Whitesburg FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018
amazing PAGE 5
A Pastor’s Story A pastor’s search for peace and redemption PAGE 14
doubting GOD It all boils down to one question: Does God really exist?
LIFE Be strong. Group Ad Be brave.
Be fearless. You are never alone. Joshua 1:9
In Whitesburg’s LIFE Groups, you will find a group of people who do life with each other, passionately following God as they celebrate the good times and work through the tough stuff together. We have classes for all ages, life stages, and family situations. LIFE Groups meet on Sundays at 8:00, 9:30 and 11:00 am.
WHITESBURG BAPTIST CHURCH 6806 Whitesburg Drive, Huntsville, AL 35802
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Inside
Whitesburg FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018
PAGE 14 Doubting God
2 Stories of Amazing Grace By David Dye
5 A Pastor’s Story By Dr. Jimmy Jackson
14 Doubting God By Deree Tarwater 20 John Newton and the Story Behind Amazing Grace The history of a beloved song 24 Kid’s Space Crossword
PAGE 20 John Newton and the Story Behind Amazing Grace
25 The Right Thing is Almost Never the Easy Thing By Vicki Hereford
PAGE 25 The Right Thing is Almost Never the Easy Thing Whitesburg magazine is a publication by Whitesburg Baptist Church, 6806 Whitesburg Dr., Huntsville, AL 35802-2299. (Permit No. 446) Publisher: Whitesburg Baptist Church Editor-in-Chief: Rev. David Dye Graphics & Publishing: Melissa Schuster, Ron Snyder, Jerry Nichols Editorial Assistants: Karen Tidwell, Beverly Dishman, Chrissy Curtis
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February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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amazing by David Dye
This issue of Whitesburg
Magazine is celebrating each of our stories of “Amazing Grace.” Each is as unique as the person it is about and yet all common in the central story of a loving Savior, His death on a cross and His glorious resurrection from and defeat of the grave. For as long as I can remember, I have known the words to and have sung the old hymn, “Amazing Grace.” At different periods of my life, I have treated it with great reverence and sadly, at times, equally great apathy. Having come from a Christian home and accepting the Lord at a young age, I did not always understand how great the grace was that was required for my salvation. Unlike the song’s writer, I had never been a slave trader, drunkard or 2
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blasphemer. (All words he would later use to describe himself.) My conversion, my story, seemed to me to be not only unremarkable but rather boring. It was not until years later that I would come to realize the remarkableness of my story was not the past I was saved from but the future. Certainly as a child I had never experienced many of the things this world had to offer, but because of God’s transforming grace I never had to. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound” – how often do we allow the depths of God’s grace towards us to really invade and captivate us? Do we understand that grace, any and all grace from almighty God, is amazing? Or, do we sometimes act as if we
somehow deserve God’s grace; that our lives are such that “grace” really wasn’t required, especially not “amazing” grace. “That saved a wretch like me” – several years ago I began using the word wretched to describe things I really did not like. Some people even found it humorous because it sounded so “old.” Was I really that despicable to God? I think - I don’t like to think of myself as a wretch! “I once was lost but now am found” – have you ever known exactly where you were but had no idea how to get where you were supposed to be? Then you know what it feels like to be lost. When my wife and I were moving to a small town in Alabama after my seminary graduation, we got lost. We stopped to ask for directions and were told, “You can’t get there from here.” What he meant was, “You can’t go directly from here to there without going through
somewhere else first.” We were created for a relationship with God, but on our own we are hopelessly lost with no idea of how to get there. We can only get there through Christ. “Was blind but now I see” – we often accused my father-inlaw of having selective hearing, and then there was the day he got hearing aids. (Sorry, Mr. Waller!) Sometimes, like selective hearing, I fear we only see what we want to see, but are blind to the truth that is staring us in the face. Are you ever guilty of selective blindness when looking at your own life? The truth is that, if you are a Christian , you have a story to tell. Don’t undersell it and certainly don’t let the condition of your sin outshine the perfection of your forgiveness. It is my prayer that you not only enjoy the stories we have shared in this issue, but are inspired to share your story with others as well.
David Dye is a husband, father and minister. David says his greatest desire is to live a life like the Apostle Paul: “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). He wants to point people only to Jesus and the salvation offered through His death, burial and resurrection. February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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The closer you get to the truth, the clearer becomes the beauty, and the more you will find worship welling up within you. — N.T. Wright
At Whitesburg, you will find a place to connect and worship.
Each service has heartfelt prayer, inspired music, and a message of truth from God’s Word. Come learn about God’s love, Jesus’ life, and what it means for you.
Sundays at Whitesburg Blended Traditional service at 9:30 am Contemporary service at 11:11 am Evening service at 6:15 pm
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Pastor’s Story by Dr. Jimmy Jackson
My journey started in the
small town of Greenwood, Mississippi, at the edge of the Delta in Mississippi. At the time I was born, neither my mother nor my father were Christians. On any given Sunday, neither set of my grandparents or my parents would be found in a church. When I was about four or five years of age, my cousin, who was a couple of years older than I was, had been invited to go to Vacation Bible School at a little church in our community. Her parents would not let her go if I did not get to go, so, I began to get my initial contact with the church at Vacation Bible School. I was eight years old when I began to feel the initial stirrings of God in my life. I began to
realize that I was a sinner and that I needed to be saved. I was only eight years of age, but I had a strong habit of cursing. What wasn’t nailed down, I would pick up. I had a sinful heart. I was a mischievous person, mean at times. I knew I needed to get right with the Lord. I talked to my mother about it - I would never confront my daddy about that - but I did talk to my mother on a Saturday and she said, “Well if you want to join the church (that’s the terminology we understood, to get right with God, you had to join the church), I’ll go with you to church tomorrow.” She did go with me, we sat on the second row from the back, and when the invitation was given on that Sunday morning, I was the February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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A PASTOR’S STORY only person that walked down that center aisle of the church. I remember the pastor greeted me and a lady came and sat down beside me and filled out some information as I gave it to her; then they had me stand in front of the congregation and the people came by. By now I’d been in Sunday School for two or three years and some of the teachers came by and they were so happy that I’d gotten saved, and it was a very emotional and wonderful time for me. When I was 13 years of age, my mother was saved in a revival meeting. It’s one of those situations where she got totally sold out to the Lord, and she wanted to be in God’s house Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. My dad was still unsaved, but he was being nagged to death if he didn’t go to church. So we became members of that church and we stayed. We were constantly there. But something was going on inside of me all this time. I hadn’t gotten some of those bad habits straightened out in my life; in fact, it had even gotten worse by the time I was a teenager. I was just 6
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like all the rest of the teenagers - I wanted to be accepted by the people around me. I was one thing on the outside and another thing on the inside. When I was at church or around my parents, I didn’t say anything bad. I didn’t talk bad, and I didn’t use bad language. They did not know what was going on in my mind, but deep down inside, I was not right with God. Every time we would have a Revival meeting, I’d get under conviction. I’d realize, “Boy, I need to get right. I need to quit talking like this; I need to quit doing the things I’m doing.” I would go down and rededicate my life to the Lord, and say, “Lord I’m going to quit doing this, I’m going to do better.” I’d last for about a week, and then I’d be right back in the same old rut. I had no power in my life. When I was 16 years of age, I went to a summer camp. I was getting ready to graduate the next year from high school, and my life was... miserable. Sin does not satisfy you, it just makes you miserable. I came back from that camp, and I went to see my pastor. I didn’t like my pastor because he had caught me doing some things I shouldn’t have
been doing, and I was afraid he was going to tell my parents. I was mad at him because he caught me doing bad. Sin makes you kind of stupid. Anyway, I went to him and I told him, “Brother Dan, there’s something wrong with my life. I try, but I still do the same things, I still fall back in the same old sins.” He knew some of them, so he said, “You’ll be a senior in high school, and you just won the Voice of Democracy Speech contest. You like to talk, you have an ability, and God may be calling you into the ministry because God uses natural ability.” So I interpreted that to mean that God was calling me to preach. But I didn’t know that you could be a member of the church and not be saved. I didn’t understand, and nobody had ever told me that. I began to suspect there was something bad wrong with me, because it was just not real in my life. I went home and told my mother that I’d been called to preach. My mother was so excited. She said, “I knew it! I knew the way you were born, God spared your life. I knew you were going to be called.” So on Sunday I went before the church
and admitted that I was called to preach. Those same Sunday school teachers, a little older now, came by and they were hugging my neck and saying, “We knew you were going to be a preacher ‘cause all the meanest kids in the church turn out to be preachers, and you’re sort of a rotten kid!” I began to change some things I did, cold turkey. I stopped cursing. I stopped taking things that didn’t belong to me. In fact, I was very condemning to anybody who did those things, and became pretty righteous about it. I had an opportunity to go to college on a scholarship, but I turned that down and chose a Baptist school, and the next year I was in college. Yet, I did not have any power in my living - there was no continuity in my life. I really didn’t witness to people, I didn’t have a hunger for the things of the Lord. I got a call to be a preacher to a little Baptist church that met on the first and third Sundays of the month. A second and fourth Sunday church also called me; so at the age of 17, I was the pastor of two churches. I’d go there on the weekend, way out February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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A PASTOR’S STORY in the country around Eupora, Mississippi. I would stay at Andy Beard’s house. I remember crawling out of bed and getting down on that old, hard wood floor, and I’d say, “God what’s wrong with me? Why don’t I have any peace in my life? Why can’t I keep things right with You? Why don’t I pray?” I’d get my little stories out of the Bible that I’d learn, and I would have a little ditty of a sermon to preach the next day, and I’d say, “God, I don’t even know if I’m saved. I don’t even know if I know You or not.” Then immediately I’d say, “But the Bible says, ‘Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ I’m just going to believe You right now, but we’re not going to tell anybody because that would upset everybody.” I went through that hundreds of times trying to get security of salvation. In time, I met my future wife, Bobbi, and I thought, “Well, that’s what I need to get balance in my life - if I’d just get married, it would solve all my problems.” I know some of you are smiling because you did that, too. I found out that it didn’t solve any of my problems; in fact, it made 8
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my problems worse. She had a Methodist background, so now I had to be spiritual all the time instead of just when I wanted to. We were called to a full-time church, we went on to seminary, and our first child was born. Things just moved along. As I kept on in this struggle, I kept preaching, but deep down inside I really did not believe that Adam and Eve were real people. I didn’t believe that Jesus walked on the water. I figured there were answers to all of those things. And something happened to me around 1966. God began to let me get into kind of a quagmire of confusion in my life. My wife never knew it. I was studying so much at the seminary, reading so many books, and dealing with the Hebrew and Arabic languages and all of those things, that I had figured out that God really was not necessary. I became, during that two year period, a practical atheist. I believed that religion really was kind of a crutch you lean on, but I still preached. It was in 1968 that I was called upon by the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Bayou La Batre, Alabama to come preach a revival. I didn’t want to preach
in a revival because you had to be spiritual all week. I didn’t want to do it, but I had one more matriculation fee that I had to pay at the seminary, and I didn’t have the money. I knew that the love offering would give me enough to pay that, and so I said, “I’ll be glad to do it.” I preached at this church the first Sunday morning, and that night the preacher said, “We’re going to have a little prayer meeting before church tonight with a handful of our men. We’re going to pray for revival.” You do whatever they tell you to do, so I went back to this little room. They had little, old, cane back chairs, and into the room walked this big, old, hulk of a man. He was an old shrimper, and he got down over that chair - he just covered the whole chair up - and started praying. He said, “Lord, save Jimmy Jackson.” I thought to myself, “You ya-hoo. Don’t you know that I’m the visiting preacher, I’m the evangelist, what are you doing praying for me to be saved?!” As soon as
that prayer meeting was over, I grabbed the preacher by the coattail as he was going up the steps. I said, “What does this man mean, ‘Lord, save Jimmy Jackson?!’ Doesn’t he know who I am?” He said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. We have a pharmacist in town named Jimmy Jackson, and he’s lost and this old boy is praying for him to get saved.” I said, “Oh okay.” So then I was pious again. I went through my little ditty of a sermon, but God had me right where He wanted me. I had never in my life, until that time, ever heard anybody say, “Lord, save Jimmy Jackson.” From the time I was about four years old, I was associated with the church, and people assumed at the age of eight that I was saved and I assumed that, too. All those years serving the Lord, and nobody February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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A PASTOR’S STORY ever asked me, “Jimmy, are you saved?” They didn’t think they needed to ask me that. But that night God dealt with me. And I came under conviction. I didn’t really know what it was, but I got under deep conviction. We did the prayer meeting every night, and on Wednesday night of that week, the old man prayed, “Lord, save Jimmy Jackson! He’s here tonight, Lord.” When he prayed that, it was as if someone came into the room and dropped an invisible shield between the rest of those men and myself. It was so real to me, that I actually looked up to see who came in the room, but there was nobody there. God said to me in my heart, “You’re on the outside looking in. You’re not part of this group.” Now during those two days, after God began to work on me, I went back over my baptism as a child, I went back over going into the ministry, I went back over people I’d talked to about the Lord. I had all kinds of excuses. “Oh, I’ve just been backslidden, Lord, I’m sorry. I’m going to get right with You, and I’m going to do better from now on.” But on that night, when God said, 10
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“You’re on the outside looking in,” that’s when I found out I was religious, but lost. I left the meeting after I preached that night. I don’t even know what I preached. I went home into a struggle with God. The next day, early in the morning, I went to my little study at the church, and I began to wrestle with the Lord. I admitted, “God I’ve made all kinds of excuses, but I know I’m not right with You.” I figured I had three options: One, I could admit that I was lost, go ahead and tell the church people that, and get kicked out of the ministry and everything else. Two, I could get into my little Volkswagen and drive into the abutment of Interstate 10, which was only a few miles from our house, and I’d be dead in a few seconds. Then it dawned on me that I’d be in hell too, so I decided I didn’t want to do that. Or three, I could just leave the ministry, and go somewhere else and then when things settled down I could get saved and nobody would ever say anything about it. Finally, I realized the only thing I could really do was just admit that I was lost. It didn’t matter that
I’d been preaching for 10 years, it didn’t matter that I’d been to seminary, it didn’t matter that I had just a few months to go in the doctoral program. I just needed to get right with God. Then, the devil really began to deal with me. He started saying things like, “If you do this they’re going to kick you out of seminary because you have to be saved at least a year before you can even go to seminary. They’re going to kick you out and you’re going to lose your degree, you’re going to lose all this doctoral work you’ve done, and you’re going to be out on your rear. Your wife’s going to be embarrassed, she’s going to leave you, and you’re going to lose your family. Your Mama and Daddy are going to be embarrassed and they’re never going to let you come back home again. And the church is going to kick you out, and you won’t have any income, you won’t be able to provide for your family. You better keep this quiet!” But I really wanted to get my life straight. I opened my Bible to Romans chapter 10, verse 13. The same passage I’d read to other people and other folks had gotten saved. I
read that scripture and it said, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” There on the right hand side of the page in my Bible. I looked at it and I did not believe it. In fact, I discovered that I could not believe it. And that’s when I came to a tragic realization. When you begin to doubt any part of the Word of God, you cast doubt on all the rest of the Word of God. If God was not true when He said Adam and Eve were people, if God was not true when He said Jesus walked on the water, then how could I trust Him to be true when He said, “If you’ll call on Me, I’ll save you?” Fear gripped my heart. I realized I was lost, but I didn’t know if I could get saved. I closed the Bible, and I began to think of some people I knew who believed the Word of God. Some of them had taught me in seminary. I said, “God, I know some people who believe the Bible. I don’t understand it, but I choose to believe that this is Your Word and that it’s true. Every word of it is true.” Now, I still don’t understand all of it. I still come to it and I’m baffled by it. But I want to tell you something, I still accept it. It’s God’s Word and February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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A PASTOR’S STORY I believe it. I opened that Bible again to that same page and on the right hand side of the page it said, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” I can’t tell you how this happened, but I believed it then. I believed that if I would ask Him, He would forgive me and save me right then. I got on my knees at my chair at my desk, and the devil was still pounding me with all these things, and I said to God, “God, I don’t care whether I get kicked out of the church or out of seminary. I want that peace that I’ve been looking for since I was eight years old. Would you please forgive me and save me.” And as soon as I asked Him, I knew that I was saved. I came back to our church the next Sunday, and at the end of the service I said, “People, I’ve got something you need to sit down and listen to.” When I told them what happened to me and gave my resignation, a
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man who had given me the most trouble in the church jumped up and said, “Are you trying to tell us that you’ve been lost all this time?” I said, “Yes sir, I was lost and now I’m saved.” And he said, “Well, I don’t know what the other people think, but we’d rather have a saved preacher than a lost preacher. I just move that we have you baptized and ordained and call you back as our preacher!” Folks, I never missed a paycheck. The devil is a liar and a deceiver. Even my wife stayed with me. And later on in that year, God did a fresh work in her life, and then our family. I wish I could tell you that I’ve always made the right decisions, right choices, and done the right thing. My life has been like everybody else’s life - I’ve had to be picked up many times by the Lord. But there’s one thing that has never left me since that day - I know the presence of the Lord and I know I’m saved.
Dr. Jimmy Jackson has served as the Senior Pastor of Whitesburg Baptist Church in Huntsville, AL since 1978. He and his wife, Bobbi, have three children, seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
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It’s ok to phone a friend. We’re here to help. We surveyed parents and found the
Top 10 Parent Concerns for Their Children: 1. Knowing God/spiritual growth 2. Technology 3. Parent/Child communication 4. Living with integrity 5. Peer acceptance/bullying 6. Body image/worldliness 7. Grades/self-discipline 8. Sexual knowledge/experimentation/pornography 9. Finances 10. Apathy/independence
We have resources
available for these topics and many more in our Home Point Center and ministers who can stand with you as you answer God’s calling to be a parent.
Come visit
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Doubting
God by Deree Tarwater At age 7 I became a Christian. Then again as a teenager. Then there was that time as a young adult in college. It wasn’t until age 41 that I finally had total assurance of my salvation. Confused? So was I! Thankfully the Lord showed me so clearly that “you came as a child,” and I completely understood that my one-time action of accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior happened at age 7; each experience after that was simply a deeper, more mature commitment to Him. So why didn’t I have true assurance of my salvation for so many years? Why? It goes back to the 14
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Garden of Eden when Satan said to Eve, “Did God really say …?” (Genesis 3:1). Questioning God’s existence, and therefore the truth of the Bible, began in college for me, even though I attended a Baptist college. Two troubling things happened: (1) I attended a revival service, which ended up being a healing service, and got on their mailing list. Their “name-itclaim-it” theology caused me to question if religion was a hoax. However, after weeks of reading their material and comparing it to the Bible, in my college dorm room I confessed to God that I
believed His Word was true and committed my life to Him again. All was well for a while. (2) The next year my Old Testament professor asked a simple “what if” question. It was not intended to throw doubt in my mind, but it planted the seed of doubt that started me on a 20-year silent, private path of wondering, questioning, doubting. I did not talk to anyone about my doubts and questions … because I felt like a hypocrite. You see, I was very active in church all my life and even came on staff as our Women’s Ministry Director before the Lord settled it for me. So it is very humbling to admit this struggle. Thankfully God brought me through it. Let me share my journey to believing in God. I pray it will help your spiritual journey. As mentioned earlier, I did not talk with anyone about these doubts. I tried to dismiss the questions, ignore them, stuff them away, because I thought a Christian should not have doubts. From a logical perspective, I believed there had to be a higher intelligent creator of our universe. For
me, evolution and the Big Bang Theory were too unrealistic, and since God was the only One who claimed to be the creator, then logically, I should accept Him as the Creator. If I accepted Him as Creator, then logically I should accept the whole truth of the Bible. Still the doubts surfaced periodically. Interestingly, I believed the Bible enough not to turn from it, yet questioned it enough not to commit 100%. I was always intrigued that John the Baptist, who was the forerunner to Jesus Christ, needed to be certain that Jesus was the Messiah. John’s life was literally on the line; he had been thrown into prison for teaching that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the Messiah, and needed to know that he had not been wrong about Jesus. You can read about it in Matthew 11:2-6 and 14:1-12. Spoiler alert--John apparently became convinced, because he was martyred for Jesus Christ. I eventually talked with a dear friend about it. We had done several Bible studies together, and had become close, trusting, and non-judgmental with each other. I finally confided in her February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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DOUBTING GOD about my questions whether God even existed. Although she was surprised, she did not judge me; instead she prayed for me, listened to me, encouraged me. Ironically after I admitted it to her, the Lord quickly gave me a strong confidence in Him and His reality. It surprised and amazed me that He worked so quickly and completely. I learned the truth of James 5:16, “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” Once I confessed my sin of doubt to Melissa and she began praying for me, God accomplished MUCH in my heart. Over time I learned that doubt, questions, and skepticism fall under the broader category of unbelief. And unbelief had become a stronghold in my heart. The prayer in Mark 9:24, “I believe, help my unbelief!” became my new favorite verse. In 2015, Priscilla Shirer came to Huntsville and shared a powerful message on the armor of God. I followed up with her Bible study entitled The Armor of God taken from Ephesians 6:1016
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18 (side note – it’s one of the most impacting Bible studies I have ever done!). Priscilla used a great illustration to show how Satan works. She told the true story of a church carnival that had a homemade whack-a-mole game. A young boy standing in line watched the kids ahead of him whack the pretend mole and tried to figure out how it worked. Finally he walked up, pulled off the cover, and discovered the adults who were “popping up” the moles. They stood there, obviously shocked to have been uncovered! Priscilla went on to explain that Satan works like that whack-a-mole game. He is the one hidden under the cover “popping up” circumstances of trouble, tension, arguments, questions, doubts, fears—Satan is underneath and causing it. The realization that Satan was messing with my mind changed my entire perspective. I began to realize that from behind the scenes, he was throwing fiery darts (Ephesians 6:16) of questions and doubts in order to steal, kill and destroy me (John 10:10). It made me mad to realize that he had duped me for so long. I was ready for battle
against the enemy. I put on the armor of God and prayed for God to protect my mind with the helmet of salvation (Ephesians 6:17), to guard my thoughts, reasoning and mental processes, to help me discern truth from lies, to believe and trust Him. God began to strengthen my shield of faith (Ephesians 6:16) and extinguish those fiery darts of doubts. God truly liberated me! Another big step in my journey to faith was doing an online Precept Bible study on Hebrews Chapter 11, known as the faith chapter, to embolden and increase my faith. Hebrews 11:6 intrigued me; it says, “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.” The first prerequisite to come to God is believing that He exists. That seems basic, but for years I did not completely, honestly, believe, with every fiber of my being, that God existed. Also if I was going to please God I had to have faith. The word “faith” was too elusive, too churchy. To simplify it, I wrote on an index
card “faith = believe/trust.” Did I believe God? Did I trust God? If so, I had faith in God. The author of that study, Pam Gillaspie, challenged us to ask God the hard questions, acknowledging that He is big enough to handle it. I realized over those many years of doubt I had never talked with God about it. But really, from my perspective back then, if I was doubting God’s existence, why would I pray to Him anyway? Thankfully the Lord never gave up on me. When our oldest daughter, Emily, was a young child, she was extremely honest; but you know how little kids are with their stories. In her childlike ways she would tell me things that just did not make sense. Eventually when I heard the rest of the story from someone older, her portion of the story made sense. That happened so often that I completely trusted her when she told me anything. This trust came to mind recently when I was reading a genealogy passage in the Bible, you know, the part we usually skim over. The names did not connect like I thought they should. But it dawned February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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DOUBTING GOD on me, and thrilled me, that my first thought was trust and acceptance in God’s Word, not distrust, and that even though I didn’t understand it now, it would all make sense eventually-just like I had learned to believe Emily. In my doubting years, that confusing passage would have led down a dangerous path to be skeptical and question God’s Word as truth and question the existence of God. But now that I have learned to believe that God truly exists and trust that His Word is true, I can confidently bring my questions to Him. I agree with Simon Peter in John 6:68 when he asked, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Most Christians deal with some type of stronghold. One of mine is unbelief — the battle for my mind. Other examples of strongholds include laziness, bitterness, apathy, complaining,
anger, self-sufficiency, tongue, rebellion, worry, and many more. If you struggle with unbelief or any sin, I encourage you to: • confess it to God (remember He is big enough to handle our difficult questions and problems), • put on the armor of God and prepare for spiritual battle (Ephesians 6:10-18), • study the Bible for direction and strength, • talk to a trusted Christian friend, and • pray for the Holy Spirit to complete His good work in you. It will take time, energy, patience, endurance, and trust, but the result is wonderful freedom. Then celebrate with one of my favorite verses, Philippians 1:6, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.“
Deree Tarwater has been the Women’s Ministry Director since
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June 2007. She and Randy celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary last year on a wonderful adventure to Alaska. Their three beautiful daughters, Emily (married to James), Sarah and Hannah, are her “little women’s ministry.” She loves doing life together with her family and friends—talking, laughing, playing, and having deep conversations.
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6806 WHITESBURG DRIVE, HUNTSVILLE, AL February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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Amazing grace!
How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see. ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved; How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed. Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; ’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home. The Lord has promised good to me, His Word my hope secures; He will my Shield and Portion be, As long as life endures. Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, And mortal life shall cease, I shall possess, within the veil, A life of joy and peace. The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine; But God, who called me here below, Will be forever mine. When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Than when we’d first begun.
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John Newton and the story behind
Amazing Grace It is probably the most
famous hymn in history: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see. Though some today wonder if the word wretch is hyperbole or a bit of dramatic license, John Newton, the song’s author, clearly did not. Newton was raised by a Christian mother who taught him the Bible from an early age up until she passed away from tuberculosis.
Life with his father, a merchant navy captain, was very different from what he had known with his mom. At age 11, Newton went on his first of six sea-voyages with his father. Newton lost his first job, in a merchant’s office, because of “unsettled behavior and impatience of restraint”—a lifestyle that he would maintain for years. He spent his later teen years at sea before he was drafted into service aboard February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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JOHN NEWTON AND THE STORY BEHIND AMAZING GRACE the H.M.S. Harwich in 1744. Newton rebelled against the discipline of the Royal Navy and deserted. He was caught, put in irons, and flogged. He eventually convinced his superiors to discharge him to a slaver ship. Espousing freethinking principles, he remained arrogant and insubordinate, and he lived with moral abandon: “I sinned with a high hand,” he later wrote, “and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.” He took up employment with a slave-trader named Clow, who owned a plantation of lemon trees on an island off of west Africa. But he was treated cruelly by Clow and especially the slaver’s African mistress; soon Newton’s clothes turned to rags, and Newton was forced to beg for food just to survive. Finding little use for him in his sluggish condition, he was transferred to serve the captain of the Greyhound, a ship from Liverpool. In 1747, on a homeward bound journey, the ship was overtaken by an enormous storm. Newton had been reading Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ, and was particularly struck by one phrase 22
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about the “uncertain continuance of life.” This, coupled with his current circumstances and the storm, brought to mind a passage in Proverbs he had learned as a child. “Because I have called and ye have refused, … I also will laugh at your calamity.” (Proverbs 1:26) He converted during the storm, though later he said, “I cannot consider myself to have been a believer, in the full sense of the word.” Newton went on to serve as a mate and then as captain of a number of slave ships, hoping as a Christian to restrain the worst excesses of the slave trade, “promoting the life of God in the soul” of both his crew and his African cargo. After leaving the sea for an office job in 1755, Newton held Bible studies in his Liverpool home. Influenced by both the Wesleys and George Whitefield, he became increasingly disgusted with the slave trade and his role in it. He quit, was ordained into the Anglican ministry, and in 1764 took a parish in Olney in Buckinghamshire. Three years after Newton arrived, poet William Cowper moved to Olney. Cowper, a skilled poet who experienced bouts of
depression, became a lay helper in the small congregation. In 1769, Newton began a Thursday evening prayer service. For almost every week’s service, he wrote a hymn to be sung to a familiar tune. Newton challenged William Cowper, a skilled poet, to also write hymns for these meetings. Cowper did so until falling seriously ill in 1773. Newton later combined 280 of his own hymns with 68 of Cowper’s in what was to become the popular Olney Hymns. Among the well-known hymns in it are “Amazing Grace,” “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds,” “O for a Closer
Walk with God,” and “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” In 1787 Newton wrote Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade to help William Wilberforce’s campaign to end the practice — “a business at which my heart now shudders,” he wrote. Recollection of that chapter in his life never left him, and in his old age, when it was suggested that the increasingly feeble Newton retire, he replied, “I cannot stop. What? Shall the old African blasphemer stop while he can speak?”
All quotes were sourced from christianitytoday.com. February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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Kids Space Have fun naming the farm animals and filling in the crossword puzzle!
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The Right Thing is almost never
The Easy Thing by Vicki Hereford It was a few years ago. I had met someone who seemed at first to be date-worthy. I was a single mom; he was a single dad. We were both believers, but our divorce stories could not be more different. I had made the choice many years prior to stay in an unhappy marriage because it was the right thing to do. It was probably one of the most difficult things I had to do – but God blessed my efforts and, even though our marriage eventually did end in divorce, I knew that I had done what was expected of me as a Christian wife. Now it was time to encourage this new friend to stay with his family too. “Chris” was a father of eight
children. He said the right things and had spiritual depth. All seemed well until conversations turned to what ended our marriages. In my separation and transition into singleness, I learned to rely on God to be the Father to the fatherless and the Husband to the husbandless. God was so very faithful to be both in my non-traditional family. Chris, however, had been unfaithful to his wife and rather than seek forgiveness, he was in full rebellion. Devastated after the “other woman” left him, he struggled with that lie that the enemy always tells us. He deserved to be happy! When was it going to be his turn? He should February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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THE RIGHT THING IS ALMOST NEVER THE EASY THING be happy… and his children would heal and understand. Surely they wanted him to be happy. Children do not understand. Divorce destroys the stability in their lives. They want their parents to be happy – together. I have heard others say that the best gift a father can give his children is to love their mother. That sentiment – whether it is the father or the mother that leaves the family – is so true. Future relationships are always questioned. I tried to get Chris to understand divorce through the eyes of his children. I told Chris that we would certainly be friends and I would be his confidante, for as long as he could stand me telling him to go home to his family. He could not see how valuable his wife was. She loved this man fiercely. When begging him to come home offered no visible results, she fell to her knees and cried out to the only One who could help her. She did this, year after year. When he called me for advice, the conversation was always the same. “Your wife loves you. She prays for you. She is raising your children to love and respect you 26
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when it is so undeserved. She is a picture of Christ – extending to you the mercy and grace that you so desperately need.” He would ask me how I could stay, many years ago before we even had children. I had previously told him about leaving my husband even though there was no scriptural reason for a separation or divorce. I bought into the enemy’s lies – I was too young when I married and now we were different people. I was educated; he was not. I was a Christian; he was not. There was one commonality, however: we were married. I took those vows and I had to decide if I was going to keep them. As a young Christian, I started praying that God would allow me to love my spouse and be the Christian wife I was supposed to be. I knew that seeking my own way would separate me from God – I could feel it when I prayed. It seemed as if there was this huge black hole separating me from God, and the only way to reconcile myself to Him was to be obedient. So, I did that – resentful and even a little angry at first – but I prayed that God would draw me to my mate. And
God blessed my efforts and my marriage. You might say that it was all in vain since we later divorced. But, if I had not been obedient I would not have had my three heartbeats. God blessed me with good years and three beautiful sons. I did not know that I would be raising them as a single mom, but I still do know that God has unique purposes for each of them - and being disobedient way back then would have robbed me of such great joy in so many ways. As I tried to impart this to Chris, he started to soften toward his wife. It was a very slow process. His children went through the grieving process when he and “Sandra” divorced. Every child impacted by divorce responds differently. Chris saw this in his own children. What he realized was that many of the resulting struggles in the lives of his children – mainly his precious girls – could be directly traced to the divorce and to his rebellion. One daughter had a baby at a very young age, and I knew that God was going to work through that baby. Some cruel people will say that baby is a mistake,
but we know that God makes NO mistakes. That baby is a reminder that often the consequences of our sin result in great blessings that bring us to repentance. That was true in Chris and Sandra’s lives as well. We hear it often… mercy and grace. God mercifully keeps us from what we deserve and graciously gives us what we do not deserve. Chris became much more involved in restoring his family. Sandra continued to pray… and God drew them together. About a year ago, Chris told me how much progress had been made. I commented on how great it was to see them have a family picture with both Chris and Sandra in it. Then, he told me what I had waited years to hear. He was asking Sandra to marry him again. I was thrilled for them and their family as it was an affirmative answer to prayers that seemed so fruitless for so long. Chris asked me to reach out to Sandra, but I told him to give her an opportunity to reach out to me. If she took it, I would talk with her and pray with her. She did not reach out to me and I completely understand that. I was a friend for a reason and a February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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THE RIGHT THING IS ALMOST NEVER THE EASY THING season, but not for a lifetime. God had long ago healed my heart and, when the time came for me to share that testimony of God’s mercy and grace, it was so easy to do that. Maybe you have a story about sharing your testimony that happened years ago, but you have not seen results. When you think God is not working, He is. When you
think it is hopeless, it is not. God is orchestrating events for your good and for His glory (Romans 8:28)! And, in so doing, He is mercifully and graciously establishing His plans to prosper you and give you a future you cannot see now (Jeremiah 29:11). Wait, trust, pray. God is able (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Vicki Hereford is a new creation in Christ, ever becoming but never quite arriving. Mom to Ethan, Justin and Logan, and blessed beyond measure to be a member of Whitesburg Baptist Church.
Find help and healing
for the hurt of separation and divorce Connect with a caring group of people who will walk alongside you through one of life’s most difficult experiences.
Session 1 begins February 21 6:30 - 8 pm • Hearthside Room Whitesburg South Campus 7300 Whitesburg Drive, Huntsville, AL
WHITESBURG BAPTIST CHURCH
Spring 2018 Calendar February 4 Discover 101 10 Upward Soccer Evaluations 10 Global Impact Celebration Banquet 11 Global Impact Celebration 11 Discover 201 12 Senior Day at the ROC 16 Date Night
17 Upward Soccer Evaluations 18 Discover 301 18 The Lord’s Supper 24 Upward Awards Day 24 HS Tour Boot Camp 24 Singles’ 35+ Chili Cook Off 25 Ladies Mentoring Orientation
March 4 Discover 101 9 LIFE Group Fellowship Night 10 Singles’ Coffeehouse 15 55+ Dinner Road Trip 17 Awana Mega Day
April
1 Easter 3-9 Asia Mission Journey 7 The Academy Market Place 8 Discover 201 8 The Lord’s Supper 9 Senior Day at the ROC 13 Ladies’ Night Out 14 Men’s Conference
18 Discover 301 20 Ladies’ FOLD 24 Singles’ Coffeehouse 24-31 High School Choir Mission Tour 28 No Evening Service
14 Singles’ Coffeehouse 15 Discover 301 21-22 Middle School Choir Tour 22 LIFE Group Leadership Night 25 Acteens’ Coronation 28 Singles’ Coffeehouse 29 Awana Awards Night
For more details on these and other events, visit WhitesburgBaptist.org. February/March 2018 | Whitesburg
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Sundays:
Come worship with us on Sundays!
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Photo: A time of worship at the Men’s Retreat.
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BAPTIST CHURCH
WHITESBURG
LIFE Groups 8:00, 9:30 & 11:00 am Blended Traditional Service 9:30 am with Dr. Jimmy Jackson Contemporary Service 11:11 am with Jon & Trisha Evening Service 6:15 pm
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6806 Whitesburg Drive Huntsville, AL 35802
Whitesburg Baptist Church
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