Something Went Wrong!

By John Stallings


And the vessel He had made of clay was marred in the hands of the potter…..Jer.18:4


On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you’ve ever been to a Perlman concert you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken as a child with polio & so he has braces on both legs & walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully & slowly is an unforgettable sight.

Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back & extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down & picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor & proceeds to play.

By now the audience is used to his ritual. They sit quietly as he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They wait until he’s ready to play.

But this time, something went wrong.

Just as he finished the first few bars, one of his strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap- it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. People who were there that night said, “We figured he’d have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches & limp his way off stage-to either find another violin or else find another string for this one.

But he didn’t. Instead he waited a moment closed his eyes & then signaled the conductor to start again. The orchestra began & he played from where he’d left off. He played with such passion & purity as they had never heard before. Of course anyone knows it’s impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that & you know that but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, and recomposing the piece in his head. When he finished there was an awesome silence in the room. Then there was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the room. And then the people rose & cheered. He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, & then he said not boastfully, but in a quiet , pensive reverent tone, “You know, sometimes it’s the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

What a powerful line that is.

VERY OFTEN IN THIS FAST-PACED WORLD IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ALL-OUT EFFORT ON OUR PART, SOMETHING GOES WRONG.

Maybe it’s our health, or a relationship or a financial setback. Sometimes it seems that our whole world has come crashing down on us. Whatever has happened, we must carry on in spite of it to make the best music possible.

Sometimes were are tempted to think if we are good enough, pray enough, pure-minded enough & giving enough we will somehow escape trouble. Perfection, even if we could achieve it won’t guarantee trouble won’t come knocking at our door.

I remember a story my parents told me about their evangelistic endeavors when they first started in ministry. I had two sisters, Barbara & Marveline, & I was the only one too young to remember those days. My father bought a small Gospel tent & was traveling the south with it. We were staying in an old house out in the country that had been loaned to my parents for the duration of the series of meetings in La Grange, Georgia. One night my mother was awakened in her sleep & impressed to move the pallet where I was sleeping near an open window. At almost the instant she moved me a brick sailed through the window & landed where my head had been. Though that qualified as a small miracle, it was the late thirties & my parents survived on miracles.

The revival in that small Georgia town was going well; overflow crowds & many being saved. The revival was extended several times & stretched into weeks. Then one night something went wrong. My oldest sister Marveline, who had been fighting kidney disease, came down with a serious kidney infection & to make a long story short, she died in that town. Our little family had to lay her in a grave in LaGrange, Ga. To re-cap, my oldest sister died & was buried in a small town while her parents were conducting perhaps the greatest spiritual awakening the city had ever seen.

God has never explained that to me & I don’t believe He ever explained it to my parents. Being human, even though we are limited in our ability to grasp eternal realities, we expect God to explain His reasons to us. Trouble will come our way there’s no doubt about that, & sooner or later something in our lives will go wrong. The question is how will we respond to it when it comes? My mom, who was very young herself, responded by vowing to never put her foot inside another church as long as she lived. She was on a “slow burn” with a God who would take her beloved child while her whole family was doing all they knew to follow His leading.

Suffice to say all that changed a year later while attending a funeral of a friend. Mom heard the speaker give an illustration of a mother sheep that refused to cross a raging stream. Her baby lamb had to be transported to the other side of the stream, making the mother sheep willing to risk her life to be with her little one. Once this revelation came to mom; that she had a daughter waiting for her on the other side, she spent the rest of her life in the service of the Lord.

Jeremiah went to the potter’s house in 18:1-11 & gets an illustration for his next sermon to Israel.

As he observed the potter, he notes that as the clay is being fashioned on the potter’s wheel, something went wrong. The potter sees an imperfection in his creation & just stops. He mars the clay & starts over. Jeremiah sees something besides clay in this illustration & proceeds to use it as a parallel to Israel & her rebellion & imperfections. But God isn’t through with Israel & will continue to mold & work with them.

Jeremiah’s story is reminiscent of The Garden of Eden when God stooped down, got some clay & fashioned man with His own hands. But you don’t need me to remind you that in that beautiful lush garden where everything was just perfect, something went wrong. Adam & Eve were tempted by Satan & broke the command of God not to eat of one tree & it resulted in Man being banished from the Garden. We call that the “fall.” Just like the potter, God wasn’t so out-done that He had to throw man (the clay) away. No, he kept a hands-on relationship with man. He made them clothes out of animal skins, a foreshadowing of what would come later at Calvary when His Son would be offered as the final sacrifice for mans sin & transgression. God seems to be at His best when something goes wrong.

“Something went wrong!”

This is the story of the history of God’s people & it will doubtless be the story of our lives. We try so hard. We have all our “ducks in a row” but in spite of all our efforts to the contrary, something inexplicably goes wrong. We ask “why is this happening?” “Where is God in all this?” “Why doesn’t He step in & do something?” Some people even put this exceedingly unhealthy spin on it, “How could God do this to me?” Another unhealthy response is to blame others when things go wrong instead of looking inward & upward. We find ourselves up to our ears in the proverbial Alligators & realize too late that we should have drained the swamp.

PERHAPS NO ONE IN THE BIBLE HAD AS MANY THINGS GO WRONG AS JOB.

Job was a real man who lived in the land of Uz. His problems are so many its hard to select a few verses that share all of them. Job is one of the hero’s of the Bible. He was rich. He had ten children. He was upright before the Lord. Each morning he would make a sacrifice for each of his ten children in case they had sinned. Somewhat like a movie, there are two stories going on at the same time. One is the story of Job & his problems.

The other is the story between God & Satan. We are aware of both. Job was not. One day Satan shows up when the angels are before God. Imagine thousands & thousands of angels have gathered in the presence of God Himself to report on their activities. This is mind-numbing. All of creation is being held accountable to God. In this scene, Satan-fallen-rebellious-Satan-is permitted-is also allowed to come into God’s presence. Hold on to this truth; ---during the trials & tribulations of our lives, always there are dimensions that we don’t see. There’s always more than meets the eye & we need to stay keenly aware of this fact.

God says to Satan, have you ever considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him. He is blameless & upright, a man who fears God & shuns evil. God brags about Job. Does God ever brag about us? Remember, Job isn’t aware of this conservation. We are aware of why Job is hurting, but Job is not.

Then Satan speaks. He says, “Of course he serves you, you protect him.” So God allows Satan to harm what Job has but not Job personally. To give you an idea of God’s supremacy to Satan; Osama bin Laden didn’t come to President Bush & ask for permission to fly planes into the World Trade Center. No enemy ever asks for permission to attack. And yet here is Satan asking God for permission to attack Job. There can be no doubt that Satan did the dirty work but God allowed it.

Then something goes wrong!

Jobs trouble starts. One day a messenger comes & tells him that “his oxen & donkeys have been carried off, all his servants are dead & I alone am left to tell you.” While he was speaking another servant came & reported that fire from the sky has burned up all the sheep & servants & I alone am left alive to tell you.” Then Job is advised that all of his ten children are dead, killed in a house collapse. Job tears his robes, shaves his head & falls to the ground in worship & declares, “Naked came I from my mother’s womb & naked will I depart. The Lord gave & the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised.” Job 1:21. Job still doesn’t say anything foolish. What a man!

Satan has failed. So he goes to God again & says, “Job hasn’t failed because you haven’t touched him personally. You’ve only touched his possessions & children.” Then Satan is given permission to hurt Job but not take his life. Isn’t it a comfort to know that God sets the limits on how much we can be troubled?

The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Cor.10:13, God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but will with the temptation provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

When we’re hanging on by a thread we need to be reminded that God always has His protecting hands around us. He knows what we can bear.

I once heard country singer Loretta Lynn say in an interview—“They say God won’t put more on you than you can stand, but it’s not true.” Well, Loretta’s wrong about that. God isn’t going to allow us to be hurt & wronged so bad that our trust in Him will be destroyed. Here’s a promise you can hang your hat on; God sets the boundaries.

But then something else goes wrong! Job develops sores over his entire body. Next we see him scraping pieces of broken pottery over his body with his wife telling him to curse God & die.

There sure isn’t any encouragement at home.

But let’s not be too hard on Mrs. Job. We need to cut her a little slack. She’s been through a lot. Overnight she’s gone from being the wife of one of the most respected men in the east to a homeless outcast. Like Job, she’s lost everything, including her ten children. Now her once proud husband is sitting in the street suffering from a debilitating disease. His name has become synonymous with tragedy. The town looks at him with disgust. So Mrs. Job has been through a lot.

The problem with Mrs. Job is that she has caved into Satan’s attack. She no longer looks at God as good, she now sees Him as detached & uncaring. The one person Job should have been able to look to for comfort & support now becomes a tool in Satan’s hand. She becomes a part of Job’s humiliation-his test.

She rips into Job’s heart. Her advice is assisted suicide. “Forget your faith in this uncaring God-get Him really ticked off & God will kill you.” But Job says to her, you speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Job refuses to buy it & holds onto His faith in God.

Seemingly everything goes wrong; But why?

Now Jobs friends Eliphaz, Bildad & Zopharare are going to “help.” His wife wasn’t any help; maybe his friends can bring a little comfort. They sit with Job for a week in silence. When God isn’t forthcoming with an answer, his friends start to speak up. In short, they feel Job has sinned. There is an obvious dark side to his personality. He has brought on himself the torture he’s under. What “brilliant observations” they share with Job. It’s true that sin brings punishment however righteous people experience pain as well. It’s so easy to be simplistic & assume that a hurting person has caused their own pain. Of course we don’t appreciate this logic applied to us.

If you listen to some of the modern day ministers you’d get the idea that if you’re not healthy & wealthy something’s wrong with your faith. Maybe we should ask the early Christians who were eaten by lions about pain & suffering. Do you think it was because they didn’t know how to trust God or maybe there was sin in their lives?

Hebrews 11:38 says “The world wasn’t worthy of these martyred Christians.

We can read the story of Job so easily. We are aware of the conversation between God & Satan, this helps with the why. Job was able to witness to the devil himself about the boundless, sustaining grace of God. We also know the end of the story about the restoration of his possessions & having ten new children. Still we know he suffered. His wife didn’t help. His friends didn’t help. What helped Job?

For one thing Job went to the right place with his questions; he went to God. Job didn’t allow his pain to push him from God. When something goes wrong, some people will run from God, avoiding the church & God’s people. Job listened to God. God never told him about the conversation with Satan, & He never gives an explanation, but only asks Job to trust Him. Job got that lesson for he said Though he slay me yet will I trust Him. Job 13:15. God did however have quiet a conversation with Job. If you haven’t read chapters 38-41 of Job lately, reread them, they’re amazing. God’s Word doesn’t answer all our questions but it does tell us all God wants us to know.

Do you remember how it all ends up? In the end God blesses Job’s socks off. He lives to 140 years with blessings that went way beyond what was taken away. ----Job 41:17 says, -- Job died an old man & full of days.


SOMETHING WENT WRONG--- IN NAZARETH

I can’t imagine my friends & loved ones rejecting me can you? I’m sure we’d be shattered.

But that’s precisely what happened to Jesus. Mark 6:1-6 is one of the most awesome passages in Holy Writ. Jesus returned to His home town & the first day He arrived something went wrong. He friends & neighbors rejected Him. He had been enormously successful since He left his hometown. He had healed & restored a mentally ill man, a feverish old woman, a paralytic, a woman with a twelve year hemorrhage, & a dead little girl. He had reached across the boundaries & barriers of His society & welcomed the unwelcome, touched the untouchables, & ate with sinners. He had painted a picture of the Kingdom of God.

So everywhere He went there were huge crowds pressing into Him. People were bringing the sick & elderly to Him. All day long & into the evening they came, even following along the lake shore as He & His friends sailed from place to place in Peter’s boat. Everyone knew about Him, was talking about Him & had an opinion about Him.

And now for the first time since He left—since the day He walked away from the carpenters shop to be baptized by His cousin John—now for the first time Jesus came home to Nazareth. His parents’ village, where Mary had been born & where Joseph had been a carpenter. It’s a small town & everyone had heard the rumors about Him. They were His neighbors & watched Him as he grew up. These are the people Jesus met when He joined His friends in the old synagogue on the first Sabbath of His homecoming.

Was he proud to be there? I think so. Was he a little nervous when they asked Him to read & interpret? This was a tense, homecoming moment. When Jesus was handed the scroll to read, Mark tells us that the people asked several sarcastic questions. Where did this young man get all this? Is this not the carpenter’s son, the son of Mary? Usually men were known as their fathers son’s so when they referred to Jesus as “Mary’s son” it was the same as what we would call a “bastard.”

These people took big-time offense at Jesus. Jesus responded not by being argumentative but by stating the obvious—“Prophets aren’t honored in their own hometowns.” Mark cuts-to-the-chase & tells us He could do no great works there. Nothing changed in that village. Nothing new emerged. There was no revival. Life quickly returned to normal; and why not? They had rejected Jesus.

And now what I think is one of the saddest verses in the New Testament—He went about the villages teaching. That is, He left His own home town & never returned.

Jesus set the example here for the way we should act when it’s people who do us wrong. Being human we might be tempted to try to even the score. As we’ve seen Jesus never did that. We must remember that God is watching. He has known about the injustice all along so never run ahead of Him with your own solutions. If you have tried to do the right thing time & again, God is aware of that fact. What goes around comes around. We’ve all seen people try to hurt others & in the end they themselves get hurt. (Remember Haman?) God is patient, so we must be patient.

But when God’s patience has run out, & we never know when that’s going to happen, when God sees that people have hurt us & should be forthcoming with an apology but they refuse to “get it,” He moves in & does what only God can do in a way only God can do it. When God starts moving it’s a fearful thing to behold & you’ll be glad you did right when things start to happen. We should let our hurts go & God will deal with them for us.

……Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5

Don’t panic when something snaps in your life. Play on like Perlman. Turn to God in your time of despair.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Psalm 34:19

God is our refuge & strength: a very present help in time of need. Psalm 46:1


Blessings,


John

The Biggest Mistakes In The Bible

By John Stallings


In the late 1930’s, actor Gary Cooper said, “I’m glad it will be Clark Gable falling on his face in “Gone with the wind” and not me.” Being as GWTW is the quintessential movie of all time; I guess old Coop made a mistake.

Since I don’t have the list in front of me of the stupid things that have been said over the years, I’ll try to recall a few. A top man at the U.S patent office said in 1899, “I believe just about everything that can be invented has already been invented.” Another “brilliant” industrial leader said in 1977, “I don’t think there’ll ever be a demand for personal computers in American homes.”

Speaking of Clark Gable, early in his career a studio head said of him, “He’ll never be popular, his ears are too big.” Seeing as how time proved that man shockingly wrong, the only thing that was too big was his mouth.

Back in the early 1960’s the man who ran Decca Records said, “I don’t think we’ll sign those boys because people are tired of Guitars & their hair-do’s will hold them back.” He spoke of “The Beatles.”

A leader in Great Britain made the following statement in the late 1930’s, “I don’t think Hitler’s Germany has the inclination or the ability to attack their neighbors.” The bones of perhaps as many as 100 million dead people world-wide rise up to testify, “That was an awfully ignorant statement, & a costly miscalculation.”

Voltaire, the French Atheistic writer & orator said in the late 1800’s, as he held up a Bible at a Paris anti-God rally, “In 100 years, the only way a person will be able to even see a copy of this book will be through the dingy glass of a book case in some museum.” Not only was Voltaire wrong but 25 years after his death the Geneva Bible Society bought his Paris home & turned it into a storage building for Bibles. Not only that, they actually used his printing press to print copies of the Bible.

Now that we’ve covered a few of the biggest mistakes in modern times, what are some of the biggest mistakes in the Bible?

1. Mistake number one was the mistake of Potiphar’s wife.

In Genesis 39:1-23 we have her story. Potiphar’s wife is obviously a person of means & she’s used to getting what she wants. We don’t know her first name so we’ll call her by her husbands name but we know her desire for sin isn’t just a passing fancy. She continues to pursue young Joseph to get him into bed with her long after he’s spurned her advances. Joseph tries to reason with her & tell her all the reasons it would be wrong for him to have sexual relations with her. One day she’s so desperate she tries to use force to get her way.

She pulls off his coat but Joseph runs away & leaves it with her. This boy just can’t hang on to a coat. His integrity stands in the way of her fulfilling her desires so she comes to hate that integrity. Quickly she devises a plan because if she can’t get what she wants she will punish him for it.

I’ve got a new idea for a bumper-sticker. “Some people just stink.” I won’t pursue that but if someone will, I’m sure they’ll get rich. You would think that by Joseph acting in the proper way toward this woman she’d have an attack of conscience. You’d think she’d wake up to her terrible immoral principles but all she sees is getting her way or making someone pay. The nerve of anyone questioning the validity of what she wants. Her desires consume her to the point that she can frame an innocent man. And she never comes clean. After Joseph is in jail she lives with the knowledge of what she’s done day after day, month after month & year after year with no compunction of conscience that we’re told of.

Do you see what I see in this story? Your upright, perfect testimony might not always be enough to protect you from calamity.

If you haven’t gotten your eyes open to these “Potiphar’s wives,” it’s high time you did. Also, we need to stress that what she had was a spirit & that spirit can inhabit both sexes, just as a Jezebel spirit can inhabit both genders. This spirit needs to be avoided at all cost. There are thousands of “Potiphar’s wives” in the world. Pray that you never marry one, have one in your extended family or go into business with one. They are people who want what they want & will tell any lie & use any tactic if their desires are thwarted in any way. The reason they reject the gospel isn’t that they’ve found a problem in the gospel, or are having problems with their faith. They reject the gospel because if they accept it they can’t live like the devil.

No matter how you may reason with these “Potiphar’s wives,” no matter how good of an example you are, no matter what you do or don’t do, they’re just never coming around. Something I’ve learned is, that when a good person has been hurt by a “Potiphar’s wife” they will think; --- “well I know they’ll come around someday. I know deep in their heart they’re hurting for what they did to me. If you could read their mind & heart you’d see that they’re hurting for hurting me & someday before I die or they die they’ll open their heart to me & apologize in tears.”

If you believe that, & if you’re dealing with a “potiphar’s wife,” you probably also believe---“God didn’t make little green apples, & it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.”

You must realize that these folk have a mind-set that isn’t going to be detoured. Without a direct intervention from God, & almost a Damascus road experience, time will only harden them. You can talk till your hair catches fire & they won’t be changed by the truth. They will try to drag you down with them & if you insist on acting rightly, they’ll hate & attack you even the more for it. If they see that they can’t compromise your integrity, now you’re really in trouble. You can try to appease them & feel that when they finally see how open your heart is & how forgiving you are they’ll change, but that’s not going to take place with a “potiphar’s wife,” because she’ll despise you for your very goodness.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying you don’t have to keep acting like a Christian; we’re never absolved from that. But your goodness will only make them more hostile because you’re confronting them with hateful aspects of themselves. When confronted with the truth it’s easier for them to hate you than themselves. Some people just hate virtue.

You are probably asking, why was what Potiphar’s wife did one of the biggest mistakes in the Bible. I believe God is on the side of those who are wrongly accused & He will vindicate them in His own good time.

Let’s sit at the breakfast table with Potiphar & his wife about thirteen years after Joseph was sent away to rot in jail because of Potiphar’s wife’s lie. Can you hear the conversation? Potiphar says, “Honey, do you remember that young kid who tried to rape you several years back & we threw him in jail?” She answers, “Oh yes, how could I forget?”

Potiphar asks, “You know honey, I’ve thought about it over the years & I do hope you told the truth when you said he raped you.” She answers in a huffy tone, “Well I can’t believe you’d doubt your wife about something like that, why would I lie?” Potiphar answers, “You know I love you honey-bunny but I do hope you told the truth, because not only is Joseph out of jail, the license tag on his new chariot reads NUMBER TWO, & I report to him to work this morning.” Obviously Potiphar’s wife made a big mistake because God will vindicate those who’re blasted by her ilk in his own time & in His own way.

2. Another mistake in the Bible was Christ’s crucifixion.

Let me explain. We know Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. So from God’s perspective, when Jesus was killed by Jewish hate & Roman power, it wasn’t a mistake, but fit perfectly into heaven’s eternal scheme for the ages. If ever a man was born to die it was Jesus.

However, from Satan’s point of view, Calvary was a BIG MISTAKE. Listen to Paul;

--But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.—1 Cor.2:7-8

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the song I wrote entitled “Love grew where the blood fell,” but this scripture was the inspiration for that song.

“See my Jesus on the cross, the people crying,
Looking on a man would think it tragedy,
But what this world couldn't see,
Was when they nailed Him to that tree,
It would break the chains of sin’s captivity.

3. Another mistake in the Bible was made by the Roman soldiers at Christ’s tomb.

When Jesus was raised from the dead, something happened that shouldn’t be all that surprising. We’re told in Matthew 28: 9-15, that the guards who were the first to see Jesus in His resurrected body went into town to tell the leaders what they saw. This elite group of Roman Guards was the best Rome had to offer & they operated under the penalty of death. The powers that be, discerning what damage it would do to their leadership if the truth got out about Christ’s resurrection, immediately gave the guards money to keep their mouths shut about what really happened.

Think about that;-- the first witnesses that Christ rose from the dead, the men who had seen to it that Jesus was indeed dead & then saw Him alive were bought off to keep silent about it. They told an outright lie, that Jesus’ disciples came by night & stole His body.

These men could have been the world’s first Christian evangelists. They knew whereof they spoke. Just think what a blessing to the cause of Christ it would have been if these men could have just been truthful. Instead they allowed the love of money to buy them. Instead of becoming the first witnesses to Christ’s resurrection, they live in infamy; making the mistake of thinking the truth could be hidden.

4. Another big mistake in the Bible was made by King Agrippa.

In Acts 26, Paul stood before this king & preached the gospel. At the end of Paul’s testimony & defense of the gospel king Agrippa uttered these words;

“Almost thou persuadest me to become a Christian.”


Paul was in bonds, Agrippa was in bondage.

Paul was a prisoner of Rome; Agrippa was a prisoner of sin.

Paul was innocent before this earthly judge,

Agrippa was guilty before the judge of all the earth.

Paul was certain about Christianity,

Agrippa came close but retreated into unbelief.

Paul left unhurt, Agrippa left unhelped.


WHAT DOES AN “ALMOST CHRISTIAN” LOOK LIKE?

An “Almost Christian” sees the gospel as a guide to morality & they are smart enough to know that when the morals of a nation break down chaos overtakes a society.

An “Almost Christian” regards the gospel as a social tool to feed & clothe the poor.

An “Almost Christian” will quickly tell you that everywhere the gospel has gone it has upgraded humanity; such as equal rights for women, child labor laws & working conditions in mines & factories.

An “Almost Christian” will point you to the inspiration Christianity has been to the arts, such as Michelangelo’s works, Handel’s Messiah, & countless novels without which humanity would be impoverished.

An “Almost Christian” is near the Kingdom but not in it.

An “Almost Christian” doesn’t see that real Christianity is about a relationship with the living person of Jesus Christ.

An “Almost Christian” will knock on your door & ask you to “believe something” but never to “receive someone,” someone named Jesus Christ.

An “Almost Christian” will talk about Christianity’s usefulness but a real Christian will talk about its truthfulness.

We move from being an “Almost Christian” when we see that true faith is simply a living relationship with Jesus Christ; when we understand the words of Jesus when he said,

--If any man would be my disciple let him deny himself and take up his cross & follow me.

Don’t make Agrippa’s tragic mistake & settle for an “Almost Christianity.”


THAT WOULD BE A TRAGIC MISTAKE INDEED!



Blessings,


John