This past Sunday Pastor Shade and his family attended Kings Kirk Presbyterian Church in Cartersville, GA, having volunteered to preach for them after meeting the three young leaders of the year old church plant at our last Presbytery during Council. The three leaders are pastor hopeful Benji, and elder hopefuls Shawn and Noah. All three are thirty-two years old or younger, and have made major transitions the past two years from Baptist backgrounds to being whole-Bible Christians of reformed persuasion. I think they enjoyed our presence as older CREC’ers with history of the denomination and the practice of reformed liturgical worship and government. We were also the first non-Georgian CREC’ers to visit their body, so they enjoyed the ‘family’ fellowship.

After being planted by the CREC church in Newnan, Georgia, they have grown to 50 members with another 20 or so regular visitors. They use a covenant renewal worship pattern with robust singing and responses, and like St. Mark, the kids all worship with their families, learning and singing and responding loudly.

Every Sunday after worship they have a fellowship meal as well, and almost all stayed and enjoyed the fellowship. Meeting at 4 pm, the meal becomes dinner. The only negative was the food was in the sanctuary during the service, and I could smell it during my preaching!

Please pray for their continued growth theologically, in fellowship, and in wisdom for them and their oversight elders as they prepare to elect officers for the church. Because of their youthfulness, I encouraged them to retain at least one older elder as an advisor to their session in order to throttle any youthful misdirection as they begin to guide the church!

If you are in the Atlanta area on a Sunday and are looking for a church for worship, please consider them. They are a lively group and you’ll be blessed!

Pastor Joe is always teaching us to notice biblical themes to increase our faith in God’s kindness, goodness, truthfulness, and perseverance with his people. Books he often recommends are Peter Leithart’s “A House for My Name” or James Jordan’s “Through New Eyes,” which point out these repeating patterns of Gods care and revelation.

One such text where several of these patterns lie on the surface is in Jeremiah 52:31-34. There the new Babylonian king Evil-Merodach took Israeli king Jehoiachin, grandson of righteous Josiah, and prisoner from the days of Nebuchadnezzar whom he had surrendered to, and honored him. Merodach elevated Jehoiachin in the 37th year of his captivity (cf 2 Kings 24).

Jehoiachin had done evil, but Yahweh reversed his situation. How so?

• Lifted up the head—victory – Psalm 110:7
• Brought him out of prison/pit-death and resurrection 
• Spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above other kings at his table-exaltation/ascension
• Dined regularly at the king’s table-a friend of the king/counselor (like Joseph, Daniel, Mordecai, etc)
• Put off his prison garments-resurrection, like Joseph
• Regular provision till he died-versus Zedekiah (who didn’t surrender, had his eyes put out after watching his sons be slain, and was imprisoned and dragged to Babylon and never heard of again).

This is how the book of Jeremiah ends—not on the destruction of Jerusalem, but on the exaltation of God’s people as represented by the king’s reversal. God brings life and hope and peace to his church through his loving sovereign ways; and he remembers his people! Including you in your dark days.

Revelation 20 gives us the period of the Great Commission (GC) which takes place most prominently after Satan is bound so that he can no longer deceive the nations during the millennium (20:1–3; obviously the GC begins when Jesus commands it and the kingdom/church grows mightily between his ascension and 70 AD, just before Satan is bound).

Now, almost 2,000 years later, we can and should ask, how is the GC faring so far? Even in our day?

For starters, we shouldn’t doubt its effectiveness or consummation, because of its preamble in Matthew 28:18: “All authority has been given me in heaven and on earth.” Jesus has all authority given to him by the Father—there is no one who can stay his hand! By faith we are encouraged in its fulfillment—it will be done!

But we can also see this not only by faith, but with our eyes in history. Isaiah 9:6—7 prophesied there would be no end to the extension of Jesus’ government, and that has happened, as there are believers and churches in every nation. Some may be only outposts, with room for complete permeation, but the nations will be discipled in the ways and love of Jesus. Work to be done, for sure!

While we have headwinds and enemies during the GC, we carry on, because Christ is ruling even amongst the enemies he is subduing through our Holy Spirit-filled work (1 Cor. 15:20–28). And he will reign until the last enemy is defeated, death itself, thrown into the Lake of Fire right after the devil himself (20:11ff)!

Finally, the actions of Jesus should encourage you as well, for Jesus releases Satan at the end of the millennium (20:7–10) to once again deceive the nations. But he is not at all worried for his church and its mission, because while they are attacked, he devours our enemies with fire and defeats them. So be of good cheer; in Jesus, you are a serpent treader carrying out the GC! (Romans 16:20).