The Man Who Had to Lose His Eyes to See

Posted on October 23, 2024 by russellmckinney

It’s a shame that many people won’t become spiritually broken unless some type of tragedy happens to them. Samson is a classic case in point. He was Israel’s strongman, the champion of the tribe of Dan and the slayer of Philistines. He was a man of faith (Hebrews 11:32-33) who served as one of Israel’s Judges for twenty years during the era before Israel had a king (Judges 15:20). He was fearless and daring, a true legend in his own time. Unfortunately, he was also unbroken, narcissistic, quick tempered, and downright scandalous.

When the Angel of the Lord (an Old Testament, preincarnate appearance of Jesus) appeared to Samson’s barren mother and told her she was going to give birth to a son, the Angel instructed her that the child should be a Nazarite from the womb (Judges 13:5). This meant that Samson was to live his life under the Nazarite vow that was a part of the Mosaic law (Numbers 6:1-8). Anyone taking this vow was required to separate himself completely from the fruit of the grapevine. This included separate from all alcoholic beverages, vinegar, wine, grape juice, fresh grapes, and even raisins. A Nazarite was also supposed to let his hair grow uncut and keep far away from the dead bodies of not only people but also animals. Typically, someone taking this vow would uphold it for thirty days. According to the Angel of the Lord’s word, however, Samson’s vow was to last for the duration of his life.

The truth is, though, that Samson never seemed to mind ignoring his Nazarite vow. As evidence of this, he ate honey from a nest some honey bees had built inside the carcass of a lion he had killed earlier (Judges 14:5-9). He even gave some of the honey to his father and mother without telling them that he had broken his Nazarite vow by reaching inside the carcass to get that honey.

Even worse, Samson simply could not contain his lust for non-Jewish women. His trouble with such women began when he got engaged to a Philistine girl from Timnah. This engagement violated the Mosaic law’s prohibition against Jews marrying women from idolatrous races (Deuteronomy 7:1-3).

Samson was actually fortunate that the girl’s father married her off to Samson’s best man before her marriage to Samson could be consummated (Judges 14:1-20). But Samson didn’t see it that way. Instead, he took his revenge by setting ablaze the Philistines’ grain fields, vineyards, and olive groves (Judges 15:1-5). That, in turn, led the Philistines to burn both the father and the girl to death for causing them trouble with Samson (Judges 15:6).

The Philistines also tried to arrest Samson so they could put him to death, but he used the jawbone of a freshly dead donkey as a weapon to kill 1,000 Philistines (Judges 15:15-17). Of course, Samson using that jawbone meant that he again violated his Nazarite vow by touching yet another dead body. I guess we can classify that victory over the Philistines as God hitting a straight lick with a very crooked stick.

Some years later Samson went to the Philistine city of Gaza and had sexual relations with a harlot (Judges 16:1). The Philistines laid in wait to kill him the following morning, but he arose at midnight and easily escaped them by performing another miraculous display of strength (Judges 16:2-3). Ah, but Samson just couldn’t stay away from those forbidden women, and it wasn’t long afterward that he fell in love with another one. Her name was Delilah, and she would prove to be his undoing (Judges 16:4).

It was Delilah who betrayed Samson by nagging him into telling her the secret of his strength, lulling him to sleep, and calling for a man to sneak in and cut off his hair (Judges 16:5-20). The lost hair symbolized Samson’s lost God-given strength, and that lost strength allowed the Philistines to capture him, bore out his eyes, and make him a chained, pitiable object of public humiliation (Judges 16:21). Ironically, however, that was the tragedy that finally led to Samson’s spiritual brokenness and allowed him, with his dying act, to kill more Philistines than he had killed over the course of his entire life. (Judges 16:22-31). Summing up the situation, we might say that Samson had to lose his eyes before he could finally see clearly enough to do his greatest work for the Lord.

There are several spiritual principles that we can glean from Samson’s story, but here is perhaps the best one: Even if you are a servant of the Lord, you can’t dabble with sin and not eventually pay a price. Like a coiled rattlesnake, sin will strike you sooner or later and in so doing get you with its poison. As the old saying goes, sin will take you where you don’t want to go, keep you there longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you can afford to pay. Consider this post a warning to you if you think you can play around with sin and not get burned. Samson had to lose his eyes before he could see the truth, and may the same not be true with you.

Posted in Addiction, Backsliding, Brokenness, Character, Choices, Confession, Depravity, Desires, Disobedience, God's Chastening, God's Work, Personal Holiness, Rebellion, Repentance, Separation, Sex, Sin, Sowing and Reaping, Submission, Temptation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Nobody killed me. I had a wreck.”

Posted on October 21, 2024 by russellmckinney

Twenty-five-year-old Jamie Peavy had a job working at a barbecue restaurant. One day, after work, she got in her pickup and drove to meet a friend. She tried a new route that day, thinking it would be a shortcut. What she didn’t know was that the road was under construction, and she ended up driving her truck down into a ditch that was ten feet deep and filled with water in the area of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.

For approximately 60 hours (two-and-a-half days), Peavy remained trapped inside her pickup with her legs pinned and the steering wheel keeping her upper body pressed tightly up against the seat. She knew that no one else would be foolish enough to drive down that road while it was under construction. Even if they did, her truck was hard to spot down there in that deep ditch. So, she figured that she would be dead before anyone ever found her. The only thing she had going for her was the fact that she could move her arms a bit. That allowed her to scribble a small note to her friends and family. The note read: “Nobody killed me. I had a wreck.”

Fortunately for Peavy, her story didn’t have a fatal ending. After those two-and-a-half days, an airport worker happened to get close enough to hear her faint voice saying, “Hey, help me.” The worker went to investigate and found Peavy still clinging to life. A rescue was begun, and Peavy lived to tell about her terrible ordeal.

The fact is, though, that many a person has a life story that could be summed up with the words: “Nobody killed me. I had a wreck.” Fatal “wrecks” happen all the time. They go by names such as: alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling, adultery, pornography, homosexuality, greed, lying, theft, idolatry, murder, pride, stubbornness, refusing to forgive, etc. These sins and others surely have the potential to leave you wrecked in a figurative ditch.

Here’s hoping that you don’t ever find yourself in such a ditch, but if you do, that’s the time for you to surrender yourself 100% to Jesus Christ and cry out to Him for help. In Psalm 40:2, David provides us with a helpful word about what the Lord can do in the life of a person who yields himself or herself to Him, and it’s a word I’ll leave with you right now. David says of the Lord:

He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps. (N.K.J.V.)

Posted in Addiction, Adultery, Alcohol, Backsliding, Confession, Conviction, Drugs, Extending Forgiveness, Gambling, God's Love, Greed, Guilt, Lying, Pride, Rebellion, Repentance, Sin, Submission, Temptation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Kicking at the Goads

Posted on October 18, 2024 by russellmckinney

When the risen Jesus met Saul of Tarsus – who would become the apostle Paul – on the Damascus road, one of the things He told Saul was, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 9:5). At the time, Saul was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1) and was on his way to Damascus to locate any followers of Jesus and bring them back in chains to Jerusalem (Acts 22:4-5). These arrests would be in line with Saul making “havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison” (Acts 8:3).

Saul had the legal right to do all this because he was operating under the auspices of the Jewish High Priest and the Sanhedrin (the Jewish ruling council). At the time, Saul was one of the most promising young Pharisees in Jerusalem (Acts 26:4-5). He was “a Hebrew of the Hebrews” (Philippians 3:5) who had studied under Gamaliel, the famous rabbi (Acts 22:3). Saul had devoted his life to the Jewish law and to zealously living out the Jewish religion of Judaism. In his way of thinking, Jesus had been a false Messiah and those who continued to promote His cause even after His crucifixion needed to be stopped at all costs.

But what did Jesus mean when He told Saul, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads”? Well, a goad was a pointed instrument that was used to prod livestock to go where they didn’t want to go, and sometimes an animal would kick back against the goad. Accordingly, in the case of Saul, God was prodding him with a goad to get him to change his direction in life but Saul was kicking back hard against that goad.

This raises the question: What was the goad that God was using on Saul to get him to change his course? The answer is: the martyr’s death by public stoning that Stephen had recently died just outside Jerusalem. Saul himself had been a player in that stoning. Some believe that Saul was a member of the Sanhedrin council that had ordered the execution, but even if he wasn’t, he had certainly been in agreement with the Sanhedrin’s verdict (Acts 8:1). He himself hadn’t thrown any rocks, but he had looked after the garments of those who had pulled off their cloaks to do so (Acts 7:58).

In other words, Saul had been a personal eyewitness to Stephen’s execution. He had heard Stephen’s powerful defense of himself, a defense that had retraced much of Israel’s history (Acts 7:1-53). He had heard Stephen say at the trial, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (Acts 7:56). He had heard Stephen pray, even as the rocks had begun to fly, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59). And he had heard Stephen request with his dying words, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin” (Acts 7:60).

Saul had been running on too much raw emotion at the trial and the stoning to let all of this affect him, but ever since then his conscience hadn’t let him forget the way Stephen had died. No one will die for what they know to be a lie, and yet Stephen had died singing the praises of Jesus. This was the goad with which God had been prodding Saul since Stephen’s death.

Saul’s problem was that, like a raging animal, he had been kicking against the goading. Rather than admit that he was on the wrong side of this “Jesus thing,” he had stubbornly doubled down on his wrong mindset. Years later, he would admit to causing the imprisonment and subsequent deaths of many Christians (Acts 26:10-11) and say of himself, “I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it” (Galatians 1:13).

That’s how it works with goads of conviction. If you kick at them and refuse to change your course you will instead start running all the harder in your wrong direction. I’ve seen it happen time and time again in peoples’ lives. God brings them under conviction over their sins but rather than yield to that conviction and repent of those sins, these folks plunge even deeper into the sins. You see, the thing about goads of conviction is that once God starts prodding you with them, your situation will have to change one way or the other. You’ll either yield and in so doing go God’s way or you’ll refuse to yield and in so doing go your way all the harder. What you won’t do is remain the same.

So, I ask you right now: Is God currently prodding you with some goads of conviction in an attempt to get you to change your course? And if He is, how are you responding to those goads? Are you giving into them and making the necessary changes in your life? Or are you stubbornly kicking back against the goads and picking up speed in your wrong direction?

Posted in Backsliding, Change, Choices, Conscience, Conviction, Disobedience, Dying To Self, God's Chastening, God's Guidance, God's Will, Guilt, Obedience, Rebellion, Repentance, Sin, Submission | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

God’s Terms of Salvation

Posted on October 16, 2024 by russellmckinney

A businessman was trying to win his banker acquaintance to Jesus. After the businessman had shared the story of Christ’s virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, and victorious resurrection, he pressed the banker to believe in Jesus as Savior. The banker, however, was appalled at the whole concept of such a plan of salvation. He asked the businessman, “Are you telling me that Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sins and that me getting into heaven has nothing to do with my own efforts other than believing in Him as Savior?” The businessman said, “Yes, that’s right.” To that the banker replied, “That’s crazy. I just don’t believe that getting into heaven works like that. It has to have something to do with me living the right kind of life.”

At that point the businessman could see that he wasn’t getting anywhere, and so he decided to try a different approach, one to which the banker could relate. He said to the banker, “Okay, suppose a man comes into your office today and says, ‘Mr. Banker, I need your bank to loan me some money.’ Tell me, who would have the right to set the terms of that loan – you or the man who needs the loan?” The banker replied, “I would.” “Well then,” said the businessman, “you need to think of God as the great Banker and you as the one who needs the salvation. You don’t get to dictate the terms of that salvation; HE DOES.” It was then that the banker understood the error of his thinking, came under conviction over the sinful manner in which he had so arrogantly rejected God’s offer of salvation through Jesus, and placed his belief in Jesus as his personal Savior.

Of course, the great thing about salvation is that it is not a “loan” that must be paid back. Neither is it a down payment after which the one who takes out the loan must keep up the monthly payments or else forfeit the down payment. No, salvation is a gift, pure and simple, and like any gift it can only be accepted or rejected. The moment it becomes “pay” or a “reward” it ceases to be a gift.

Jesus, through His death on the cross, purchased the gift for you and now offers it to you to either accept or reject. Just as the way to accept the gift is to accept Him by placing your belief in Him as Savior, the way to reject the gift is to reject Him by refusing to place your belief in Him as Savior. Those are God’s terms of salvation, and you, like that banker, must make a choice concerning them. What you can’t do is rework the terms.

Posted in Assurance of Salvation, Belief, Choices, Christ's Birth, Christ's Death, Christ's Resurrection, Eternal Security, Evangelism, Grace, Heaven, Salvation, The Gospel, Witnessing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

How Would You Describe Your Walk With the Lord These Days?

Posted on October 14, 2024 by russellmckinney

Vance Havner, the renowned preacher, once told the story of a writer who knew an elderly lady who loved to give her testimony in church. The lady would always begin by saying, “Forty years ago…” After hearing her do that many times, the writer said, “I felt like asking her, ‘Lady, hasn’t anything happened since?’” Havner then played off the illustration to say:

We thank God for the happy day that fixed our choice on Him as our Savior and our God, but there should be more happy days all along. Christian lives sometimes become like some married lives — they get to where there is nothing left but anniversaries.

I’m going to ask you a few questions, and I’ll trust you to give honest answers to them:

  • What is your spiritual condition right now?
  • How is your faith in Christ right now?
  • How is your trust in Him right now?
  • How is your confidence in Him right now?
  • Are you currently overjoyed about the way God the Father is running the universe or do you currently find yourself somehow disappointed in Him, perhaps even mad at Him?
  • Have you seen some prayer requests met recently or has it been a while?
  • Are you happy serving Christ or has it become more like clocking in for work?

I myself have enjoyed some mountaintop experiences with Jesus. Then again, I’ve endured some valley experiences with Him. There have been times in my life when serving Him was the greatest passion of my life. Conversely, there have been other times when I was hurt at Him, disappointed in Him, and (I’ll admit it) downright ticked off at Him. I’ve seen prayer requests answered the same day I made them. On the other hand, I’ve seen plenty of times when my prayer life seemed to have no effect at all upon my daily life. And my guess is, all of that makes me normal.

One thing I don’t do, though, is dwell on spiritual anniversaries. Even though I remember the day I got saved, I don’t remember the exact date. Even though I remember the evening I got baptized, I don’t know that exact date, either. Even though I remember the time of my life when the Lord called me to preach, I can’t pinpoint an exact moment when I yielded to that call. Rather than dwell on what happened umpteen years ago, I just get up each day and try to submit myself to Jesus afresh and anew that day.

I once met with the pulpit committee of a church that is located on the North Carolina coast. I saw their pastoral vacancy in an online ad, submitted my resume, and made the cut down to their last three candidates from a stack of resumes. At that point, their pulpit committee asked me to drive down to Denver, NC, and meet with them in the conference room of a hotel.

The interview went fine as those things go, but in the end the committee chose another candidate over me. That stung a little, but it wasn’t the first time I had been turned down by a pulpit committee. However, the one thing I remember the most about that meeting was a question one of those fellows asked me as a part of the interview. He looked me squarely in the eye and asked, “How would you describe your walk with the Lord these days?”

I’ve gotta tell you, that question struck me like a harpoon that day. It did so because at that particular moment in my life I was still reeling from a time when the Lord had allowed our local high school football coaches to perpetrate some downright evil stuff on my oldest son, Ryan, in the realm of athletics. I’m not talking about physical abuse or anything like that, but I am talking about emotional, mental, and psychological abuse. I won’t go into all the gory details, but suffice is to say that it had been by far the worst experience of not only Ryan’s young life but also the lives of his parents.

And what had made the experience all the worse had been the fact that during it all Tonya and I had begged the Lord each day to deal with those men and right their wrongdoing. In the end, though, God just hadn’t done it and that had really hurt our faith, trust, and confidence in Him. So, as I was still trying to process all of that hurt and disappointment with God, I drove down to Denver that day and had that man ask me out of the clear blue, “How would you describe your walk with the Lord these days?”

Now, I could have painted some glowing, flowery picture about the awesome times the Lord and I had recently been having. In other words, I could have lied. But, instead, I just gave the man an honest answer. I started out with something like, “Well, right now I am coming out of the hardest time I’ve ever had in my walk with the Lord.” Then I went from there.

Did my answer cost me the opportunity to pastor that church? Possibly. I prefer to think, though, that a pulpit committee member insightful enough to ask such a probing question was appreciative of an answer that was obviously genuine. Regardless of whether my answer hurt or helped my cause that day, what I can say with certainty is that I don’t regret telling the truth. If I had lied and become the pastor of that church, I’d have felt like I got the job by way of false pretenses.

Anyway, my purpose in writing this post is to motivate you to set aside some time to do a thorough spiritual assessment of where you are with Jesus Christ right now. Ask yourself, “What is my spiritual condition at this very moment?” You see, what I’m doing is playing the role in your life that pulpit committee member played in mine that day. I’m looking at you and asking, “How would you describe your walk with the Lord these days?”

Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that if you will drop your guard long enough to be REAL about your answer, you will then be able to talk things over with the Lord in prayer and in so doing take your prayer life to a much deeper level. Never forget that the Lord doesn’t want anything fake from you, and whatever difficult conversations you need to have with Him, He is more than willing to have them. I’m not saying those prayers will be pleasant and leave you feeling like you’re ready to take on the world, but I am saying they will keep your walk with the Lord authentic and fresh. Most importantly, they will keep you moving forward with Him, and that’s infinitely better than becoming locked in place concerning some experience (either a good one or a bad one) that happened to you way back there sometime in your past.

Posted in Adversity, Belief, Children, Depression, Disappointment, Doubt, Faith, Family, Fatherhood, Honesty, Loneliness, Parenting, Personal, Personal Holiness, Prayer, Prayer Requests, Problems, Sports, Suffering, Trials, Trusting In God, Worry | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Recovering From Helene

Posted on October 11, 2024 by russellmckinney

It has been over a week since I was able to post anything on the blog, but today I’ve finally got the time and the internet connection to do it. Since my last report, I have worked harder than I have ever worked in my life as our church has become all things to our little community. When I say “all things,” I mean: a general store, a soup kitchen, a clothing store, a gas station, a command base for work crews, a generator distributor, an internet provider, and even a helicopter landing site. Oh, and yesterday we added “local hospital” to the mix as a temporary medical facility is now set up in the churchyard.

Mushrooming. That’s what has been happening to us. Mushrooming. The simple act of one church bringing us a trailer full of supplies to distribute has now mushroomed into the conglomeration I just described in the previous paragraph. The whole operation has become so overwhelming that we’ve had to start turning down offers for more contributions. The problem is that we simply don’t have the necessary storage space.

We are having storage issues because the entire lower half of our building got flooded and is currently unusable. Thank God for a crew of 20 or so men and women who came from the North Carolina Baptist Disaster Relief organization and did a “mud out” for us. They moved out all the furniture, pulled up the soaked carpet, and cut into the walls to spray some kind of mold mitigation stuff. Considering all that we’ve had going on in other parts of our church building, I really don’t know when we would have been able to get around to doing all the work those volunteers did in two days. So, when I say, “Thank You” to each of those people, I really do mean “THANK YOU!!!”

The people in the Cane Creek area of the Mayberry-esque town of Bakersville where our church is located still don’t have power, and the word from Duke Energy is that it might be several months before they do. The rumor is that Duke is going to take this opportunity to completely rebuild the power grid in the area. If that is true, it will help the people of Cane Creek in the long term but hurt them in the short term as the colder months of the year come crashing down upon us. Thanks to recent donations from here, there, and everywhere more Cane Creekers than ever before have generators that are capable of running lights and heaters. Sadly, though, many still don’t.

As for things at my house, the power finally came back on a couple of days ago. That allowed Tonya and I to get our own flooded basement dried out by using our wet-vac. The damage was minimal except for a row of my “fat suit” jackets I had hanging down there. Moisture damage forced me to have to bag them up and take them to the recycling center. I was storing them in the basement because I figured I would need them if I ever got fat enough again to wear them. Maybe the moisture damage was God’s way of telling me to keep my weight in check.

While we are glad to have power, we still don’t have water. We live in the Spruce Pine city limits, and the rumor is that it will take four years to rebuild the town’s water system. Our local leaders are trying to get some type of temporary system in place, and hopefully they’ll be able to reach that goal, but even in a best-case scenario the job might not be completed for a couple of months. In the meantime, I made the trip down to a local creek this morning and filled six buckets with water to use to flush our toilets. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through this entire experience, it’s how much water it takes to flush a toilet!

I can, however, report another bit of good news today: I now have an internet connection at my house. That is the reason I’m able to publish this post. The connection is made possible by one of those “Starlink” systems, and with this technology in place I should be able to get back to my regular postings. That is, of course, if I can find the time to do them. I don’t know exactly what I’ll be posting yet, but I don’t think it will be any more updates regarding the aftermath of the flooding caused by Helene. Since I’m having to deal with that aftermath on a daily and nightly basis, I really don’t feel like writing about it. You can understand that, can’t you?

In regards to showering and bathing, some temporary stations have been set up in Bakersville on a site that used to be a baseball/softball field. I haven’t tried those yet but they look very nice. Tonya and I have been meeting our hygiene needs by driving an hour both ways a couple of times a week to take showers at our son Royce’s apartment. He lives in Weaverville, NC, and after a few days of having to rough it, he was fortunate enough to get his power, water, and internet restored. He says he is coming home this weekend, which is ironic because Tonya and I will be heading over to his place. I guess we’ll all just switch homes for a day.

Roan Mountain Baptist didn’t have services this past week, but we are having an eleven o’clock service this Sunday. Additionally, we’ll have a seven o’clock service this coming Wednesday night. In order for those services to happen, we’ll have to get our sanctuary cleaned out a bit because right now it is home to some overflow supplies. In particular, there are a lot of diapers in there. We’d better get them out of there before I preach because I don’t trust myself not to make a “babes in Christ” comment that probably wouldn’t be well received.

Before I forget, let me say that our church covets your prayers in regards to the major decisions we have staring us in the face. And, no, I’m not talking about what type of flooring we should use to replace our ruined carpet. I’m talking about how long we should keep trying to be all things to all people. Our workers are getting burned out with the day-to-day grind of it all, and I myself am trying to figure out where the line is that separates “Christians being the hands of feet of Christ” and “Christians trying to do jobs that are better suited to local and federal government agencies.” I mean, it’s not like there is a passage in Acts, Romans, or 1 Corinthians that walks a congregation through the process of how to do disaster relief work. We’re learning on the fly and making mistakes as we go, but our hearts are in the right place and we’re trying.

Since I seem to be in the business of passing along rumors today, another one is that our county is currently formulating a plan to use an old school building as a place where all the donated supplies that are now sitting in the Bakersville area’s schools and churches can be centralized into one place for distribution. That would free up the schools to open again and the churches to get back to some semblance of normal. Whatever “normal” is, I guarantee you that it isn’t what’s been happening since Helene blew through western North Carolina. I wonder how the apostle Paul would have felt about having a trailer filled with dog food, cat food, and livestock feed (all for free distribution) sitting in his church parking lot. If he had been forced to deal with that, we might just have another epistle in the New Testament canon.

I’m reminded of that old quote that is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, even though there is some question as to whether or not he actually said it. The quote is: “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.” Well, the members of Roan Mountain Baptist Church haven’t been doing much gospel preaching by way of words the past couple of weeks, but we’ve been doing quite a bit of it by way of taking in donations, handing out donations, preparing meals, getting generators to people, and in general being a hub of relief-work activity on Cane Creek.

That makes us just one of many churches in our county and region who are currently involved in such work, and we’ll just have to wait until eternity to see how God uses it all. I have to say, though, that I figure it will make for some uncommonly wonderful rewarding at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Romans 14:10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:9-10). Jesus said, “For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward” (Mark 9:41, N.K.J.V.). That being the case, I wonder what He will say about doing disaster relief work in His name. That’s got to at least be worth the equivalent of giving a cup of water.

Posted in Adversity, Christian Unity, Current Events, Doing Good, Evangelism, Giving, God's Work, Ministry, Missions, Personal, Weather, Witnessing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Helene

Posted on October 2, 2024 by russellmckinney

Thursday night, September 26th, the remains of Hurricane Helene came roaring across the mountains of western North Carolina, bringing 20+ inches of rain and winds over 50 m.p.h. with it. By the following night, all 25 counties in our region were disaster zones. Yancey County, which is located right next to us here in Mitchell County, was the big “winner” statewide with just a touch under 30 inches of rain. Folks, if I was history’s greatest writer, I still wouldn’t have the vocabulary or the ability to adequately describe the decimation in these parts.

Here in Mitchell County, literally thousands of trees were either uprooted, snapped off at the top, or blown down altogether, and apparently 90% percent of them found a power line to take down with them. Just as apparently, the other 10% found houses to use as landing zones. Duke Energy says their plan is to have all power restored everywhere by this Friday. More realistically, people are saying it might take several weeks.

As bad as the power situation has been, though, the floodwaters from all the creeks and rivers have done even more damage. They are the reason for the loss of homes, businesses, roads, bridges, and (worst of all) lives. I have no idea what the final death toll will be for the 25 counties, but 160 fatalities are already being attributed to the storm, and hundreds of people are still missing, many of whom are presumed dead. For example, as of Monday morning, there were 600 people missing in Buncombe County alone. Needless to say, the funeral homes are already overwhelmed and that problem will only get worse.

The house where Tonya and I live is located in the heart of the little town of Spruce Pine, and the extent of the damage to our house amounted to just some water in the basement. The actual town itself, however, didn’t fare so well. Much of the town is located on the Toe River, and the Toe River came calling in a catastrophic way. At the water’s highest crest, about all that could be seen of our local Ingles supermarket was the roof and the top of the sign in the parking lot. The parking lot itself looked like a site where a bass-fishing tournament could be held.

The restaurants, shops, and businesses that called lower-street Spruce Pine their home felt the wrath of a water level that reached at least three-fourths up their storefront windows. The town’s historic, wooden, walking bridge is now historic in the most literal of senses due to the fact that its remains are currently lying in the river. The riverside area’s walkway, playground, and ballfield are also lost to history. Just as the waters rose to the top of the Ingles sign, they rose to the top of the ballfield’s right-field scoreboard. It would have taken scuba divers to find the dugouts.

Things weren’t any better in the nearby town of Bakersville, the town where Tonya and I grew up and where Tonya’s mom, Jessie, still lives. Cane Creek runs through the heart of Bakersville and this time the creek took the opportunity to stab the town in the heart. The main road through the town now has a sinkhole-type crater right in the middle of it where pavement used to be, and they are still trying to find the rest of the road under all the mud. Businesses are in full clean-up mode, but right now it doesn’t look like there will be any salvaging of the building in which the town’s “historic” (there’s that word again) restaurant resides. As for Jessie, she was evacuated early Friday morning but was back home by Friday afternoon at her own insistence. She isn’t worried about the layer of thick mud that is now calling itself her yard. Fortunately for her, the water didn’t get high enough to come over her porch and into her house.

Roan Mountain Baptist Church, the church where I serve as pastor, sits a couple of miles up the road from Bakersville, and Cane Creek did a number on the church building as well. Our parking lot and sanctuary were spared, but the building’s lower half, which houses our Sunday School classrooms, nursery, and storage rooms got flooded. One of our members told me that she watched as the creek waters rose halfway up the outside door that serves as the entrance into that lower half of the building. So, I don’t know when we’ll have church again. Frankly, I don’t know when most of the churches in our area will have church again.

Even if the building of Roan Mountain Baptist Church hadn’t received any damage, many of our church members (who are the true church) are currently dealing with roads that are washed out, driveways that are almost impassable, and bridges that are either unusable or gone altogether. Also, like everybody else in the county, they don’t have any power and are just trying to survive as best they can until the lights come back on again. What all this means is that church attendance isn’t exactly anybody’s top priority right now.

What our lives have become since Thursday night consists of carrying water from the local creek or river to use to flush the toilets, using gas grills (if you are fortunate enough to have that option) to cook up anything cookable from our darkened refrigerators and freezers, and talking to anybody you see outdoors in order to ask them what roads are open, where gas can be found, and where a cell-phone signal be located.

From such talks, Tonya and I learned that a workable cell-phone signal could be pinged at a certain site on the outskirts of Spruce Pine. As you might imagine, that site has now become a constant scene for a gathering of locals. The roads from Spruce Pine into Tennessee as well as Bakersville into Tennessee have served as lifelines for many of us as we’ve made the treks to cities like Elizabethton and Johnson City to buy groceries, gas, generators, flashlights, batteries, etc. Some of us have also gotten hotel rooms just to have access to the internet and hot water.

Right now, Tonya and I are spending today and tomorrow in a hotel room in Johnson City, Tennessee. We drove over here to get cleaned up, do some laundry, and stock up on supplies. And while we’re here, I’m going to write some blog posts and load some sermons into my Audacity program to send out for my radio ministry. Hopefully, I can get enough work done to tide my ministry over for a while until the power and internet get restored at our place.

We have no idea when life will be back to any kind of normal in Mitchell County. Even when power is restored, the water treatment facility in Spruce Pine was completely flooded, which leaves open the question of how and when we’ll have city water again. But for now, my family and I are doing okay. We’re thanking God that we’re all safe, and we’re believing that God is going to bring great good out of all the bad that Helene left in her wake.

Deanne Criswell, the national Administrator of FEMA, landed in Asheville, NC, yesterday under orders from President Biden to remain on the ground in North Carolina until the situation has stabilized. Asheville is located about an hour’s drive from Spruce Pine. Yes, that’s the company my family and I are keeping these days. Anytime your general area becomes homebase for the national Administrator of FEMA, you must be in dire need of FEMA’s help. That describes the 25 counties of western North Carolina right now.  

I would tell you to pray for us all, but I really don’t know what requests you should make because the destruction and loss of life is just so utterly overwhelming. Considering the circumstances, I guess Romans 8:28 is as good a promise as any to claim in regards to the aftermath of Helene, so I’ll close this post by quoting that verse. As you read the verse, keep in mind that the word “all” means ALL and the word “good” means GOOD:

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28, N.K.J.V.)

Posted in Adversity, Church Attendance, Current Events, Death, God's Sovereignty, Personal, Problems, Suffering, Trials, Trusting In God, Weather | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

The Temporary Victim

Posted on September 25, 2024 by russellmckinney

When Joseph’s older brothers sold him into slavery a series of events was initiated by which God, over the course of 13 years, caused Joseph to become the second highest ruler in Egypt. Nine years later, after Joseph’s brothers had come to Egypt seeking grain during an intense famine, Joseph revealed himself to them. That revealing and the events that followed it allowed the entire family to be reconciled in Egypt. The climax of the story came when Joseph said of his brothers selling him into slavery:

But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring about as it is this day, to save many people alive. (Genesis 50:20, N.K.J.V.)

This quote from Joseph is the Old Testament version of Romans 8:28, which says to Christians:

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (N.K.J.V.)

It is fair to say that Joseph was a victim because, unquestionably, he was victimized by the actions of his brothers. However, it is also fair to say that he didn’t remain a victim. Unlike so many people who have wrongs done to them, Joseph didn’t allow himself to bathe in self-pity and self-centeredness. Rather than fade into bitterness and isolation, he made the best of his new life in Egypt.

How was Joseph able to do this? The answer is simple: his faith in God. Joseph knew that God was big enough to take the evil that had been done to him and actually use it as building blocks to accomplish His good purposes in Joseph’s life.

As is the case with so many scriptural truths, the greatest example of this one can be found in the life of Jesus. The Jewish religious leaders and the Romans were in sin when they worked in unison to get Jesus crucified. That’s why Jesus’ first words as He hung on the cross were, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). Nevertheless, even as Jesus was uttering those words, He already knew that God the Father was going to use His death on that cross as the means by which the sins of the entire human race could potentially be forgiven (1 John 2:1-2).

You see, God the Father, in His perfect omniscience and foreknowledge, saw the sinful actions of those Jews and Romans far in advance. How far in advance did He see them? According to Revelation 13:8, He saw them before the foundation of the world! And it was that unfathomable foreknowledge that allowed Him to devise a plan whereby He would use all that evil to accomplish His good purpose of providing a path of salvation for sinners. As Peter says in Acts 2:23, Jesus was “delivered (to the cross) by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God.” 

So, was Joseph a victim? Yes, he was but only temporarily. In the end, God used the evil done to Joseph to transform him from victim to victor. Likewise, was Jesus a victim? Yes, he was but only temporarily. In the end, God the Father used the evil done to Jesus to transform Him from victim to victor. And are you a victim if someone has sinfully wronged you? Yes, you are. The key, though, is to see yourself as a temporary victim rather than a permanent one and claim God’s promise that He will use the evil done to you to transform you from victim to victor.

Posted in Adversity, Attitude, Christ's Death, Comfort, Complaining, Disappointment, Encouragement, Faith, God's Omnipotence, God's Foreknowledge, God's Omniscience, God's Sovereignty, God's Work, Patience, Persecution, Perseverance, Problems, Restoration, Revenge, Reward, Suffering, Trials, Trusting In God, Waiting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

God: Your Captain

Posted on September 23, 2024 by russellmckinney

Thomas Stevenson was the father of Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous author. That in itself will get you a brief mention in the history books. Actually, though, Thomas was a touch famous himself, especially in his day. His fame came from his groundbreaking innovations in lighthouse designs. In all, he designed more than thirty lighthouses around the rocky coastlines of Scotland.

One stormy night, Thomas Stevenson was aboard a ship that was drifting perilously along a dangerous coastline. He and the other passengers were below deck, and they were all panicked with fear, certain the ship was going to be bashed against the rocks at any moment. When Stevenson couldn’t take the suspense any longer, he went up on deck to examine the situation for himself. There he saw the ship’s captain standing tall and firm with his hands firmly at the ship’s helm as he fought inch by inch to turn the ship away from the rocks. When the captain noticed Stevenson, he just gave Stevenson a smile and carried on with his business. But that smile was enough to calm Stevenson’s fears. Stevenson then went back down to the other passengers and said, “It is all right; I have seen the captain’s face, and he smiled.”

Perhaps today, Christian, you find yourself in some kind of frightening storm and you are thoroughly convinced that your ship is going to be broken up against the rocks. My question to you is, “Have you gone up top and consulted God about your situation?” He is, after all, the Captain of your life.

Isaiah 6:1 opens up with the prophet Isaiah reporting that Judah’s King Uzziah has died. Uzziah had become king when he was 16 and had reigned for 52 years (2 Chronicles 26:3). He wasn’t perfect – there even came a time when his pride caused God to strike him with leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:16-21) – but he is generally described as being one of Judah’s better kings.

For the purposes of Isaiah 6:1, though, the thing to understand is that a long-reigning king has died and his death has brought the people of his kingdom, including Isaiah, to a new era. It’s not that the people of Judah don’t know who their next king will be. The new king will be Uzziah’s son, Jotham, who has been reigning with his father as coregent ever since Uzziah became a leper (2 Chronicles 26:21-22). The issue is that the people are now in uncharted territory. Many of them have never known a time when Uzziah wasn’t their king and they are now asking questions. What will the future hold? Will Jotham be a good king? Will their lives get better or worse under him?

Sometime in the middle of all of these transitional worries, Isaiah goes into the temple in Jerusalem and has a vision. In Isaiah 6:1-4, he writes:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim (a seraph is a type of angel); each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. (N.K.J.V., explanation mine)

This scene is awesome enough to make the godly Isaiah say:

Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. (Isaiah 6:5, N.K.J.V.)

Be sure to notice that last part of Isaiah’s quote. He says, “…my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” I don’t have to tell you that he’s not talking about Uzziah or Jotham there! You see, Isaiah’s vision reminded him that the true, eternal King was still on His throne. Yes, Uzziah was dead, and, yes, Judah’s future was looking a bit cloudy at the moment, but everything was perfectly fine in heaven. There was no fear, panic, or worry there. God was still firmly in control of His creation.

And, Christian, what you need to realize right now is that the same mighty God who Isaiah saw sitting upon His heavenly throne is still seated upon that throne (Revelation 4:1-11). He’s not dead, old, past His prime, or perplexed by your situation. Like the captain of Thomas Stevenson’s ship that night, God is faithfully manning the helm of your life, and nothing is going to happen to you that doesn’t first pass through the loving hands of what He will allow and won’t allow to happen. Therefore, take heart because your King is still high and lifted up on His throne and your Captain is still steering your ship’s wheel through the teeth of your storm.

Posted in Adversity, Angels, Comfort, Courage, Death, Decisions, Depression, Encouragement, Faith, Fear, God's Holiness, God's Love, God's Omnipotence, God's Omnipresence, God's Guidance, God's Omniscience, God's Provision, God's Sovereignty, Heaven, Perseverance, Problems, Trials, Trusting In God, Worry, Worship | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

John Wesley’s Pound Notes

Posted on September 20, 2024 by russellmckinney

This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. (Titus 3:8, N.K.J.V.)

The great preacher/evangelist John Wesley heard of an associate who was having serious financial problems. Wesley wrote the man a note that quoted Psalm 37:3. The note read:

Dear Sammy,

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.”

Yours affectionately,

John Wesley

Wesley then placed the note, along with several English pound notes, in an envelope and mailed it.

A few days later, he received the following reply:

Rev. and Dear Sir:

I have often been struck with the beauty of this passage of Scripture quoted in your letter, but I must confess I never saw such beautiful expository notes as those you enclosed…

An encouraging word. A heartening phone call. A complimentary email. An uplifting text. A nice Facebook comment. A sweet card. A kind letter. A check mailed. A “$100 handshake.” A meal. A visit. An act of service. These are all “good works” that are “good and profitable to men.”

Christian, someone you know right now needs you to live out Titus 3:8. I have no idea who it is, and I have no idea what God wants you to do for them, but if you will simply open your heart to God’s will and seek His mind on how to carry out that will, He will make your job clear. “Sammys” are everywhere, but unfortunately there aren’t enough “John Wesleys” to go around.

Posted in Doing Good, Encouragement, Giving, God's Guidance, God's Will, God's Work, Influence, Ministry, Money, Needs, Service | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments