Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 21
February 28, 2021
Discernment and Demonic False Teaching (Sermon) Audio
Discernment and Demonic False Teaching (Revelation 13:11-18)
Revelation 13:11-18
Bethel Church-Jackson, Michigan
February 28, 2021 AM
Ken Pierpont-Lead Pastor
This is War (Audio) Sermon 
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Discernment and Demonic False Teaching (Sermon) Video
Discernment and Demonic False Teaching (Revelation 13:11-18)
Revelation 13:11-18
Bethel Church-Jackson, Michigan
February 28, 2021 AM
Ken Pierpont-Lead Pastor
This is War (Video) Sermon .related-post{} .related-post .post-list{ text-align:left; } .related-post .post-list .item{ margin:10px; padding:0px; } .related-post .headline{ font-size:20px !important; color:#999999 !important; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_title{ font-size:16px; color:#3f3f3f; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; text-decoration: none; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_thumb{ max-height:220px; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_excerpt{ font-size:13px; color:#3f3f3f; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; text-decoration: none; } @media only screen and (min-width: 1024px ){ .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 45%; } } @media only screen and ( min-width: 768px ) and ( max-width: 1023px ) { .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 90%; } } @media only screen and ( min-width: 0px ) and ( max-width: 767px ){ .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 90%; } } 
February 24, 2021
Bittersweet Farm Journal | February 24, 2021 | Pain and Suffering
The Gentle Light that Wakes Me.
I’m writing this in the evening just after the sun has gone beyond the west woods. I’m listening to a hauntingly beautiful piece of music called The Gentle Light that Wakes Me. (I’ve included it in this post) Though I am writing at night you will likely read it in the morning. It will pair well with your coffee or tea this morning while you read. I will wait while you get the setting arranged.
The Lion is on the Move. Winter Baptisms.
Monday afternoon a young lady who worked last summer at Camp Barakel posted a video on her social-media account of a large, boisterous group of teens and twenty-somethings. She took the video Sunday night after dark.
In the back of a pick-up truck was a water trough filled with icy water. Snow was piled everywhere. In the back of the truck a young man stood and said to another young man sitting in the water, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ and as your Savior?” His breath hung in the icy air over his head.
With a radiant smile the young man in the water said, “I do.”
“I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
The standing young man lowers the sitting young man into the water.
The cold shocks him, but he leaps to his feet with his arms in the air, a new, baptized follower of Jesus!
The crowd gathered around explodes in joyful shouts and weeping, some of them leaping up and down.
Sunday night in that cold water 26 young people followed Jesus.
It is recorded in Matthew 10:32-33 that Jesus said;“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my father who is in heaven, But whoever denies me before others, I will also will deny before my father who is in heaven.”
Don’t be discouraged. Jesus is still calling people to himself, young and old out of the darkness and the cold.
Pain and Suffering
For only the second time in 42 years I was unable to preach Sunday. I been confined to my room with a painful flare of gout. It is very painful. When I am in pain it is most natural for me to cry out to God in prayer. When that happens God always brings to many whose suffering is greater than mine and I pray for them. I use my suffering as an opportunity to prayer.
I think about others who have suffered faithfully. They were sustained by God to endure hardship. They endured suffering with grace and faithfulness.
Paul wrote this about his suffering: “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:1-7 ESV)
The beloved English Baptist pastor Charles Spurgeon suffered agonizing episodes with gout. An article in Christianity Today included a helpful story about Spurgeon’s experience of suffering.
Suffering Spurgeon
The disease that most severely afflicted Spurgeon was gout, a condition that sometimes produces exquisite pain. What can clearly be identified as gout had seized Spurgeon in 1869 when he was 35 years old. For the remainder of his life he would be laid aside for weeks or even months nearly every year with various illnesses. Space does not permit even an abridged chronicling of his physical sufferings. Some appreciation of them comes from this article in The Sword and the Trowel in 1871: “It is a great mercy to be able to change sides when lying in bed.… Did you ever lie a week on one side? Did you ever try to turn, and find yourself quite helpless? Did others lift you, and by their kindness reveal to you the miserable fact that they must lift you back again at once into the old position, for bad as it was, it was preferable to any other? … It is a great mercy to get one hour’s sleep at night.… What a mercy have I felt to have only one knee tortured at a time. What a blessing to be able to put the foot on the ground again, if only for a minute!”
A few months later he described in a sermon one experience during this period of affliction: “When I was racked some months ago with pain, to an extreme degree, so that I could no longer bear it without crying out, I asked all to go from the room, and leave me alone; and then I had nothing I could say to God but this, ‘Thou art my Father, and I am thy child; and thou, as a Father, art tender and full of mercy. I could not bear to see my child suffer as thou makest me suffer, and if I saw him tormented as I am now, I would do what I could to help him, and put my arms under him to sustain him. Wilt thou hide thy face from me, my Father? Wilt thou still lay on a heavy hand, and not give me a smile from thy countenance?’ … so I pleaded, and I ventured to say, when I was quiet, and they came back who watched me: ‘I shall never have such pain again from this moment, for God has heard my prayer.’ I bless God that ease came and the racking pain never returned.” He regularly referred to this incident, although it is impossible to determine whether his gout was never as excruciating as it was during that episode.
A border collie is a mostly black sheep dog. They are smart animals, swift and fierce when they go about their work. One a pastor was going through a period of suffering and retired to the countryside rest and recover. Watching the black dogs at work he heard the voice of truth in his soul: “Affliction is the Good Shepherd’s black dog.”
May God strengthen you to endure faithfully whatever suffering He has entrusted to you. The Lion is on the move when young people follow him with leaping steps and the Lion is on the move when older saints suffer quietly and still have humble, grateful, prayerful hearts in their beds of suffering through the night. He is able to make vulnerable young converts into lifelong faithful followers who are willing to suffer for his name’s sake.
Bittersweet Farm
February 24, 2021
The full article on Spurgeon is worth your time and can be found here.
Related posts... Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 104) Try A Little Kindness What Lasts is What Matters (Video) Sermon
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February 17, 2021
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 104) Try A Little Kindness
Try A Little Kindness
About eight inches of snow fell on Bittersweet Farm through the night on Monday and into Tuesday morning. The sky cleared by Tuesday morning and the sun was bright on the snow. I spent a couple hours plowing and shoveling and playing around on my tractor.
When I shut down the tractor I could hear the birds twittering, almost as if they were chattering about the arrival of spring. Maybe they were hoping I would get around to filling the feeder with black oil sunflower seeds. They know that it is a mistake to allow yourself to long for spring too soon in these parts.
While I was out there the county plow came by and blew up our mail box. I called the county road department and thanked them for their diligent work in such dangerous conditions. I told them about the mail box and asked what I should do. The lady at the county office promised to dispatch someone out after the storm to repair or replace it. She said she was going to “create a ticket.” That sounded good but friends told me not to expect too much.
This afternoon the men who had been clearing a major snowfall yesterday returned and replaced our mailbox. Now we have a brand new mailbox out there on the road, about 24 hours after the old one was damaged. I’m sure Lois will paint it and decorate it this spring when the weather warms again.
I believe when you are kind people are more willing to help you. I know there are dishonest people and cruel people and lazy people and even some demonic people we will encounter. Still I believe that kindness is the way of Jesus. Even if you don’t get what you want you don’t darken your soul and tarnish your testimony by being rough with people God created and loves.
There are times to be direct and stern and prophetic, but for my out-of-the-box, day-to-day attitude, I try to lead with kindness, thanksgiving, civility, and human warmth. That way, I think maybe, you tend to nudge every one you meet every day just a little closer to Jesus and they are almost always more eager to help you with your troubles.
Bittersweet Farm
February 17, 2021
Check out this brief clip from Sunday’s message at Bethel:
Related posts... What Lasts is What Matters (Video) Sermon If It Gets Worse and it Never Gets Better (Video) Rev. 8:1-13 
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February 15, 2021
Exposing the Hideous Evil (Audio) Sermon
Revelation Series
Exposing the Hideous Evil
Revelation 13:1-18
Bethel Church-Jackson, Michigan
Ken Pierpont, Lead Pastor
February 14, 2021 AM
What Lasts is What Matters (Audio) Sermon .related-post{} .related-post .post-list{ text-align:left; } .related-post .post-list .item{ margin:10px; padding:0px; } .related-post .headline{ font-size:20px !important; color:#999999 !important; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_title{ font-size:16px; color:#3f3f3f; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; text-decoration: none; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_thumb{ max-height:220px; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_excerpt{ font-size:13px; color:#3f3f3f; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; text-decoration: none; } @media only screen and (min-width: 1024px ){ .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 45%; } } @media only screen and ( min-width: 768px ) and ( max-width: 1023px ) { .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 90%; } } @media only screen and ( min-width: 0px ) and ( max-width: 767px ){ .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 90%; } } 
Exposing the Hideous Evil (Video) Sermon
Revelation Series
Exposing the Hideous Evil
Revelation 13:1-18
Bethel Church-Jackson, Michigan
Ken Pierpont, Lead Pastor
February 14, 2021 AM
Sin Makes You Stupid (Video) Revelation 9 
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February 7, 2021
This is War (Video) Sermon
Series: Revelation
Sermon: This is War
Text: Revelation 12:1-17
Bethel Church-Jackson, Michigan
February 7, 2021 AM
If It Gets Worse and it Never Gets Better (Video) Rev. 8:1-13 .related-post{} .related-post .post-list{ text-align:left; } .related-post .post-list .item{ margin:10px; padding:0px; } .related-post .headline{ font-size:20px !important; color:#999999 !important; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_title{ font-size:16px; color:#3f3f3f; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; text-decoration: none; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_thumb{ max-height:220px; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_excerpt{ font-size:13px; color:#3f3f3f; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; text-decoration: none; } @media only screen and (min-width: 1024px ){ .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 45%; } } @media only screen and ( min-width: 768px ) and ( max-width: 1023px ) { .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 90%; } } @media only screen and ( min-width: 0px ) and ( max-width: 767px ){ .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 90%; } } 
This is War (Audio) Sermon
Series: Revelation
Sermon: This is War
Text: Revelation 12:1-17
Bethel Church-Jackson, Michigan
February 7, 2021 AM
Sin Makes You Stupid (Audio) Revelation 9 .related-post{} .related-post .post-list{ text-align:left; } .related-post .post-list .item{ margin:10px; padding:0px; } .related-post .headline{ font-size:20px !important; color:#999999 !important; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_title{ font-size:16px; color:#3f3f3f; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; text-decoration: none; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_thumb{ max-height:220px; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; } .related-post .post-list .item .post_excerpt{ font-size:13px; color:#3f3f3f; margin:10px 0px; padding:0px; display: block; text-decoration: none; } @media only screen and (min-width: 1024px ){ .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 45%; } } @media only screen and ( min-width: 768px ) and ( max-width: 1023px ) { .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 90%; } } @media only screen and ( min-width: 0px ) and ( max-width: 767px ){ .related-post .post-list .item{ width: 90%; } } 
February 1, 2021
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 103) We Don’t Have Time to Hurry
The actual farmIt’s the dead of winter. A big storm grazed us this weekend. I pushed a powdery couple inches off the drive, tended to the walks, fed the birds, and retreated to the corner of my warm room to write. The storm went on to grow into a huge nor’easter and pounded the New England states with snow measured in feet not inches, so I don’t know for sure why my mind travelled back to baling hay on a summer afternoon in northern Licking County on my grandpa’s farm, but it did.
We were up in the field over the hill past the west pasture making hay one summer afternoon many years ago. Some of the cousins were there. Jimmy and Paul and maybe the some of the girls. Grandpa was driving the tractor and a neighbor man was helping. Right from the beginning I thought he was too serious.
Grandpa had the good instincts to schedule the haying on holiday weekends–first cutting was often Memorial Day. Maybe my memory is faulty but second cutting seemed like it was often on July 4th weekend. This way the help was free and the whole thing was more of a festivity than it was a chore… well, for me it was. The neighbor man was treating it like an unpleasant task he needed to get out of the way was quickly as he could.
It was hot and dry on the wagon behind that baler. Chaff swirled up behind the baler and stuck to my sweat and clogged my nose. The hay was dry and scratchy. I was not used to farm work every day. But it was good fun for a kid from the suburbs who went from look-alike house to look-alike house every morning delivering papers for work and mowed flat boring lawns all summer.
I stood on the wagon in the open air on the top of the hill like a prince in a small kingdom pulling fresh air into my lungs and looking out on the beautiful blue and green world of central Ohio rolling off into the distance as far as I could see. My feet were wide apart, my chin was up, and my chest was square to the world. The house and barns were nestled in the valley below. White-faced Herefords grazed the hills between. It was good to be there in an honest, wholesome, secure place with people who loved each other.
Grandpa never seemed to hurry. He was about my age then, so that makes perfect sense to me now. His body worked but only when he was careful to pace himself. He was deliberate and thoughtful. He expected me to know what we were doing and think things through. He would sometimes quiz me, “Now, why are we doing this?”
“What are we doing next and why?”
I tried to please him but was often a few steps behind in my thinking. I assure you though, I didn’t always follow his tight, linear logic, my God-given human instincts were fully alive and I was drinking in every bit of the experience. I would remember every small detail decades later. I would actually write a book about it.
The Ford 9N pulled the baler, a noisy and complex contraption that grandpa seemed to piece together with coat-hangers and duct tape. It was not smooth-running, high-end farm machinery. It was a noisy contraption that rattled and growled seemed to reluctantly expel bails of hay in willful increments when it was pleased to do so.
Behind the bailer was the wagon. One of the virtues of the bailer was a compartment in back used to store extra baler twine, tools, and a wonderful jug of sweet icy well-water. I don’t know if I have ever tasted water sweeter and more satisfying than the water from that jug on a hot summer afternoon.
We would stop the whole contraption for a rest and the thing would come to a wheezing hault and the hillside would grow beautifully silent save the sound of the birds and we would pass that water jug around. Heaven on earth.
Grandpa seemed to enjoy the banter and the laughter during the water break but the neighbor man frowned and puttered and tinkered with the equipment and muttered about the bales being to light and we needed to turn up the tension and we would be here all day if we didn’t tighten down the tension and make the bales heaver and move quicker.
Grandpa didn’t say anything for a while, but he did not seem pleased about the neighbor monkeying with his baler settings. After a bit of banter and a funny story or two, it was time to start up. He started the contraption up and we went back to work for a few minutes and then something went wrong and the equipment grew still and silent again.
The neighbor man seemed frustrated. “What’s going on with this baler,” He growled. Grandpa walked slowly back, got a wrench out of the compartment and made some adjustments or repairs and then he loosened tension back and he said, “This is old equipment. We can’t pin its ears back. Sometimes we just don’t have time to hurry.”
Grandpa’s words hung in the air, “We just don’t have time to hurry.”
Things were quiet. No one spoke. The tractor started. The power take off engaged, the baler whirred to life and we finished the job. Before supper the neighbor man went on home. Grandpa thanked him for his help. We emptied the wagon into the barn and within an hour we sitting in a circle of lawn chairs out under a shady Maple, eating fat grilled burgers, potato salad, and baked beans, and washing them down with huge classes of icy sweet tea. More laughter, more banter and after that, cold watermelon and more stories.
That night lying in the tall bed in the upstairs bedroom of the old farmhouse I could smell the new-mown hay on the moist night air coming through the open window. I thought about what my grandfather said. I knew it was true but I didn’t fully understand it. “We don’t have time to hurry.”
Maybe it was years before I fully understood what my grandpa meant. Maybe I’m still learning that lesson. When you fail to live deliberately, when you force things, when you push too hard, things and people often get broken or injured. Maybe that is what grandpa meant when he said to no one in particular that summer afternoon, “We really don’t have time to hurry today.” Maybe that is what Jesus meant when he said, “… Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
I’m keying in this little memory deep on a cold winter night. I may never again ride a hay wagon on a summer afternoon or stack bales together in such a way that they will not slide off the wagon even on a steep incline. I may never taste the sweetness of icy well-water after an afternoon of stacking hay bales. I don’t know if I will ever see the old farm in Ohio again.
Grandpa died in 1981. Uncle Bill died this year. He joined two wives who are in heaven. I guess I’m one of the old guys now. Here are my words of wisdom: In life as in making hay, usually less tension will make you more productive. And you will hear the birdsongs. And you will notice the beauty of the blue sky and the green earth. And you will hear the timbre of a loved one’s voice and enjoy the music in their laughter. Maybe if you live deliberately with less tension you will appreciate the time you have with a loved one that will not be with you forever.
And we will know that sometimes we just don’t have time to hurry.
Bittersweet Farm
February 1, 2021
P.S. I just read this to Lois aloud and said, “Wow there are 17,000 errors in this story.”
She quipped, “That’s because you were hurrying.”
Related posts... Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 104) Try A Little Kindness Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 102) Mickey Nails and a Political Rant
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Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 102) We Don’t Have Time to Hurry
It’s the dead of winter. A big storm grazed us this weekend. I pushed a powdery couple inches out off the drive, tended to the walks, fed the birds, and retreated to the corner of my warm room to write. The storm went on to grow into a huge nor’easter and pound the New England states with snow measured in feet not inches, so I don’t know for sure why my mind travelled back to bailing hay on a summer afternoon in northern Licking County on my grandpa’s farm. But it did.
We were up in the field over the hill past the west pasture making hay one summer afternoon many years ago. Some of the cousins where there. Jimmy and Paul and maybe the some of the girls. Grandpa was driving the tractor and a neighbor man was helping. Right from the beginning I thought he was too serious.
Grandpa had the good instincts to schedule the haying on holiday weekends–first cutting was often Memorial Day. Maybe my memory is faulty but second cutting seemed like it was often on July 4th weekend. This way the help was free and the whole thing was more of a festivity than it was a chore… well, for me it was. The neighbor man was treating it like an unpleasant task he needed to get out of the way was quickly as he could.
It was hot and it was dry on the wagon behind that bailer. Chaff was swirled up behind the bailer and stuck to your sweat and clogged your nose. The hay was dry and scratchy. I was not used to farm work every day. But it was good fun for a kid from the suburbs who went from look-alike house to look-alike house every morning delivering papers for work and mowed flat boring lawns all summer. I stood on the wagon in the open air on the top of the hill like a prince in a small kingdom pulling fresh air into my lungs and looking out on the beautiful blue and green world of central Ohio rolling off into the distance as far as I could see. My feet were wide apart, my chin was up and my chest was square to the world. The house and barns were nestled in the valley below. White-faced Herfords grazed the hills between. It was good to be there in a good, wholesome, secure place with people I loved.
Grandpa never seemed to hurry. He was about my age then, so that makes perfect sense to me now. His body worked but he had to learn to pace himself. He was deliberate and thoughtful. He expected you to know what you were doing and think things through. He would sometimes quiz me, “Now why are we doing this?” “What are we doing next and why?” I tried to please him but was often a few steps behind in my thinking. I assure you though, I was drinking in every bit of the experience and I would remember every small detail decades later.
The Ford 9N pulled the old bailer, a noisy and complex contraption that grandpa seemed to piece together with coat-hangers and duct tape. It was not smooth-running, high-end farm machinery. It was a noisy contraption that rattled and growled seemed to reluctantly expel bails of hay in willful increments when it was pleased to do so.
Behind the bailer was the wagon, a shoot leaning on the front edge from the bailer in front. One of the virtues of the bailer was a compartment in back used to store extra bailer twine and tools and a wonderful jug of sweet icy well-water. To this day I don’t know if I ever tasted water sweeter and more satisfying than the water from that jug in the middle of bailing in a hot summer afternoon.
We would stop the whole contraption for a rest and the thing would come to a wheezing hault and the hillside would grow beautifully silent save the sound of the birds and we would pass that water jug around. Heaven on earth.
Grandpa seemed to enjoy the banter and the laughter during the water break but the neighbor man frowned and puttered and tinkerd with the equipment and muttered about the bails being to light and we needed to turn up the tension and we would be here all day if we didn’t tighten down the tension and make the bails heaver and move quicker.
Grandpa didn’t say anything for a while, but he did not seem pleased about the neighbor monkeying with his bailer settings. After a bit of banter and a funny story of two, it was time to start up. He started the contraption up and we went back to work for a few minutes and then something went wrong and the equipment grew still and silent again.
The neighbor man seemed frustrated. “What’s going on with this bailer,” He growled. Grandpa walked slowly back, got a wrench out of the compartment and made some adjustments or repairs and then he loosened tension back and he said, “This is old equipment. We can’t pin its ears back. Sometimes we just don’t have time to hurry.”
Grandpa’s word hung in the air, “We just don’t have time to hurry.”
Things were quiet. No one spoke. The tractor started. The power take off engaged, the bailer whirred to life and we finished the job. Before supper the neighbor man went on home. Grandpa thanked him for his help. We off-loaded the bails into the barn and within an hour we were eating fat grilled burgers and potato salad, and baked beans, and washing them down with huge classes of icy sweet tea and laughing and telling more stories. After that, cold watermelon and more stories.
That night in the tall bed in the upstairs bedroom of the old farmhouse I thought about what my grandfather said. I knew it was true but I didn’t fully understand it. “We don’t have time to hurry.” Maybe it was years before I fully understood what my grandpa meant. Maybe I’m still learning that lesson. When you fail to live deliberately, when you force things, when you push too hard, things and people often get broken or injured. Maybe that is what grandpa meant when he said to no one in particular that summer afternoon, “We really don’t have time to hurry today.”
I’m keying in this little memory deep on a cold winter night. I may never ride a hay wagon on a summer afternoon again or stack bails together in such a way that they will not slide off the wagon evening an a steep incline and a bumpy hill. I may never taste the sweetness of icy well-water after an afternoon of stacking hay bails. I don’t know if I will ever see the old farm in Ohio again.
Grandpa died in 1981. Uncle Bill died this year. He out-lasted two wives who are in heaven. I guess I’m one of the old guys now. Here are my words of wisdom: In life as in making hay, usually less tension will make you more productive. And you will hear the birdsongs. And you will notice the beauty of the blue sky and the green earth. And you will hear the timbre of a loved one’s voice the music in their laughter. Maybe if you live deliberately with less tension wyou will appreciate the time we have with a loved one that will not be with us forever.
And we will know that sometimes we just don’t have time to hurry.
Bittersweet Farm
February 1, 2021
