Preparing for Death Every Sunday

Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. We do not know from one day to the next what lies in store for us. Proverbs teaches us to remember that: A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps (16:9), and there are many plans in a man’s heart, nevertheless the LORD’s counsel—that will stand (19:21). Our life is but a vapor that appears for a time and then vanishes away (Jas. 4:14). Moreover, the LORD knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust (Ps. 103:14).

You might expect that our inescapable frailty and and certain mortality would be regularly at the forefront of our minds, but for most people this is not so. Many people never think of their own death or the likelihood that any number of factors—whether pleasant or painful—may intrude to change the plans we made for our future. While this knowledge perhaps should be common to all men, it is a particular mark of God’s saints. If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that (Jas. 4:15). Whereas worldlings will say: Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die! The believer sees the same inevitability as a reason for piety and obedience rather than self-indulgence. “You only live once” means very different things to those who serve Christ as opposed to those who live to serve only themselves.

If the Lord’s Day is a regular part of our spiritual discipline, then we will never be far removed from thinking about the end of our lives, the salvation of our souls, and standing before the Lord in judgment. There are friends I have not seen in-person for many years, some I have not even spoken to in more than a decade. But when I take my last breath in this world and open my eyes for the first time in heaven, I want the next thing I see to be very familiar to me, even if I am looking at it for the very first time. As Lewis says in the passages we recently quoted from The Problem of Pain, Christ will look like our first love because he is our first love. The first time we look upon his face, it will be as if his face is the one we’ve known best all along.

You do not have to fear standing before God in judgment if you have made a practice of confessing your sins and standing before the judgment seat of Christ every Lord’s Day: hearing his pardon, receiving his absolution, and being comforted by the knowledge of his love and grace. You will not be idolatrously wed to this present world if you have made it a habit to wholeheartedly give yourself to the Lord’s kingdom on the Lord’s Day week after week. You will not feel out of place singing and praising God in heaven above if you have made a regular practice of it here below. The Lord’s Day is God’s gift and preparation for our eternal destiny, whatever may lie between now and then.

Sometimes illness, injury, or an inconvenient providence will intervene, but we should know with certainty our plans for the Lord’s Day each and every week. I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the house of the LORD (Ps. 122:1). We still must say, “If the Lord wills, we will meet with the church tomorrow morning.” But may the Lord will it, may he give us the grace and strength to do so. We need it. The Lord’s Day is the ministry of God to us. We are not merely serving him in worship; the worship is God’s service of mercy to us, miserable sinners, but not miserable in Christ. --JME

The Pro-Life Crowd That Isn't

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Yesterday, April 9, 2024, the Supreme Court of the State of Arizona handed down a landmark ruling affirming that an 1864 law banning abortion was enforceable given the 2022 Dobbs decision and its overturn of Roe v. Wade. The reaction to the decision was predictable. The Left gave vent to its anger and outrage — Arizona’s governor and Attorney General quickly announced they would defy the ruling and refuse to allow any prosecutions related to abortion. Meanwhile, “conservatives” on the Right clutched their pearls, clucked their tongues, and demurred in grave and subdued tones — “When we said we were pro-life, that’s not exactly what we meant. We don’t want to be perceived as radical or fundamentalist. We’d hate to endanger our polling among the Gestapo because of unnecessarily expansive protections for Jewish and minority rights.” When “conservative” and “Christian” leaders insist that they favor a 15-week abortion ban, not a complete ban on abortion except in cases where it may be necessary to save the life of the mother, we may credibly ask: Exactly what is “Christian” about this position, and what are they preserving besides their position and influence?

Doug Ducey, Arizona’s former, Republican Governor, said:

“I signed the 15-week law as Governor because it is thoughtful conservative policy, and an approach to this very sensitive issue that Arizonans can actually agree on. The ruling today is not the outcome I would have preferred, and I call on our elected leaders to heed the will of the people and address this issue with a policy that is workable and reflective of our electorate.”

Why 15 weeks? Why not 25 weeks, or 5 weeks? What is the basis for the restriction? Either this is simply an elective medical procedure or it is the termination of a human person without due process. If it is the former, there is no basis for any restriction on the option, if the latter, any permission is unconscionable.

What if we were talking about a law to kill a mentally retarded child in the first 15 weeks after birth? You could have the kid and take a four month test run before deciding whether it is worth the hassle of caring for a special needs child.

Change the context slightly but keep it focused on abortion en utero. What if we were talking about a law permitting abortion based on the child’s sex? Sex can sometimes be determined as early as 14 weeks, so parents would still have a week to decide if they really want another boy or will instead dismember and flush this one and try again for a girl.

Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for the US Senate, responded to the ruling:

“I am the only woman and mother in this race. I understand the fear and anxiety of pregnancy, and the joy of motherhood. I wholeheartedly agree with President Trump — this is a very personal issue that should be determined by each individual state and her people. I oppose today’s ruling, and I am calling on Katie Hobbs and the State Legislature to come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support. Ultimately, Arizona voters will make the decision on the ballot come November.”

So each state should decide for themselves… and Arizona did, 160 years ago. But times have changed, and now we realize that we should be more flexible and permissive when it comes to laws about taking human life, so we need to decide again, and clearly our Republican candidate believes a decision to uphold a total ban on abortion is wrong. It’s not that we think abortion is murder, because that would be wrong at any time. We just think it should be illegal at certain times, and perfectly acceptable at others.

This is the difference between being pro-life and being (arbitrarily) anti-abortion in some, but not all, contexts. It is the difference between believing abortion is a moral question and believing it is a medical one. If the unborn child is a human person, then his life is sacred from conception until death. Either it is a human being or not; there is no third alternative. What is the difference between a 15-week fetus and a 16-week unborn child? Why do “conservative” leaders think it is acceptable to kill one but not the other?

The “conservative, pro-life” movement is deeply compromised and has been for a very long time. While we should welcome (and support) any reasonable restriction on abortion, the goal must be its complete abolition. Either the unborn baby is a human being or not. Either abortion is murder or not. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim that it is murder at 16 weeks but only an elective, medical procedure at 14 weeks. You must decide whether your position relative to abortion is based on objective, moral convictions or relative and arbitrary compromises that can be negotiated for political expediency. If the fetus is a human child, then no elective option to terminate its life is morally permissible. –JME

You can read the AZ Supreme Court’s ruling HERE.

The above reactions from Doug Ducey and Kari Lake were taken from HERE.

Twenty-five Years in the Pulpit

On the first Lord’s Day in April 1999, three days after my 20th birthday, I entered the pulpit of the Elliottsville Church of Christ as the full-time minister. I have been employed in full-time, vocational, local church, preaching ministry for every minute of the twenty-five years since. Technically, I was already in full-time local church ministry for several months prior while serving as an intern at the 77th Street congregation in Birmingham. But that Sunday morning, April 4th, I became a preaching and teaching minister, and that vocation has largely defined and shaped my life ever since.

I was asked to preach my first sermon in 1994 at the age of 15. The local church our family attended wanted to encourage and develop young men who might have gifts for ministry. I was supposed to prepare a twenty minute talk, another teenager would do the same, and we would split the sermon time on a Sunday evening. But when the time arrived, my friend chickened out. So I preached my sermon on The Historical Evidence for the Existence of Christ. The congregation loved it, but that’s probably because the lesson was only twenty minutes, and church let out early.

That first lesson led to more invitations, to preach at a new congregation nearby, and again in our own church, and then more frequently at a country church my dad was serving as a bi-vocational minister. When our family moved back to Alabama, I did pulpit supply in Anniston and then in many congregations in and around Birmingham. By the time I was 18, I was preaching frequently, sometimes as many as two or three Sundays a month. I covered for preachers who were out of town. Sometimes I was called to preach for someone who got sick, including one Sunday morning when a preacher’s wife called and asked if I could come.

When I was 18 years old, a congregation where I had preached several times and that was without a minister asked if I would become theirs. I thought, prayed, wept, and declined. I am very thankful I did. I am sure it was a sincere offer, but I did not need to be a minister at 18 years old (or 20), but I began to sense providence pressing me towards something I was not ready to agree to.

I wanted to preach in my early to mid-teens, but I had outgrown that desire when the time finally arrived. I did not lose my love for Christ, Scripture, or for sharing the gospel (insofar as I understood it), but by the time I was 15 or 16, I knew a lot of preachers, and I knew that I did not want to be like most of them. I wanted to serve Christ, but I did not want to be a typical Church of Christ minister. My professional interests lay elsewhere, and I believed I could best serve the church as a faithful member who was able to teach and preach while making a living in another way. Not long after deciding not to accept that first call, the elders at 77th Street began talking to me about becoming a full-time intern. They believed I had gifts for preaching, and they wanted to see me test and develop those gifts while I was still young, unattached, and not too committed to anything else yet. I demurred, resisted, and delayed. At one point, I thought they had given up, but in the Fall of 1998, I finally relented. I agreed to try. I’ll never forget Richard Buchanan standing in front of the entire church announcing my new position and charging me in the words of 2 Timothy 4. It was the most sobering charge I ever received, before or since.

I was already dating Kirstie, and when I decided to propose in February of the next year, I knew I could not support a wife on what little I was being paid. I had a job offer in Atlanta doing work I had done before and enjoyed. But when a friend learned that I might quit preaching, he got word to the folks at Elliottsville who had heard me preach before. I had filled in for them while they were conducting a search for a new minister, but I do not think they would have considered me unless someone else had suggested it to them. (The same friend was instrumental in my second call as well, something he may now regret but for which I will always be grateful.)

Elliottsville asked me to candidate, and after meeting with the men of the congregation, they offered me the job. I had a lot to think about. This was not my plan. I was headed down a different road. I would work for a while in order to get married and then keep pursuing my dream. But I felt no peace about it. When I was 15 years old an older sister in Christ cornered me after a service and strongly warned me, “God won’t be pleased if you don’t preach!” How she knew that when I wasn’t even old enough for a driver’s license, I have no idea. I am sure she was not a prophetess. But I had heard many similar comments from men and women for the five years since, and the pull was strong, even if I did not want it. I did not understand then the doctrine of an internal call to ministry. I thought it was simply my choice, but if I did not want to give my life to preaching, why was I feeling inexorably pulled to do so?

I will never forget meeting my Dad at the Burger King near his office to drink coffee and talk about the decision I had to make. I knew he wanted me to preach. He had made that clear for many years. He knew I did not want to. It was one of the few things we had ever argued about, but we had argued about it, many times, even to the point of tears. “I will do this,” I told him, “but I refuse to ever think of this as a career. I want to serve Christ and help the church, but I am only doing this for a while. Afterwards, I will get back to what I originally planned.” I still believe the first part, wholeheartedly. I do not think of ministry as my career. It is a calling, a mission, a life of service mandated by a higher authority. But if that older sister in Christ was not a prophet, it seems quite clear that I am not one either.

My entire adult life has revolved around the Lord’s Day and the Scriptures. Every week since I was 20 years old, I have spent most of my waking hours preparing sermons and Bible class material, visiting saints in their homes and hospitals, sharing the gospel, leading Bible studies, counseling broken and disobedient people, and praying for God’s blessing on it all. If I had joined the Army instead of entering the ministry, I would be able to retire by now with a pension. I do not plan to ever retire from preaching. If the Lord wills, I plan not to. Maybe someday I will write the great American novel and become financially independent of the local church, or there may be a rich uncle (who has not written me off for becoming Reformed) who will remember me in his will. I suppose most ministers dream of never having to take another dime for preaching the gospel, even if their compensation is appropriate and biblical, but I know that however I keep food in the pantry and lights on in the house, my vocation will remain the same. It took about twelve years of full-time preaching for me to finally understand and accept the fact that God made me a preacher. I tried to quit, many times, during those first twelve years, and I am sure some people wish I had succeeded. But I did not choose to become a preacher, at least, I did not make that choice independently. The Lord chose this vocation for me, and whether that ministry lasts twenty-five more minutes or twenty-five more years, he will be the One who decides when it is finished. Soli Deo Gloria. –JME

Sabbath and Work

Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. There is a rhythm to our lives. Man was created at the end of the creation week so that he might begin life enjoying God’s Sabbath rest. That experience was disrupted in the Fall, and for centuries God’s people worked all week in view of the rest that lay before them on the seventh day, at the end of the week. But with the coming of Christ, the covenant was fulfilled, the curse broken, and the day of rest once again became the beginning and not the end of the week for God’s saints.

In one sense, of course, rest still lies before us. Hebrews 3-4 speak about that. There remains an eschatological Sabbath that we have not yet entered into. There is a sense in which even now we look ahead to Sunday, and it drives us forward with hope in our work during the week. But it is important to also see the week the other way around, as Adam began it. Our lives begin with Sabbath, our work flows from Sabbath, we do not work toward Sabbath, we work out of God’s Sabbath of rest and rejoicing.

This is hard for me as a pastor to keep in mind since most of my labor every week is oriented by the coming Sunday. Lessons must be prepared, classes taught, visitation completed, but it is always with an awareness of the looming responsibilities on the Lord’s Day and the many hours of preparation for it. But the joy of that labor is to be found in looking backwards also at the Sabbath that began the week. God met with us, was gracious to us, spoke comfort and peace to us, and commissioned us to go forth and labor. We are not scrambling frantically in order to be ready on-time—okay, that last part isn’t always true, sometimes I am scrambling—we are marching forward steadily as those who know they are at peace with God and safely in his employ and care in all their worldly vocations.

Many people spend their lives never really experiencing work or sabbath as God intended it. They do as little work as they can, just well enough to get by, all the time resenting it and looking forward to when work is over so that they can enjoy the refreshment of… mindlessly scrolling social media, losing brain cells as they are sucked into YouTube, becoming dumber in front of the television but spending most of the time channel surfing, all while malnourishing themselves with fast food, junk food, and too much booze. That’s not how God made us to live, but it is how far too many people live their entire lives.

Let me suggest an alternative: give yourself wholly to the Lord’s Day. Rest, rejoice, and revel in God and his good gifts, preeminently the gift of his Son and the redemption you have in him. Look away from the world and look to Jesus. Spend the day enjoying him and your family, both in the Church and in your household. Then, when Monday comes, climb into the harness and pull, hard, all the way to Saturday. Work as one who knows he serves the Lord Christ and that everything you do is significant, every thing, from filing reports, to splitting logs, to changing the oil, to doing laundry, to preparing a meal without a drive-through, to changing diapers and rocking colicky babies to sleep. You will sleep better at night. You will enjoy each of your meals more. Your days will be far richer and more satisfying when you start with real, godly, substantive sabbath and then live your life as God meant it to be lived: by worshiping God in and through the work he has given you to do each day. --JME

The Bible Teacher: Gratitude for the Life of Bob Waldron

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I have had many teachers, mentors, role models, and encouragements, too many for my mortal and feeble mind to recall. Many of my teachers I have never met — they were transferred to the Church Triumphant long before I was born or became aware of their work. I look forward to thanking them face to face someday. Others I have only known in passing. If I were to mention them, they would not know how great an impression they made on me or how profoundly their work has helped me. But there are certain foundational influences, teachers without whom we would be unprepared for everyone who came later. I have mentioned before that at this stage of my life, most of what I know about the Bible I did not learn from my parents. They could not teach me what they themselves did not know. But I would not have learned what I have learned without their influence. Their early impressions and instruction were formative for me in a way that enabled whatever good came later, and for that I am and always shall be grateful.

When I think of the men who taught me the most about the Bible, there are three names that come to mind. None of them taught me the theology I affirm today — and yet, in an important sense, that is exactly what they taught me. They gave me the foundational tools for reading, studying, and understanding the story of Scripture. They taught me to memorize God’s word. They taught me to recognize its structure, themes, and patterns. They reinforced what my parents had given me: a love for Scripture and an absolute confident in its inspired, inerrant, inescapable truth and authority. None of these men were Calvinists, and each of them were (or would have been) concerned that I became one. But I never would have gotten where I am today without them. It was believing, applying, and pursuing the faith and disciplines they taught me that led me to a covenantal understanding of redemption.

I learned on Friday that Bob Waldron had died. He died a week earlier, but I had not heard. I do not remember the last time I spoke to Brother Waldron, but it has been many years. I continued to listen to him from afar, to review the books he wrote with his sweet wife, and to apply the principles he taught to me, but it may have been close to twenty years since I saw him in person. He might be one of the men who would not recognize how great his influence on my life actually was, but he was inarguably the most foundational Bible teacher I ever had and, apart from Tom Holley, the greatest single influence in how I read, study, organize, and understand Scripture to this day.

I was in Brother Waldron’s orbit as a child. He and his wife visited my parents’ home, and I heard him preach in gospel meetings. It was not until I became a preacher that I really got to know him. He came to the Elliottsville Church of Christ, where his son and daughter-in-law were members, to preach a meeting while I was there, and I got to spend time with him. I had already been exposed to his “17 Bible Periods” approach to Bible study, and I recognized that this man knew the Bible story better than anyone I had ever met. He seemed to have vast portions of the Bible committed to memory. In my conversations with him during that meeting, I learned that it seemed that way because he actually did.

Bob Waldron showed me that the Bible is one, grand, interconnected story, a story of redemption that can be studied and understood as one text, one unfolding narrative, rather than merely as a collection of documents, verses, and disconnected pieces. He transformed the way I read Scripture, even now, and there is no doubt that his influence and methods enabled me to discover the patterns of redemptive history that later led to my embrace of a more covenantal and historical understanding of the faith. I am sure Brother Waldron would have wanted no credit for my departure from a tradition he (and I) loved, but it would be wicked not to acknowledge my debt to him. The “Bible Foundations” curriculum that I have taught for more than two decades is simply my adaptation and development of the system I learned from Brother Waldron. He helped me see the outline. He put all the puzzle pieces on the table and began to fit them together so that the image emerged. There were a few pieces I later had to spin in order to fit them in correctly, but the Lord used Brother Waldron to show me the big picture.

Bob Waldron was the first man to expose me to memorizing large sections of Scripture, the discipline of commiting entire Bible books to memory. He explained to me his method and the rationale behind it — memorizing entire epistles in order to meditate on them in a focused way, only to abandon the regular review necessary to retain perfect recitation in order to move on and learn another book in the same way. I remember thinking, then and for many years after, what a waste it seemed to spend so many hours memorizing a book only to forget it. I would do better than that. I would memorize books and review them every week, never forgetting any of the chapters I learned. I succeeded for a number of years, then my kids got older, my responsibilities in the church increased, and I got older too. I discovered that Brother Waldron was even wiser than I had recognized.

Bob Waldron never confronted me about my pride and self-righteousness, though I am confident he saw it. I know when and where he would have. He probably did not believe he had the kind of relationship with me to be able to address it that day. We were not close, though he always greeted me warmly and spoke to me kindly. But his demeanor, humility, and kindness in contrast to my foolishness and arrogance that day remains a painful indictment in my memory that prompts new repentance as often as I think of it. Whatever pharisaical attitudes I may have learned while in the Churches of Christ, I did not learn them from Brother Waldron. He was a gentle, godly man so far as I knew him, and I can only aspire to be more like him. I will never imagine that anything I believe today or will ever do can make me better than him.

Scripture commands us to honor our father and mother, and this has more to teach us than merely that we ought to take care of our biological parents in their old age. Robert Waldron probably did not know how profoundly he impacted my life. He might have thought we were only acquaintances. But he will always be a father in the faith to me. I thank God for him and that he has now entered into rest and the beginning of an eternal reward. –JME