepting of their radical agenda. So on this first segment we looked at the problem that happens when pastors aren’t willing to use the word of God to confront through biblical application, that’s what true expository preaching, as Gary was saying, really is, is using the Bible and then applying it in our day and age what we need to hear from it. So as a result, these things are being pushed further and further and further, so what do we expect to see? What results will we see in our society, especially with silent pulpits and a progressive movement that is just really pushing this?
Isaac Crockett: Well, we, again, have discussed on recent programs some of the results being late term abortions, now looking like people are wanting to push even infanticide, legalizing marijuana and things that will cause us not to be able to think very cleanly and make us easier to control. Now, a push in our schools and education from grade school through college, a push in the media, especially through movies and television, to take biblical truth and throw it away, to almost demonize biblical morality and to turn things upside down as far as our culture’s morality goes. So we said that this leads us to a spiritual problem, but it does more than just leading us to spiritual problems, if there’s spiritual problems we’ll see emotional and physical problems as a result. We’ve said that for years. Well, let’s look at a recent USA Today article that just come out on March fifth and it talks about what’s going on in our nation. On March fifth, Jayne O’Donnell wrote an article in USA Today, and here’s the title, the title is US Deaths from Alcohol, Drugs and Suicide Hit Highest Levels Since Record Keeping Began.
Isaac Crockett: Pastor Gary, I want to ask you, you’re an experienced pastor, you are very involved with the rescue center near you, you’re on a first name basis with many of the men there and you’ve seen a lot of things in your years of pastoring, does this article surprise you from what you’ve been seeing in our society over the years?
Gary Dull: Well, certainly if the article is based upon facts I would believe it simply because of the fact that I think we have been able to recognize that down through the years. But let me put it this way, when you’re talking, Issac, about abortions and legalize marijuana, whatever the case may be, I think where we find ourselves today is in the midst of a generation of people who are really searching. Why do people go to alcohol? Why do people go to drugs? Why do people go to suicide? And so forth and so on. The answer is I believe that they are trying to find a reason for life, a reason for living.
Gary Dull: I remember a number of years ago I conducted my own personal study among young people and I asked them two questions, number one, what do you want in life and what do you fear out of life? Their answer was, number one, they wanted a life that’s worth living, and number two, they were afraid of dying. I mean, there were various other answers given as well, but across the board that basically was how they answered that particular question, and I thought the answer to that is Jesus Christ, is it not? Because in John chapter 10, in verse 10, Jesus said, “I have come that they life and that they might have it more abundantly,” and so when one comes to Jesus Christ as personal Lord and savior there is a reason for living and there is not fear of death because we have life eternal in the presence of all mighty God.
Gary Dull: So when we talk about this idea of the increase of alcohol, drugs and suicide, et cetera, et cetera, we realize that that is a worldly way to deal with the problems of life. The biblical way to deal with the problems of life is faith in Jesus Christ as personal savior. Christ does not take away all of our problems, but Christ does give us the strength to face those problems of life so that we will have a life that is worth living.
Isaac Crockett: That’s exactly what all of us are looking for. Again, this goes back to what kind of lens we’re looking at, what our context is, what our world view is. So if we think that we’re just a bunch of nothing that exploded and created something that’s really nothing and we’re just equal with the animals, then it would be quite depressing and hard and fearful. But if we believe that God created us individually and that he gave us a soul and that we live eternally, well, that brings, like you say, abundant life, life more abundant here on earth and eternally.
Isaac Crockett: Going on into this article, actually Sam I’ll ask you this question in this USA Today article, psychologist Ben Miller, who’s the Chief Strategy Officer at The Wellbeing Trust, he’s quoted as saying this, and it really goes back to what Pastor Gary was just saying, he says, “While overdose antidotes and treatment for opiod use disorder are needed,” Miller says, “it’s not going to fix the underlying problems that lead people to end their lives whether or not it’s intentional.” Sam, as a preacher and as one who’s worked as a Christian in the government dealing with some of these things, what are the underlying issues that are causing these problems? Because psychologist Ben Miller doesn’t actually really describe all of those. He just says there’s underlying issues that cause these problems, that cause them to do these things, it kind of goes back to what Gary was saying, what are some of those issues?
Sam Rohrer: Boy, Issac, we could spend a long time on this. I’m trying to think of the best way to simplify this. In essence, people seek help. As what Gary said, when they become dissatisfied, expectations of whatever it may be are not met, or when there is a, what we would call, a depression of some type, there’s a despondency. Now, in some cases you could say, well, all right, why is that? Well, some are organic, some are driven by actual things that happen. For instance if we eat the wrong things, if we ingest within our bodies things like alcohol and drugs, whether they’re experimenting or whatever, any of those kinds of things produce imbalances within the body, violating basic principles of Scripture, which that would be one of them, we’re not to put anything into our body that harms it. That would be a violation. But even simple things such as not observing and getting necessary sleep. We are to work six days, we are to get our sleep, the bible makes that clear. If we think that we don’t ever need sleep it’s going to affect our bodies.
Sam Rohrer: So there are things that happen, a lot of them are choices like that. I think we can take a biblical principle and probably attach it to every one of them, but then there are such things that we’re running into, Isaac, that are producing these things because we have, as a culture and as families, thrown off God’s model. When we throw off God’s model for the family, which is so under attack, father doesn’t do what the father is supposed to do, mother doesn’t do what she’s supposed to do, the children don’t know what God expects them to do, and there’s disfunction in the family which are all over the place, well then children naturally are not satisfied. They don’t see the image of God that God created and there is great disfunction. All of those things create trouble as well. So there are a lot of things that can lead into the reasons a person becomes despondent and depressed. Many of those that are choice related, spiritual reasons, Jesus Christ is the answer.
Sam Rohrer: I have friends who I know who are good men of God, who are on some kind of drug therapy right now because of the depression, not because of their spiritual condition, but because of some other medical condition … So I don’t you could make blanket statement, but it may also may come down to the fact that something is not functioning properly. Most of the time though it is related to the fact that we are not living appropriately before God the way we should be.
Isaac Crockett: That brings up another good point, one of the points in this article, is that people are very lonely. Quoting from the article it says, “The lack of social connection fuels hopelessness. We don’t really see each other anymore. We don’t share our hopes and joys,” and it goes on. It’s ironic in this day of social media that we’re not being as social, interacting with each other face to face. So, Pastor Gary, real quickly here, considering this day and age of social media, I just read an article on Fox News by a social media pastor, and he said that church as we know it is over. How is church as we know it not over and how does being part of a physical, local church help us with these issues and help us with connection?
Gary Dull: Isaac, it helps us in every way. I have taught for over 40 years that the local church itself should be center of activity for the Christian. In other words, it’s the center of their life. That’s where born again believers should gather together for their fellowship, for their encouragement, what have you, and that’s based upon Hebrews chapter 10 in verse 25. Now, many times we hear or think of Hebrews 10:25, we think of the first part where it says, “Not forsaking the assembly of yourselves together as the manner of some is,” and we could speak on that and teach on that, but that next phrase is extremely important, Isaac, where it says, “but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.” Why is it that we are to be involved in the local church? Well, we could say to publicly worship God, the sing praises under God, to hear the word of God preached and taught and so forth, but the Bible here says that we are to be certain not to forsake the assembly so that we can exhort and encourage one another. That doesn’t mean just going up to somebody and say, my you look good today, but it means to give a biblical exhortation, a biblical encouragement to others.
Gary Dull: I have found this done through the years, Isaac, that where believers gather together in the confines of the local church and exhort one another, they will be stronger and they will be able to rise above these issues that would otherwise may bring them down in life.
Isaac Crockett: Back to the subject of pro-life, pro-death, this fact of euthanasia that some are talking about, and we’ve looked at these radical changes taking place in our society, especially over the last 10 years, but I remember growing up in the ’90s and I remember by dad used to preach against a lot of the stuff we’re talking about. I remember him warning us that if we kept down the path we were taking, and I remember even at that time, in the early ’90s when Bill Clinton became President, and I remember my dad saying that we would see and he would call it disastrous results were ahead. This was during the time where former Vice President Dan Quayle, where he was ridiculed for taking the stand for family values when he criticized Murphy Brown which now, years later, almost 30 years later, we see that what he said was actually quite prophetic and people were falling all over Bill Clinton in spite of some of his other scandals he had going on because he was so charming. My dad warned that America was taking a path that would result in more abortions, but as sex outside of marriage increased other perversions, other problems, would increase because we were going against the design for God’s family. He said we would see human trafficking increase, increase of depression and suicide and drug abuse, all these things that are in our modern headlines, and I believe my dad was right.
Isaac Crockett: But another area that he used to preach against, following this humanistic teaching of getting what we want and getting it right away, he said that, and this is something I think many people’s minds are changing on now, but he said that we would begin to embrace the idea of euthanasia if we headed down that route, and it seems this is growing in our society too. As hard as it was for me to watch my dad suffer from cancer, it seemed that cancer was just eating his life away, God gave my dad grace and it gave him many opportunities to witness to people and to encourage Christians even in his very painful, if you would say, battle or his painful illness of cancer. Even in his last days, actually even in his last hours, the Lord gave him grace and strength to do and to say things to pray for people and to do things to bring comfort and encouragement to others as well as witness to unsafe people.
Isaac Crockett: Now, according to an article written just a few days ago in the Baltimore Sun says “Following an intense emotional debate that brought some lawmakers to tears, the Maryland House of Delegates approved a bill Thursday,” that would be this past Thursday, “that would allow terminally ill adults to obtain prescription drugs they could take to end their lives.” Sam, I want to go to you, you’ve held office, and I wonder if you’ve ever maybe had similar bills to consider, and I don’t know if you did, was there a situation where you thought you would vote for that if you were in office right? Would you ever vote for such a bill? Why or why not would you think that would be appropriate?
Sam Rohrer: Well, Isaac, I wasn’t confronted actually when I was in the Pennsylvania House with an actual bill that would have advanced euthanasia, but there were those there who were talking about it at that time and who were beginning to encourage it because the whole thing that we call euthanasia, often referred to as the right to die movement, has actually been around for quite some time. It was the Euthanasia Society of America, 1938, that was founded in New York City, and they began to talk about their goal to pursue social and legal acceptance for the right, they call it, the right to kill vulnerable human beings. Well, this mentality we saw world wars fight over this, did we not? Where people killed others by the millions in Germany, that’s Marxism that has done that.
Sam Rohrer: But at the end of the day, Isaac, the mentality of the protection of life has been around really long, 2,400 years. Physicians, when they came in as a new physician, took what most people recall as the hippocratic oath. The hippocratic oath is something that is pretty phenomenal. It says this, “To please no one while I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death,” and also this was a part of the hippocratic oath, “nor will I give a woman a pessary,” a device, “to procure abortion.” Abortion and early death, killing someone before God determines the time, has something that has been around for a long time, but it’s not really in our country that recent. I mean, it’s been coming around now … Anyways, bottom line, how would I address that? I would say this, Isaac, that the default position for anyone in a position of authority, a physician, a mom and a dad, somebody in office making law, or whatever, what has got to be the default position from a biblical perspective? It’s got to be life. Why? Because it came from God himself. All through Scripture we are commended to encourage life, culture life, take that young life, that child, and move them along to the point where they can come to understanding of who Jesus Christ is, who can save and give them eternal life.
Sam Rohrer: The opposite of that, moving away from God, is moving away from life. Rejecting God and rejecting eternal life in heaven is to go the opposite direction and to embrace death and eternal death in hell. That’s the biblical model. So as someone in office, I always went down on the default position of saying if it does not preserve, enhance and defend life then I cannot support it because I think that’s the biblical position. But that’s what every person ultimately has to come to that point of answering those questions for themselves.
Isaac Crockett: Well, Gary, let’s go to you now real quickly here, and the Bible says that no greater love hath no man than this, that a man may down his life for his friend, but what about a man laying down his life for himself because he doesn’t want it to be prolonged and suffer? I’ve heard many people, including Christians, in recent days say if I was diagnosed with a terminal illness I think I’d just want to kill myself. Why is that such a common response? And in your opinion maybe, and most importantly as a pastor, is this a biblical way to handle terminal illness?
Gary Dull: Well, Isaac, it’s not the biblical way to handle a terminal illness simply because of the fact that it’s not living according to the biblical world view. The fact is we recognize that it is God who causes, allows or directs all things to come to pass in our live, and everything that comes to pass in our lives is a trial, a circumstance that we are confronted with, in which we have the responsibility to pass in accordance with God’s word and will.
Gary Dull: There are six very interesting words given back in first Kings chapter 12, in verse 24, I cannot go into the context due to the lack of time, but those six words are these, “For this thing is from me.” That is God speaking basically to the children of Israel and he was basically saying that this, that they were going through at that particular time, came from him. We need to understand, Isaac, in our life, everything we face comes from God as a trial for us to grow closer to the Lord. So when we go through these trials, even if it’s in the context of facing a terminal illness, we need to understand three things, number one, God is allowing us to go through that trial to show himself to us as a gracious, loving God, number two, to be a testimony to others as to how God’s strength does get us through the circumstances of life, and then number three, to glorify him.
Gary Dull: I can remember a number of years ago visiting a patient in the Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a lady was just told she had a terminal illness and her response was, when I walked into that door, Isaac, she said, “I am so excited, Pastor Gary,” and I said, “Why?” She said, “The doctors tell me I have a terminal illness and I can’t wait to see Jesus.” I want to tell you the way that the nurses and the doctors around her responded to her was absolutely tremendous. She saw the grace of God in that, she trusted the grace of God in that, and others had a great testimony as to how the grace of God works in the lives of believers.
Gary Dull: Remember, no matter what we go through, for this thing is from God. There are lessons for us to learn. We should not ask to question why has this happened to me, but why has this happened for me. What is it that I can learn through this situation, including the potential of a terminal illness?
Isaac Crockett: Well, welcome back and thanks so much for listening. I’m Isaac Crockett, I’m interviewing your regular cohost, Sam Rohrer and Gary Dull. We started out program by looking at, yes, these problems facing our society, the way we keep moving further away from God, but also the problem that it would appear the majority of pastors, the majority of churches, of pulpitis in America, are not speaking out and applying God’s word to the wickedness of our culture. So we started out by saying that silence is not golden when it’s our pulpits being silent on our culture, and so I want to look at what we can do … Maybe you’re listening right now, maybe you’re a church leader of a pastor and you want to do more preaching on this, so I would encourage you to use resources from the America Pastors Network to reach out to us if you need. We have folks here at the American Pastors Network that might be able to come to your church and speak to you and speak to your congregation on things, but there’s a lot of information in our archives that would be great for bible studies and Sunday school topics, and event help you as put your sermon together to apply things from a biblical world view.
Isaac Crockett: But here I want to take just a little bit of time at the end of this program, before we end it, to look at what we can do as individuals, as Christian families, as bible believing churches, and even as a nation, to fight the wickedness, the darkness, as to be walking alight in spite of the darkness around us.
Isaac Crockett: Pastor Gary, I’ll go to you, I think of the sermon of the mountain Mathew chapter five, verses 13 through 16, Jesus says that we’re to be salt in this world, that we’re supposed to be light in this world, what words of encouragement do you have if you were talking to listeners right now the way you talk to your congregation on a Sunday morning, what would you do to encourage us as individuals and as families to be able to stand in the gap for truth in these dark days in which we live?
Gary Dull: Well, Isaac, I certainly put a lot of responsibility in the hands of the fathers and the husbands in the families. Indeed, we are to be salt and we are to be light, but you ask about the family and I think that that’s key because the family is the key unit in society as well as in the church. I go back to the principle brought out in Deuteronomy chapter six, verses five through seven, and I don’t have time to read that entire text, but in verse seven it says, “Thou shalt teach them diligently,” talking about the principles of God, “onto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand,” and so forth, what is that teaching us? It is teaching us that we must be centered around the word of God. If we as individuals or if we as families are going to be the salt like God would have us to be, the word of God must be the center of everything that we do.
Gary Dull: And then take it one step further, we already talked about it in the former segment, and that is get involved in a good, solid Bible believing local church where the word of God is the center and allow that involvement in that local church to strengthen and edify you in the things of the Lord. So have a solid Bible centered life. You can’t get around it. If your life is bible centered you will be the salt and light like God would have you to be, you’ll stand in the gap as God would have you stand, and if you’re involved in a good solid Bible believing church and applying the principles that are taught there you will be what God would have you to be. That may sound simplistic, Isaac, but it certainly is the foundational tenant that is going to enable us all to stand in the gap for the Lord as individuals and as families.
Isaac Crockett: Pastor Gary, you’re so right, it’s very simple but it’s not very easy. Having a family and a church family that work together in a biblical way, God’s way, it is priceless and yet it is hard to find families willing to teach their children to memorize Scripture and to be involved in Church and to find a good church that is easy for a family to be a part of that helps corroborate what the parents are teaching their children. So very important for those two steps.
Isaac Crockett: Sam, could you give us some ways here, as we close our program out, in fact we’re so close to the end that I’ll ask you to do this and then to close us in prayer as well if you would, but you could you give us some ways that churches then can take a stand, that pastors can have their pulpits be biblical opportunity to really teach how we stand up in these dark days and even America as a nation, what we can do as a nation to reverse the direction that we seem to be headed in? If you could maybe touch on those things and then close our program in prayer, please.
Sam Rohrer: Isaac, just a couple of points here, one, I think, and again we can spend an entire program on here, but I think by and large, our churches at large, probably need to reevaluate their purpose. Now, what I mean by that is a church, biblically, is a called out assembly of believers, it is there for the purpose of providing the kind of fellowship, encouragement edification that Gary talked about that goes to the heart of helping to address these tremendous needs that we’re seeing today in despondency and depression. That is to be a model of what that church family is to do. And the primary purpose there, of that church, is to produce disciples, Isaac. That is to equip, and in that setting, train up those who are there so that we know how to think and act biblically, to walk in a Christ like fashion, and by so doing that our individual lives, the lives of our families, and then collectively the life of that local church, to be such a magnet, a light in a dark world that those around then come and ask like they did in the days of the New Testament, early church, would ask people what is it about you that makes you joyful? What is it about you that in your family can heal these circumstances that plague the rest of our society? That’s exactly what redemption does.
Sam Rohrer: Isaac, I think with that we’re to be done and we’re to focus more on obedience to God’s word, holy living, righteous living in our families, fathers and mothers thinking that with their children, children thinking that in their families, being led by the pulpit in that regard, and equipping and training our people to think and act biblically in how we can most effectively operate as ambassadors of Jesus Christ, our calling, which is here, that would produce the kind of change in our culture, the kind of action that would help to go to the core of addressing these issues we’re talking about today, of a despondent, depressed culture, that turns to everything other than God and Jesus Christ, for, who alone is the hope that is there for us to have. I think, Isaac, that’s what I would say a church rethink the mission and what you’re doing and pastor, what you’re doing and what the purpose is. If it’s focused on discipling and discipleship and raising up those who look and walk like Jesus Christ, Isaac, it would transform, I believe, where we are.
Sam Rohrer: Let’s pray here. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day and this focus today, such a practical emphasis, touches all of us, on one degree or another. Lord, for those of us who know the truth, who have found our hope and fulfillment in Jesus Christ, may we be confident of that and share it and live it. And if there’s anybody listening right now who does not have that, may they come to you in open repentance and acceptance of the great gift of salvation that you alone, that your son Jesus Christ, has provided on the cross. And Lord, that is the matter of redemption and it is there for all who is willing to accept. We commit this to you, in Jesus Christ, in his name. Amen.
Recent Comments