Monthly Archives: December 2021

Heaven: One surprising thing we will do there

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A friend gave me a small reminder of what Heaven is going to be like.

I was having lunch with Pastor Michael and Jane Perry after the morning services in the First Baptist Church of Moss Point, Mississippi, where they serve. We got started talking about families or football or something, and they said Jane’s father–now in Heaven–was the biggest Alabama fan on the planet.

“He had Bear Bryant pictures all over the house,” she said. “He’s gone but they’re still there.”

That’s when I related my little tale of the 1980 game between Bama and Mississippi State. As I began talking, Michael started smiling. I said, “Have I told you this story?” He said, “No, but I remember the game. Go ahead, and I’ll tell you when you finish.”

Okay. The story—

We had driven from our home in Columbus, MS, to Jackson for the game. Alabama had a 17-game winning streak going and State was a perennial doormat for the Southeastern Conference. Even though we liked both teams–Columbus is located between both universities on U.S. 82–we were rooting for Bama that day.

When the game ended, the score was State 6, Alabama 3.

Three hours later, arriving home and pulling into the driveway, we saw people inside our garage. Several of our neighbors were painting a large sign for my house, no doubt rubbing in the loss.

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My favorite sin: Gluttony

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Diamond Jim Brady, a character in American life a few generations ago, was said to have loved food so much, his stomach was six times the size of a normal belly.

Now, that, is a glutton!

How ironic that the season during which we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus provides us the perfect excuse to over-indulge.

Like the megalopolis that now stretches from Washington to Boston or from Dallas to Fort Worth, this eating holiday dominates our calendar from Thanksgiving to New Year’s.

Walk through any modern large-box store, and study the edibles they’re offering during this season. It’s not just turkey and dressing and yams and egg nog any longer. It’s chocolates like you would not believe, in every kind of assortment and combination. It’s cookies and cakes and pies coming out your ears. Books pour off the shelves telling homemakers of new recipes for the latest taste sensations for these holidays. Restaurants offer special smorgasbords for the holidays with prices approaching $100 per person.

The wonder is that Americans are not all 400 pounds.

What’s that? We are? Well, far too many of us are overweight.

What position should the disciple of the Lord Jesus take regarding this little crime-against-one’s-body we call gluttony?

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When to walk out on a sermon

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On the morning of Sunday 19 May, 1940, Clementine Churchill returned early from a church service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in central London, having walked out when the preacher delivered a pacifist sermon.  Winston told her, ‘You ought to have cried, ‘Shame!’, desecrating the House of God with lies!’”   (Darkest Hour, by Anthony McCarten, p. 154)

Easter Sunday, 1968. When Martin Luther King was assassinated, all of us–white and black alike–were hurting and confused, disturbed and concerned.  That Sunday I preached a sermon addressing racism in America. I was 28 years old and in the first year of pastoring Emmanuel Baptist Church of Greenville, Mississippi in the heart of the Delta, a section of our state with a long and sordid history of race relations.  I’ve long since forgotten the sermon but will never forget a phone call I received that afternoon.

Mrs. Glenn Powell called. (Yes, her first name was Glenn.) She owned a beauty shop which I had quickly learned was gossip central for our town.  Mrs. Powell had made no secret of her unhappiness with my sermons or with me personally.

“Brother McKeever, what will you be preaching tonight?”

I told her.

“The reason I asked,” she said, “is I guess you noticed I walked out on your sermon this morning.”  I had to admit that I had not noticed.  Margaret used to say you could dynamite the back of the building while I was preaching and I would not notice.

She went on. “We get enough of the bad news all week.  When we come to church, we expect some peace and quiet.”

I have no memory of how I responded to that strange statement.  But she stayed in the church and life went forward.

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If you would serve the Lord, expect obstacles

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“A great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries” (I Corinthians 16:9). 

“We exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance…” (Romans 5:3). 

This is a quiz.  Name the enemies George Washington faced in the Revolutionary War.

If you answered, “The British,” you’d be only partly right.

Washington did fight the British, as the thirteen colonies asserted their independence from the Mother Nation.  But Generals Howe, Cornwallis, and Clinton and their armies were only the most visible of the forces Washington had to contend with.

He had to fight the weather.  Think of Valley Forge and even without knowing the full story, your mind immediately conjures up images of a harsh winter with all the snow, ice, sleet, and freezing temperatures that includes.

Washington had to deal with starvation and deprivation.  No one knows how many thousands of his soldiers perished from the cold and starvation at Valley Forge and how many deserted in order to save their lives.  Many surrendered to the British at Philadelphia in the vain hope that the conquerors would feed and clothe them.

Washington had to deal with a Congress that was either ignorant, misinformed, or outright hostile to his situation. He wrote letter after letter detailing the misery of his army and pleading for help.  Finally, a delegation came from the national capital, temporarily at York, PA, to see for themselves, after which congress began to act.

Washington fought disorganization, a country that made impossible demands but gave minimal support, and criticism on every side.

Still with me?

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Ten things to pray for your pastor–and one big thing to do

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“Pray for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel” (Ephesians 6:19). 

You and I would do well to pray for our pastors.

So much depends on our spiritual leaders functioning well, staying close to the Lord, thinking clearly, and maintaining good health.

Here are ten requests we should be asking of the Father for our pastors….

One.  A strong sense of God’s calling on the pastor’s life.

“It is the Lord Christ whom ye serve.”  (Colossians 3:24)

The pastor is not his own, nor is he “ours.”  He has been bought with a price.  So, we pray that He may always have a clear sense of where his allegiance begins and ends.  This will produce a far greater intensity in his faith and dynamic to his work ethic than anything the deacons or finance committee can impose.

Two.   An increasingly deeper love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).

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No place for sarcasm in the Lord’s work

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“Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned as it were, with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person” (Colossians 4:6). “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).

Mary Todd Lincoln was gifted in the dark art of sarcasm. Her sister Elizabeth said of her, “She was also impulsive and made no attempt to conceal her feelings; indeed, it would have been an impossibility had she desired to do so, for her face was an index to every passing emotion.  Without desiring to wound, she occasionally indulged in sarcastic, witty remarks, that cut like a Damascus blade, but there was no malice behind them.”  Lincoln’s biographer notes, “A young woman who could wound by words without intending to was presumably even more dangerous when angry or aroused.”  (Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln by Douglas L. Wilson).

Woe to the person bound in marriage to one gifted in sarcasm.  Lincoln bore many a scar from the blade his wife wielded.

Pity the church member sitting under the teachings of a sarcastic pastor week after week.  Such ministry will bear bitter fruit.

These days, Christian leaders are finding themselves apologizing for public pronouncements–in the media, on cyberspace, in print, on radio or TV–in which they were sarcastic toward someone who criticized them or opposed them or questioned them.

We even have websites given to satire and sarcasm. And some claim to be Christian.

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Ten scary times in a pastor’s ministry

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Sometimes I sit there listening while my pastor friend tells what’s happening in his personal life and/or church. And, once in a while all the alarms go off. I realize he is in a dangerous place in his ministry.

If I sense a leading from the Holy Spirit or if he and I already have a close enough relationship, I’ll interrupt him.

“Bob, can we pause here a moment? I need to point something out to you.”

“My friend, you are exposed. You are a sitting duck. Life has drawn a target on your back. Satan has you in his cross-hairs.”

“You’d better do something big in a hurry or you’re going to get in bad trouble.”

He sits there stunned, without a clue.

“What do you mean? I’m doing everything I know to work my way through this.”

I say, “I’m not talking about what you are going through. I’m talking about where you are personally at this moment. You are in a vulnerable spot and you need to move before something bad happens.”

Older, veteran pastors have learned the hard way to tread softly through this dark valley they have entered. They have seen the carcasses of their peers strewn about, brought down by ego or depression or temptation or carelessness.

It’s the young minister who is more likely to try to brave it out alone. It’s the young pastor who is more prone to end up a victim instead of a victor.

Here are 10 danger zones for the pastor to watch out for.

On the highway, signs alert motorists to drive carefully, to slow down, to watch for obstructions.

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Ten reasons I believe in Heaven

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“Heaven is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark.”  –Stephen Hawking

I’m afraid of the dark.

If we’re talking about the endless kind of darkness that offers no light anywhere, no hope ever, and nothing but nothingness, who among us would not panic at the thought of that?

I expect people like Mr. Hawking simply find the idea of Heaven too good to be true, and thus conclude that it must be a product of man’s delusional yearning for “pie in the sky by and by.”

And yet, there are solid reasons for reasonable people to believe in the concept of a Heavenly home after this earthly life.  Here are some that mean a lot to me.  By no means is this list exhaustive.  It’s simply my thinking on the subject.

One.  Jesus believed in Heaven.   In fact, He claimed to be a native.

The Lord said to Nicodemus, “No one has been to Heaven except the One who came from there, even the Son of Man.” (John 3:13).  No one knows a place like a native.

Jesus told the dying thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”  (Luke 23:43).  So, wherever we go when we die, it’s a paradise.

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Things the New Testament does not tell us

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“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable….that the man of God may be complete” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Those who demand a Scripture verse for everything they do place an intolerable burden on the Christian life, something never intended by the Heavenly Father. 

Some among us have all the answers about the Christian life and have solved all the mysteries of doctrine and theology.

Is there a verse of Scripture on that?

Stay tuned.

These “super-apostles” write me, taking issue with our positions in these articles.  They have it all worked out and find it incredulous that we do not see matters their way. The only explanation, they conclude, is that I must be a) unsaved or b) willfully blind.

Case in point: I wrote something about tithing for this website.

One of several online preachers’ magazines picked it up and sent it out to their 75,000 subscribers.  The tithe-haters came alive.

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The most overlooked part of the Christmas story

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“Behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be to all the people! For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign unto you: you will find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:10-12)

In telling and retelling the story of the shepherds and the angels in the fields outside Bethlehem, it’s easy to lose sight of the most important.

We picture those humble, working-class shepherds…given the most boring assignment in the world, to spend the night watching sheep who are not going to be doing anything or going anywhere anyway…. when suddenly the Angel of the Lord materializes, hanging in the sky out in front of them, and tells them–what else?–to “Fear not!” We join the shepherds in awe of the skyful of angels singing the excelsis deo, and then we run with them into Bethlehem as they flit from stable to stable in search of the one containing a young family with a newborn baby.  They worship, then depart to spread the news.

Does anyone ever stop to reflect seriously on what the angel said to the shepherds in that opening statement?

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