John,

While reading chapter 4 on Constantine, I kept asking myself what difference did it make if Constantine was a Christian or not?  Why have scholars put so much time in trying to answer that question?  To put it in a modern perspective, I guess some people might consider Donald Trump a Christian.  It really doesn’t matter if he is or not.  He is worldly politicians that use people and circumstances for his personal gain and status.   If he is perceived as being Christian then it helps him all the more to succeed.

The last paragraph of chapter 4 helped sum it up for me:   

“There is abundant historical and archaeological evidence related to Constantine’s character and deeds; historians and archaeologists have produced a veritable mountain of information on him.  Our purpose has only been to show that the historical evidence demonstrates that (1) Constantine remained a pagan at heart throughout his life and (2) Constantine reshaped the religion of the Apostates into a new form of paganism, which became known as Christianity.”

Based on the historical evidence that you pointed out, “Constantine remained a pagan at heart”.  Whether he was perceived as being a Christian or not did not change the course of history.  He was used by God, as you said, to “reshape the religion of the Apostates into a new form of paganism, which became known as Christianity.”

These are a few thoughts that came while reading chapter 4.

Thank you for giving us the historical facts on the life of Constantine and organizing them in a manner that can be understood.

Tom

Aw, this is one of my favorite “Thoughts for the Evening” (Going to Jesus.com – A Loser For God) because Jesus used it to answer a question I had in my heart for years, after receiving the holy Ghost and learning about my new life in Christ.  I had questions about things that had happened in my past before Jesus, and why things were the way they were, and the paths I had taken.  I felt sorrow for all the places I had taken Jesus and basically apologized often for being the type of person I was.  I was thankful for my touch from Jesus, but the more I loved him, the worse I felt about life before him and the missed opportunity to do things the right way.  I would ask him often, “Why was it so bad?”  And then I would move on….. until this Thought for the Evening.  One day, you asked me to proofread this before we added it to the rest of the Thoughts.  I wanted to take it and get still and read it.  When I read it, it went straight to my heart and stirred up that same question I had asked many times.  “God, why was it so bad?”  And I heard an answer back this time: “Because I wanted you.”  Whew, my heart melted.  And that answer changed the turmoil in my heart to love.  He wanted me!  So, He did whatever it took to get me.  And I understood that then.  I can’t say I haven’t shook my head several times since then and said, “I’m sorry, Lord, I was that kind of person.”  But I can say, I’m not in turmoil any more in my soul.  I believe He did want me.  And He drove me to the place that took me to him.

In the week prior to reading this Thought for the Evening, Jesus was preparing my heart.  Every day that week, I played Darren’s song “As Long as I Love You.”  I played it every day.  And when I told this testimony in the following Sunday meeting, unbeknownst to Darren that I had done that, he played that song right after my testimony. (see below) Jesus knows how to get you!  I’m thankful for that answer from Jesus.  To understand the love of God in your life means so much and helps you have faith that Jesus has you right where he wants you, and that he will take care of you until you are with him forever.  What a love story each one of us are.

Amy B.

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Thought for the Evening
12-15

A Loser For God

“For in the Lord, he who has been called while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise the free man who is called is Christ’s slave.”
1Corinthians 7:22

From a sermon by Preacher Clark at Grandma’s house, June 2, 1968
Taken from Gary’s CD-24, Track 2

In October of 1996, Uncle Joe was dying. I spent the last night with him in his home. During the night, the Lord visited me with a dream, in part of which he showed me a scene which I had witnessed the previous evening on television. It was a sea of people wearing red and gathered in the baseball stadium in St. Louis. The Atlanta Braves had been battling the St. Louis Cardinals for the National League Championship, and they had eliminated the Cardinals from the playoffs. But the scene Jesus showed me was one that I remembered seeing during that game as the television cameras showed the tens of thousands of the red-clad Cardinal fans cheering for their team. They were cheering on their team, but I knew they had lost. Then the word of the Lord came to me and said, “In this world, losers are the winners because they are more open to comfort from God.”

The Gospel is for the poor because the poor feel their need of help from God. The Gospel is for the sick and diseased because they know they cannot heal themselves. The Gospel is for the lonely because they want a friend. Wealthy, popular, famous, and important people scarcely ever realize their great need of compassion from God. They are victims of what Jesus called “the deceitfulness of riches.”

“How hardly shall a rich man enter the kingdom of God!” the Master proclaimed one day, to the very great astonishment of his disciples. Listen to these words from Paul (1Cor. 1:26-29). “You see your calling brethren, that not many who are wise according to the flesh, not many powerful people, not many of noble birth have been called by God; instead, God has chosen the foolish things of the world so that He might bring the wise to nothing, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to bring the strong things to nothing, and insignificant things of the world, and things despised has God chosen, and things that are not, that He might bring to nothing the things that are, so that no flesh might boast before God.”

God showed me that night that He had blessed the Cardinal fans more than the Braves fans because He had made them sad, and their saddened hearts were more likely to hear His tender voice than were the people who had won and were celebrating.

But even that was not His point to me. Just a few feet away from where I was sleeping was my Uncle Joe, the best friend I had as I was growing up. We had always been “soul mates” before that term came into vogue. We thought alike, felt alike, and often acted alike, despite the 36 years of difference in our ages. He was dying, and he had been a loser by almost every earthly measure.

He was brilliant, but he had quit school at the age of 13 to work in the forest with Grandpa, cutting down trees with a crosscut saw and splitting the logs by hand. At the age of 17, while splitting up some kindling, Uncle Joe’s ax handle caught the edge of the log as it came down, veered off and sliced off the end of his left thumb.

Dirt poor, he fell deeply in love with a local farm girl, but lost her to a young man from town who had a lot of money. Over 60 years later, just a couple of years before he died, he attended a funeral of someone in his home community and saw her there. No one but I seemed to notice (perhaps because I knew him so well) that he was more quiet than usual and not quite himself for several weeks afterward.

He loved his younger brother Raymond with a passion. More than that, he respected Raymond for his zest for life and willingness and ability to do the hard jobs around the farm for the good of the family. He and Raymond were the life of Grandma’s large family with their perpetual antics, and Uncle Joe so very much wanted it never to end. “I have always wanted a friend who could go from this world into eternity with me”, he told me on several occasions when I was young. Only later was I to realize that when he said that, he was always thinking of Raymond. When Uncle Joe finally surrendered to the love of God at the age of 36, Raymond did not follow him. Never. He died in his sins.

Uncle Joe was an exceptional baseball player, and when a Major league team sent for him from his Minor League team, they changed their minds when they learned that he batted left-handed instead of right. He lost interest and drifted away from the game.

Yes, Uncle Joe was a loser by any standard that we humans can possibly devise.

But that night, as I lay in slumber within sight of my dying uncle and friend, God revealed to me another standard, by which Uncle Joe might be judged in a different light.

He showed me that if Uncle Joe had stayed in school and not cut off his thumb in 1933, he would have been sent to the front when he was drafted during WWII. Instead, he was disqualified from front-line duty and spent the war years safely cooking on a hospital train. His great pain and disappointment at cutting off his thumb was but part of God’s plan to give Uncle Joe a safe and happy life. By cutting off his thumb, he became a winner with God because in his life he got what God wanted for him rather than what he wanted. He wanted his thumb; God wanted his life.

He lost the girl of his dreams, but God had chosen a simple and good wife for Uncle Joe who would understand and serve him much better than that pretty little flirt who was attracted to money. When he lost his sweetheart, he became a winner with God because in his wife, he got the one God chose for him rather than what his own flesh desired.

In this world, the winners are the losers, and losers can be winners with God.

Uncle Joe lost his chance to “make the big time” in the Major Leagues, but if he had been flying around the country playing a game, he would not have gone to Florida to pick oranges. And if he had not gone to Florida, thoroughly frustrated with being a constant loser, he would not have attended a holiness tent meeting down there, and would not have surrendered to Jesus and been filled with the holy Ghost and fire. He felt like a loser because he didn’t get to fly around the country and play ball in the Major Leagues with his brother Raymond, but God was waiting for him near Tampa under the folds of a little tent.

And then, God showed me that He had given me to Uncle Joe instead of his beloved brother Raymond. I was to be the friend who would love Uncle Joe both here and in the world to come. I am striving to live so that Uncle Joe and I can meet again and so that Uncle Joe will not again feel as if he has lost something precious to him. After Uncle Joe died, I called Uncle Raymond and tried to influence him to seek God so that he and his favorite brother would be together again, but he would not. It is wonderful to me to see now that God had long ago seen that Raymond would never surrender to Him and had given Uncle Joe a friend who would be a friend forever. So, in losing Raymond, Uncle Joe became a winner with God because he went to God with a broken heart, and God gave him the friend He wanted him to have. The closeness Uncle Joe and I shared in all things was a gift from God to us both.

In his sermon in 1968, my father, also a loser by earthly measures, said, “I’d rather be a loser for God than a winner for Satan.” It would be eighteen years later, while sleeping near the bedside of my dying friend, that God would allow me to comprehend the precious and holy truth contained in my father’s statement. In this world, the winners are the losers, for those who lose in this world are much more likely to seek God and receive His will for them instead of their own.

Love,

Beth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7akZK3DbFr4

Good morning Pastor John,

I woke up thinking about the line in Brother Gary’s song about shaking the pastor’s hand. It struck me yesterday when I heard it, and it brought back a memory of the Catholic church I grew up in.

In every service, there was a scheduled time to turn to the person in front of you, beside you, or behind you, take their hand, and recite, “Peace be with you,” and they would say the same or reply: “And also with you.”  Most of the time, the people attending never spoke to each other.  We silently filed into a pew, moved when the schedule dictated, and left as quietly as we came in.  You might see a few talk in the parking lot afterward, but the majority did not speak to each other.  When I heard that verse, I thought about the attempt to schedule fellowship — even using the results of fellowship as part of the ceremony.

With real fellowship, peace really does go with you.  Peace and joy go with you.  Being with the right spirits produces that fruit.  If you’ve ever felt off or heavy and then been near those who are led in the Spirit — those full, happy, and in their spot — it is like medicine.  You can’t help but leave full, happy, and at peace.  It puts you in your spot. 

We weren’t even allowed to speak to the priest at our church without an appointment.  He came in as part of a ceremony with two boys walking with him and left the same way.  The ones who acted too human were considered less holy than the ones who didn’t interact.

Look what Jesus has done for me!  That was all I knew about God — an untouchable, ceremonial God with no real peace or joy or life.  No real life.  But in my heart, I always wanted God to be like a Father.  I wanted to be the apple of His eye and for Him to be able to fix anything.  It brings tears to my eyes to think that God planted that desire in my heart, because that is the real God.  He is everything my heart wanted Him to be and more.

It is pretty wonderful to even know that real fellowship produces a fruit.  I’m going to eat on that today.

Love,

Beth

Hey Pastor John, 

Thank you for sending out the excerpt from the chapter on Constantine in your new book, The Iron Kingdom.  I thought this sentence summed it up, “Constantine took Roman culture in one hand and Christian religion in the other and mashed them together to make one new lump, the hybrid entity of Christianity, the Roman Universal Church.”

After reading this, and what you taught us on Wednesday night regarding the cruelty and the torture by the hands of Christians in the Middle Ages, it made me think, “Jesus, if your people only knew where Christianity came from, surely they would run out of it!”  But then, the thought came immediately, “Knowing all this is not it.  It is Jesus touching your heart.  Him giving the understanding and feelings to take it in is what gets His people out.” 

I fell asleep last night so thankful that we’ve been touched by the Master.  He is everything.

Love you,

Michelle

Good morning, Pastor John,

As long as I can remember, even back to my childhood, I have always loved music.  Nowadays, I find myself carrying a tune in my head most of the time!  Lately, the song has been “10,000 Reasons”*, sung by our sweet sister Anna D.  It’s a great song to listen to, to start the day.  The lyrics really touched my heart.

Verse 1:  “The sun comes up, a new day is dawning.  It’s time to sing your song again.  Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes.”

Wow!  If we have faith in anything, we have faith that the sun is going to rise each morning, bringing about a new day.  Now, with the the help of the holy ghost, WE rise every morning, and shine like that creation that crosses the sky each day, providing warmth and light. That alone should be reason enough to make us sing his praises all day long and into the evening!  Jesus, give us faith to endure whatever you bring our way!

Verse 2:  “You’re rich in love and you’re slow to anger.  Your name is great and your heart is kind.  For all your goodness, I will keep on singing,10,000 reasons for my heart to find.”

Our Jesus is so rich in love, and it’s everlasting. Our carnal minds need to be reminded of this every now and again.  Thank you, Jesus, for giving us experiences that exude your love for us!  Oh my, and you’re slow to anger.  This is big!  His window of time, I feel, is a gift of time for us to repent.  Sometimes, maybe more time than we deserve!  Lord, give us tolerance for the people who offend us!  Allow us to pray for them and be slow to anger.  Your name is great; of course it is.  It’s the name above all names.  We pray only in your name, Jesus.  Let our nature not be idolatrous in anything but you, Lord.  Your heart is kind.  Give us a kindness, like your kindness, Jesus, daily, to everyone we meet.  This is imperative to our salvation!

Verse 3:  “On that day when my strength is failing, the end draws near and my time has come.  Still my soul will sing your praise unending, 10,000 years and forever more.”

Our end WILL come, and even though our strength may be failing, Jesus, give us enough strength and  faith to keep praising you until we pass through the vail.  And then, glory to God, our singing will ring through the ages for an eternity!!!  So let us sing now, like never before, with all our heart and soul, to keep reminding ourselves of the 10,000 or more reasons why we praise your name.  Amen!

Jim K.

* 10,000 Reasons written by Matt Redman and Jonas Myrin

Pastor John,

Your pics of the grand Parthenon replica in Nashville, TN, go right along with what I am reading in the “God Had a Son Before Mary”* book today.  I love what I am feeling in reading this book!  I try to underline sentences with my pen and my lines are wiggly because the spirit is so stirred up inside me that it’s causing my hand to shake!

This is part of what I read this morning, “Professional religionists have always known, far better than God’s children know, how to make an impressive show…Israel failed because God’s law was so simple they did not want it….It was because God’s way in the Old Testament was an embarrassment to some in Israel that they strove to be like all the nations”. 

It’s still that way today!  The simplicity of Christ is just too plain.  And there’s no place to hide in that simple way of worship.  “Only those who choose life over form are satisfied with the unpretentious “strait and narrow way of Jesus”.  Amen!  I love the simplicity of Christ!!

Preacher Clark said, “Whatever God requires, requires God”. That’s so true!  What is about any of the worship we see in Christian denominations that required Jesus to come and sacrifice his life for us?  What is it in there that requires God?  We needed to become new creatures so we could live and worship in a new and living way!  A way that was impossible for the old man.  A way that requires God!  It’s so simple, but oh so wonderful!! 

Lee Ann

* Going to Jesus.com – God Had A Son Before Mary Did

Hi Pastor John, 

I hope you’re doing well.  I wanted to share something that has been on my heart over the past several days and ask for your thoughts on it.  Amy’s 1981 sermon audio and transcript really stirred me—especially when you said, “the Promise comes through the Seed.”  That statement stayed with me, and as I continued reading, several scriptures began connecting in a way I had never seen before.

A day or two before listening to the sermon, I had been reading Ephesians 1:13:

“In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.”

I’ve read this verse many times, but this time the Lord allowed me to see a deeper connection between the Promise, the holy Ghost, and the Seed.  Whether I am understanding it correctly or not, it caused me to start looking more closely at several other scriptures, and I wanted to share them with you to see if I am on the right track.

Before returning to Ephesians, many scriptures came to mind concerning the Promise itself.  In Luke 24:47–49, Jesus speaks of the Promise of the Father, which was fulfilled in Acts 2 when the holy Ghost was poured out with a sound.  Peter explains this in Acts 2:33, saying that Jesus, exalted at the right hand of God, “received of the Father the promise of the holy Ghost” and poured it out.  Then in Acts 2:38–39, Peter declares that this Promise is not only for the Jews but also “for all that are afar off,” which we know includes the Gentiles.  As I read these passages, it seemed to me that the Promise and the holy Ghost are inseparably connected.

Jesus also describes the Promise in Acts 1:4–5, telling the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received the Promise of the Father, which He identifies as the baptism of the holy Ghost.  As I looked at these passages together, it began forming what seemed to me to be a clear picture: that the Promise is the Spirit, and that the Spirit is the fulfillment of what God swore to Abraham.  If I am understanding this incorrectly, I would certainly appreciate your correction.

That connection became even clearer when I read Galatians 3.  In verse 8, Paul explains that the blessing promised to Abraham—that all nations would be blessed—was really the gospel preached before the Law was given.  Then in Genesis 22:16–18, God swears that through Abraham’s seed all nations would be blessed.

As I read that passage, I was struck again by God’s words concerning Abraham’s seed: “in multiplying thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore.”  It seemed to me that this promise was looking ahead to believing Gentiles as well.  The thought that we might be included in what God was showing Abraham touched my heart.   We are one of those stars!

Paul interprets this directly in Galatians 3:14:

“That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

What stood out to me was that Paul seems to connect the blessing of Abraham with receiving the Promise of the Spirit through faith. That connection was something I had never seen quite so clearly before, but as I began to study these passages together it became evident. Just as Abraham obeyed God, the Promise (holy Spirit) comes to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32).  And faith comes by hearing the Word, Jesus, the Seed.

Galatians 3:16 brought the final piece together: the Seed through whom the Promise comes is Christ Himself.  You’ve often taught that the heart must be prepared to receive the Seed (Truth when it comes), and that we always get (reap) what we prepare our hearts for.  I remember you saying in the Old Testament course that seeking God is different from preparing our hearts—preparing is how we live.  You’ve said often that our meetings reveal how well we each have prepared our hearts before we assemble together.  When the Seed (the Word, Jesus) enters a prepared heart, it grows, takes root, and brings forth new birth.

Returning to Ephesians 1:13, it seemed that many of these things began fitting together for me in a way they never had before.  The Ephesians heard the Word of truth, believed, and were sealed with the holy Spirit of Promise.  And what struck me even more is that these are the same Ephesians in Acts 19.  Those twelve men were believers, but they had not yet received the holy Ghost because they had not heard the full gospel.  Once they heard, believed, and obeyed, they received the Spirit with a sound and were sealed.  It helped me see that no matter how much someone believes, the sound and the sealing must still be evident.  Belief alone is not the seal—God Himself seals His people with the Spirit of Promise.

I know you have taught many times that God seals His New Testament people with the holy Ghost just as He gave His people a seal under the Old Covenant.  As these scriptures came together, I began seeing more clearly the connection between the Promise, the Spirit, and the Seed. 

This also brought to mind Romans 2:29 and Colossians 2:11–12, where circumcision is no longer outward but inward, performed by the Spirit.  It seemed to me that the Seed enters(sowing) the heart (soil), the Spirit circumcises the old nature, and a new man is raised up (reaping).  One detail especially stayed with me: in the Old Covenant, circumcision was performed in the flesh at the very place where the physical seed came through.  In the New Covenant, circumcision is in the heart—where the spiritual Seed, the Word of God, enters.  The location of circumcision remains where the seed comes through—first in the flesh, now in the heart.  That parallel was very interesting to me and seemed to fit perfectly with the pattern I was seeing in the Scriptures.

As I considered these things, Romans 8:9 also stood out to me: “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” That verse made me appreciate even more the necessity and preciousness of receiving the Spirit.  The seal of the covenant is not merely a doctrine to understand but a reality and an experience that God gives to His people.

Again, Pastor John, I am sharing this because these scriptures have been on my mind, and I wanted your thoughts on whether I am understanding them rightly.  A lot of this comes from things you’ve taught over the years that are finally connecting for me.  I’m not trying to say I’ve found something new, and if I’m understanding any of it incorrectly, I’m happy to be corrected.  But if there is truth in what I am seeing, then I am grateful to God for helping me appreciate more deeply how the Promise, the Seed, and the Spirit fit together.

Thank you for your teaching over the years and feeding me this really good food!  It helped prepare my heart to finally see how the Promise, the Seed, and the Spirit are connected.  I really do appreciate all of your hard work to get this truth out to us and have the best chance to grow in the Lord right here because Truth is being taught.  I pray that I can take it into my heart and walk worthy of it.

David

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Hi David!

That was very well done!  It is exciting for me to see a child of God learning from Jesus and growing in the knowledge of God.  I loved it!  Keep up the good work.  This has been very good to read, and it will bless whoever else reads it.

Pastor John

Pastor John

You know what your message on Sunday does, PJ? — It knocks the dust of Christianity right off my heart.  So many times my flesh has wanted you to be my hero, to be like those Christian ministers who say what the flesh wants to hear.  But this… this makes my soul shout.  This feeds my soul.  I love this so much I can hardly stand it.  I can’t tell you how many times Jesus has given it to me straight.  He has stopped me in my tracks many times by saying it exactly like it is.  Jesus does not sugarcoat things with me.  This sounds and feels just like Jesus to me.  And I love it.  I need it this straight and this real.

Talk about “straight is the way”!  You said, 

“There is something about the truth Jesus gives that so satisfies the soul that you cannot want 

something else.  You can desire more of that heavenly manna and more of that refreshing 

spiritual water, but no other bread or water can appeal to you.  “I am the bread of life,” Jesus 

said, “and he who comes to me will never hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst” 

(Jn. 6:35).  There have been people who attended our meetings for decades, even born to parents 

who were already here, who never found the way of holiness.  They knew when to clap their 

hands and when to smile, but they never got to know the Spirit.  In time, they were offended, not because I did anything, but because they were thirsty for something else, and God made sure that they found something better to their liking. 

I didn’t take credit for them being here, and I didn’t take credit for them leaving.  That is God’s business.  I am not that powerful.  No man is.  It is not part of my job description to decide who or how many come or go; my job is to be faithful to the one who called me out of darkness and gave me hope of eternal life.   My goal is not to try to persuade anybody to stay here and not go away; that is not by job.   My job is to please my Master and teach you the way of righteousness, to feed you the living word of God, to offer you the bread of life that comes down from heaven, to give you a taste of 

the Son of God, and hopefully, to cause you to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”  It is actually none of my business whether or not that heavenly bread tastes good to you.  The result of my feeding the body is entirely up to God.”

Amen! Amen! Amen! 

Love,

Beth

Pastor John,

     Years ago, when we started loving God and obeying the truth, we received some of the same persecution from our families and friends that you talked about in your message on Sunday.  Living in Ridgeway among our family members and former friends, we felt isolated and alone.  We were no longer invited to family dinners or other functions and pretty much ignored.  They tried to persuade us at one point to go to any Pentecostal church, anything but John Clark’s meetings.  We continued loving the truth that you were teaching, and what God was showing us.  The persecution from our families was irrelevant.  We feel privileged to be a part of this work that God has given you and to be a part of this family of God.

     Thank you for this message reminding us again that this is how it has always been and will continue to be. 

Randell

Hey Pastor John, 

     I have had a little something on my mind and Jesus has been very plain and straight with me recently!  During the meeting on Wednesday, I was talking to Jesus and I was asking him to give me opportunities to prove myself.  I don’t want anyone to be wondering about me.  This really goes for everyone, if someone goes out and dances in the Spirit or testifies, I don’t want to be surprised; I want to think “oh there they go again!  Amen!”  Tonight, I was thinking about that again, and I heard Jesus tell me something like this, “Every time you feel me move, you can prove yourself!”  And then I went on to think, every time we don’t go with the spirit, we are losing our chance; someone is going to take our blessing!  The more and more we drift away, the more people start to wonder about us!  I don’t want people to wonder about me, and I want to prove myself and live in the Spirit!! 

     Recently, I feel like many people have been telling us teenagers that we need to go with our feelings and that we aren’t too young!  I feel as though those thoughts of being too young can really deter us sometimes.  But I’m starting to realize we are not too young to feel anything, and we are not too young to prove ourselves.  I am expecting lots and lots of more trials to come but we might as well practice early!  Everything has just been feeling so good lately!  I’m excited 🙂

Grace C.

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I am happy and excited for you, Grace.  Thank you for writing!

Pastor John