I pastor Glynwood Baptist Church in Prattville, Alabama. I read a lot, write a little, and drink lots of coffee. I have three callings in life: surrender to Christ, be a husband to Trish, and be the best father/grandfather I can be. Everything else is an assignment, because everything else can be done by someone else.
Are you depending on what’s next for your happiness?
Thanks to Stand Firmmagazine, a daily devotional for men published by LifeWay Christian Resources, for getting me thinking in this direction during my quiet time this morning.
Psalm 16:5-11 is a great affirmation of the “immediateness” of satisfaction in the Lord:
Lord, You are my portion[c] and my cup of blessing; You hold my future. 6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
7 I will praise the Lord who counsels me— even at night my conscience instructs me. 8I keep the Lord in mind[d] always. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
9 Therefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices; my body also rests securely. 10 For You will not abandon me to Sheol; You will not allow Your Faithful One to see decay. 11 You reveal the path of life to me; in Your presence is abundant joy; in Your right hand are eternal pleasures.
Notice all the present tense verbs in this passage: You are. You hold. I have. I keep. He is. Is glad. Rests. Reveal. Is. Are.
I confess that more often than not, I have a Chicago Cubs approach to happiness and contentment. I am always waiting till next year. The next promotion, the next recognition, the next change, the next phase. Why can’t I be happy in the here and now?
Matt Chandler has said, “No change of job, no increased income, no new electronic device, or no new spouse is going to make things better inside you.”
I still remember the first sermon I ever preached, when I was sixteen years old. The title was “Heaven Ain’t All There Is.” The text was John 10:10, about the abundant life. The opening illustration was about a 19th century immigrant who had saved all his money to buy a ticket to America. He had no money left over to buy food on board the ship during the voyage. Every night he looked through the windows at the passengers in the first class dining room, feasting at the captains table. His stomach growled, hunger gnawed, but he held on, knowing that once he got to America, everything would be better.
But finally, the night before the ship was to dock, his hunger got the best of him. He went to a ship’s steward and begged him for some scraps from the captain’s table. The steward asked to see his ticket, examined it, and said, “Sir, this is a first class ticket. You’ve been able to dine at the Captain’s Table for the entire voyage.”
Why was it easier to believe I could experience abundant life in the here and now at age 16 than it is at age 49? Am I waiting for the next big thing, believing that is what it will take to experience satisfaction in the Lord? I claim to believe that “heaven ain’t all there is.” Do I live this life as though peace and joy and satisfaction are only to be found in the next life?
Lord, let that not be true today. Today, let me claim that “my soul finds rests [there’s that present tense again!] in God alone; my salvation comes from Him. Truly He is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will never be shaken. (Psalm 62:1-2)
On this date in 1963, AW Tozer died. Tozer, born in 1897, was a pastor in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a man with no formal theological training, yet one of the most-read pastors of the past century. Tozer was a man of simple lifestyle, and though he gained fame from his writings, he and his wife never even owned a car, doing their traveling by bus or train.
Tozer was known for his preaching as well as his books. He counseled preachers to remember in their sermons that they were speaking on behalf of God. A sermon is not designed to show off the preacher’s learning, wit, or eloquence but to change hearts. This influential but modest man has a simple tombstone: “A. W. Tozer—A Man of God.”
Excerpt from The Chrisian History Devotional by J Stephen Lang
Q1: If Jesus is God, then everything begins to make sense.
Q2: If Jesus is really God, then the consequences are huge.
Twenty years later, when you ask someone on the street “Who is David Koresh?” most people didn’t know. Yet, 2,000 years later, billions of people not only know His name, they still believe His claims. Why?
Arguments Against the Divinity of Jesus
The disciples were mistaken
The disciples were delusional
The disciples were selfish. They wanted to build a divine Jesus to give their movement more power
“Jesus was an unfortunate guy who got caught up in things way over his head.”
“He was a religious leader who got too involved in politics, and that always ends badly.”
“He was a prophet, and would probably roll over in his grave at all this ‘Jesus is God’ talk.”
Did Jesus actually claim to be God? Seven key pieces of evidence
Q3: He acted as if He could actually forgive the sins of people (Luke 7:44-49)
Q4: “I can’t think of another human being whose reputation was actually enhanced the closer you peered into their life.” –Lee Strobel
Q5: Jesus accepted the worshipof men (Matt. 14:33; Mt. 28:9). Others in the Bible flatly refused to be worshiped: The angel in Rev. 19:10; Peter to Cornelius (Acts 10:26)
Q6: If He was either delusional, or a deceiver, or even a nice deceiver, you couldn’t call Him a good teacher.
Q8: Jesus is either Almighty God or He is arrogantbeyond belief.
Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would he nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that. you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.
There is a scene in Gladiatorin which Maximus, the general-turned slave-turned Gladiator throws his sword into the stands and screams “Are you not entertained?” to the crowd that has just witnessed him fight another gladiator to the death.
Apparently, some Baptists are not entertained. Several weeks ago, a parody of Run-DMC’s song “It’s Tricky,” with lyrics rewritten to support North Carolina pastor/SBC Presidential-hopeful JD Greaar went viral (well, by Baptist standards, anyway. 14000 views). The video, written, produced, and performed by Ashley Unzicker (who is a member of Greaar’s church and whose husband serves as that church’s missions pastor) features several prominent Southern Baptists, including Danny Akin, Russell Moore, and David Platt, all uttering the phrase “It’s Tricky.”
In the April 15 issue of The Florida Baptist Witness, an article was published with the headline, “JD Greaar YouTube Video Raises Concern.” The Alabama Baptist version of the same article, published in the April 28 print version, reads, “Concerns Raised over endorsements of 2016 nominees” was published. The byline for both versions lists the story as
a joint project by the Association of State Baptist publications. Contributing to the report were Will Hall, editor of the Louisiana Baptist Message, Lonnie Wilkey, editor of the Baptist and Reflector in Tennessee; and Neisha Roberts, editorial production coordinator for The Alabama Baptist. The story was compiled by Jennifer Davis Rash, executive editor of The Alabama Baptist.”
You would think with all those editors, someone would have remembered the first basic question of journalism: Who?
You see, the article never says who is raising concerns. This is like someone coming up to their pastor and saying “I don’t have a problem with this, but people are saying…” Come on. If someone feels like Greaar shouldn’t have made a YouTube video, then they should own it. Or should I just conclude that those who are concerned are the editors of various state Baptist papers who are mentioned in the byline?
Second, the headline (of the Alabama Baptist version) says “nominees.”But the article only mentions one nominee. Again, just be honest. If it bothers someone that a member of JD Greaar’s church made a YouTube parody video, then say so. This whole line of, “Some people are bothered by the actions of some nominees” just sounds like middle school.
Finally, the article implies that Greaar himself made.the video. David Platt says that “while I was overseas in the Middle East, J.D. asked me ” to shoot a video of himself saying “It’s tricky.”
However, the video begins with a disclaimer saying it does not reflect the views of Greaar, Summit Church, or any entity of the SBC,” and is meant for entertainment purposes only. And Ashley Unzicker, the creator of the video, says that it was her husband, the missions pastor at Summit, who made the calls to the various people in the video, not Greaar himself. This is according to North Carolina’s “Baptist Recorder,” which, incidentally, was NOT part of the “joint project.”
I would simply ask for our state papers to be a little more honest in your reporting. If the editors don’t like the video, they should say they don’t like the video. As it is, it comes across as sounding more like they don’t like JD Greaar.
How a Catholic priest demonstrated Christlike ministry.
40 “And the King will answer them, ‘I assure you: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’
Matthew 25: 40
Okay, aside from being Star Wars Day (If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand), today is a pretty cool day in Christian history as well. This was my gem from J. Stephen Lang’s Christian History Devotional for the day.
Father Damien
On this day in 1873, a Catholic priest named Father Damien won a free trip to Hawaii! That’s not as glamorous (nor as trivial) as it sounds. At that time, the island of Molokai, Hawaii, looked like the setting of a horror movie. It was home to a large leper colony. The church had asked for volunteers to minister to the lepers, knowing that the assignment would likely be a death sentence for anyone that volunteered. But the 33 year old Damien, a handsome, healthy Belgian, took the job. When he arrived on the island, he found the conditions to be literally inhuman. Not only was the disease rampant, but the lepers seemed to have forgotten they were human beings. Rape was pervasive, and stronger lepers were throwing the weaker ones out of their shelters and taking them over. In time, Damien helped them build new huts, a cemetery, schools and farms. Most importantly, he led many of them to Christ.
Inevitably, the priest contracted leprosy himself. But rather than heading back to the
Damien, after contracting leprosy
mainland for treatment, he stepped up his activity, wanting to do as much as possible before he died in 1889. 120 years later, he was made a saint by the Catholic church.
The comparisons to Jesus don’t stop with the fact that Damien was 33 years old when he came to Molokai. Jesus stepped into our world and showed us a better way. He took our disease of sin upon Himself, and it killed Him. I am so challenged by Damien’s example of incarnational ministry.
This past Sunday was a great Sunday for Small Group Bible Study at the church I serve. Let me give you a few reasons why:
We had over 1,000 people in small group Bible study. That’s good!
We had 58 more people in small group Bible study than we did on the first Sunday of May last year. That’s reallygood!
We only had 100 fewer people in small group Bible study than we had in worship attendance. That’s spectacular!!
Why am I so excited about that last number? Every week, I keep track of how many people are in Sunday school relative to the number of people in worship. Why? Because our strategy is to move people from Worship to Grow (Small Groups) to Serve (Missions and Service opportunities). Getting bigger in any one of those areas isn’t a bad thing. But when we see the gap between those three begin to shrink, it tells me that we are doing a better job of moving people from one step to the next. It tells me we are growing in a balanced way.
May 1 was the smallest gap from worship attendance to small group attendance we’ve had since I got here. By a lot. Just to give you a frame of reference, in April we had an average of 204 more people in worship than in small groups. So, whatever you guys are doing to encourage people in your class to go to worship, keep it up! And whatever our worship leadership is doing to encourage people to go to Sunday school, keep it up!
As an education minister, I try to keep in mind four speedometers:
Enrollment: The number of people we can potentially influence with our small group ministry
Attendance: The number of people who are in a small group Bible study on a given week
Engagement: The number of weeks per month someone attends a small group Bible study
Movement: The number of people in small groups relative to the number of people in worship, and the number involved in serving relative to the number in small groups.
It’s that fourth speedometer that has me most excited today. The closer that number gets to zero, the more indication that our strategy is effective.
Please remember that every single person in your small group is more than a number. They are a person with needs, hurts, challenges, and victories. Every Sunday you teach, you are not standing before a “group.” You are standing before individuals who are sitting together. But we keep track of numbers so we can have some indication of how we are doing in meeting those needs, mending those hurts, facing those challenges, and celebrating those victories. To borrow the old cliche, we count people because people count!
If you are in education ministry, how do you measure the effectiveness of your ministry?
Last night, we discussed Session 9 of Tommy Nelson’s Romans: The Letter that Changed the World, which covers Romans 6:1-12.
When we talked about Romans 5, we all agreed that we can’t lose our salvation. We have eternal security, according to Romans 5:1-5 and John 10:28-29. But last night, we began with two key questions:
What theological problems does the fact that we cannot lose our salvation cause?
Just as our Lord was crucified between two thieves, so this great doctrine of justification is continually crucified between two heresies.
The first heresy is legalism. We’ll talk about that in a minute. The second is liberalism, or, to use the five-dollar theological term Nelson uses, antinomianism.
In his book Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart, J.D. Greaar recounts the conversation he had with a young man he tried to witness to on the basketball court. The young man stopped him, and told him that he used to be a “super Christian”– going to youth camp, doing the True Love Waits thing, even leading other people to Jesus. But when he discovered sex, he decided he no longer wanted God telling him what to do:
So I decided to put God on hold for a while, and after a while just quit believing in Him altogether. I’m a happy atheist now.” He then added: “But here’s what’s awesome: the church I grew up in was Southern Baptist, and they taught eternal security—that means ‘once saved, always saved.’ . . .That means that my salvation at age thirteen still holds, even if I don’t believe in God anymore now. ‘Once saved, always saved,’ right? That means that even if you’re right, and God exists and Jesus is the only way, I’m safe! So either way, works out great for me. . . . If I’m right, then I haven’t wasted my life curbing my lifestyle because of a fairy tale. OK, it’s your shot.”
How would you respond to this young man? The Bible says you will know whether someone is saved by their fruit, right? But clearly this kid bore fruit in his earlier life. So now that he claims to be “a happy atheist,” is he still secure in his salvation? Can he fall back on his “get out of hell free” card and live how we wants the rest of his life?
Paul’s answer, in verse 2, is another of his famousme genoito statements, which has been translated as everything from “May it never be” to “perish the thought,” to “hell, no.” “How shall we who have died to sin still live in it?”
If we are dead to sin, it cheapens grace to still chase after it, and it is a denial of who we are in Christ. Martyn Lloyd Jones compared it to the salves following the Civil War who, though they were legally released from slavery, they still quaked with fear whenever they saw their old master again, petrified that they would be sold into bondage again. Or the scene in the Shawshank Redemption, where Brooks, the released convict, can’t cope with how big the world has gotten on the outside. He longs for the comfort and familiarity of his prison bars. Eventually, he takes his life.
When we have died to sin, we are truly free. Before our conversion, we are not free to not sin. It cheapens grace to think that our freedom in Christ means we are now free to sin. What it really means is that we are now free to not sin.
Tim Keller details what Paul doesn’t mean by “We died to sin” in verse 2. It doesn’t mean…
That we no longer want to sin (duh). If this were true, there would be no need for verses 12-14.
That we no longer ought to sin. Paul doesn’t say, “We ought to die,” but “we died.”
That we are slowly moving away from sin. Again, we aren’t dying a slow death. The aorist tense of the verb refers to a single, past, once-and-done action.
That at the moment of our baptism, we renounced sin. According to verses 3-5, our death to sin is not the result of something we have done, but something that is done to us.
That we aren’t guilty of sin. Keller acknowledges that while this is true, it isn’t what Paul means here. He is trying to teach about why we seek to live without sin. “Simply restating the truth that we are pardoned in Christ is not the answer” (Keller, pp. 138-139).
We still struggle with sin, and we will until the day we die. This is part of our sanctification process. When Paul says, in verse 12, “Do not let sin rule over your mortal bodies,” he challenges us to continue to fight sin the way we would fight a guerrilla army, who keeps on waging a battle even after it knows the war is lost.
How do we do that? Tommy Nelson talked about several “nifty tricks” (his phrase) that people throughout history have used to aid in the sanctification process:
Asceticism (more sacrifice ): Through rigorous self-denial one can conquer the desires of the flesh
Mechanics (more ritual): Through habits of holiness and spiritual discipline one can master one’s fleshly desires
Scholasticism (more study): Through focused Bible study and Scripture memorization, I can hide God’s Word in my heart that I might now sin against God (Psalm 119:11).
Experientialism (more emotions): Through emotionally uplifting experiences such as worship services and retreats I can keep my heart turned toward God and away from the flesh.
Legalism (more rules): Through strict obedience to the law I can conquer sin.
The trick is to keep these in perspective. Tommy is right to call them “nifty tricks.” All of these can help in our struggle against sin. But we commit the other heresy Tertullian talked about when we add any of these to the gospel.
At the beginning of 2016, I set a goal of reading 104 books– roughly two a week. I am using a plan developed by blogger Tim Challies, which requires you to read across genres. To find out more about the plan, go to http://www.challies.com/resources/the-2016-reading-challenge
Challies Challenge Category: Novel by a Christian Author
This is the second book I’ve read (well-listened–they are available in audiobook form)in Lynn Austin’s Chronicles of the Kings series. She is very skilled at taking the details we know from Scripture (which usually aren’t many) and creating a compelling story from them that still rings true to the context of the Bible. I’ve enjoyed her work, and look forward to listening to the other books in the series. For Challies challenge, this was my entry for “novel by a Christian author.”
Challies Challenge Category: Book less than 100 pages
This book was recommended by both Tim Challies and John Piper. I’m in a group right now that’s trying to memorize Romans, so it was well worth the 99 cents to download this one. The title is well-said: this is “an” approach. Not “the” approach. And as such, it’s pretty good.
Fantastic! The audiobook of this is the free book this month in christianaudio.com, (April, 2016) but after listening to about half of it I ordered a hard copy from Amazon. There really needs to be a small group study on this. The SCAN acronym– the Bible is sufficient, clear, authoritative, and necessary– is worth the price of the whole book. In addition, there is an an annotated bibliography of books at the end– grouped by category and graded on degree of difficulty, that makes me glad I don’t just have it on audio.
I appreciated Voddie’s commitment to keep the ultimate goal of an apologetic conversation in mind–to share the gospel. He reminds the reader that according to Romans 1:18-20, people don’t have a knowledge problem. They have a righteousness problem.
I’m also challenged to spend more time learning the creeds, confessions, and catechisms that have been used to teach the faith for hundreds of years. As a Baptist I’ve never studied them much, apart from memorizing the Apostles Creed. But now, and especially as a Christian educator, I appreciate their value for helping us teach and learn how to “give an answer for the hope that is within us”
(1 Pet. 3:15)
My only complaint with the book is that I wished he had used a different example of an apologetic sermon in the appendix. He had already summarized the sermon in same sex marriage and the divisions of the levitical law earlier in the book; so the appendix felt redundant.
Challies Challenge: Book by or about Martin Luther
The main part of this book is the 95 Theses, followed by various letters Luther wrote to defend the theses. Also included is his Shorter Catechism, and a handful of his sermons. It was very enlightening to me, primarily to realize that the Theses weren’t initially intended to start the Reformation, but to reform a specific practice in the Catholic Church. As with a lot of books that start off for me with the audio version, I found it very helpful to download a Kindle version as well.
Challies Challenge Category: Book more than a hundred years old
So, Chesterton himself called this a “chaotic volume,” and I don’t disagree. For the first three-quarters of the book, I couldn’t figure out why it was called “Orthodoxy.” It was hard to follow any organizing principle, and if he was arguing to make a point, he argued more like a poet than a lawyer.
It didn’t help that I was listening to the audiobook. Even though it was narrated by the amazing Simon Vance (whose narrations of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End are some of the best audiobooks I’ve ever heard) I don’t recommend the format for Chesterton. This book is meant to be chewed slowly, like a really good steak. You need to be able to roll the words around in your mind, and unless you’ve got your finger constantly on the pause and rewind buttons (not recommended while you are driving), you can’t do that.
So, I bought a hard copy, and now I feel like I have to read it again.
I’d had this in my Christian Audio library for awhile, and when I saw that yesterday was the anniversary of the premiere of Messiah, I started listening. Great read. The two best takeaways are George Bernard Shaw’s criticism of mass choirs performing Messiah, and the theological question of “why doesn’t ‘Messiah’ end with the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’?”
Challies Challenge: Book written in the 20th century
This was the second time I’ve read this. I picked it up again after watching the “Everest” movie. I don’t think the previous edition I read had the postscript about the ongoing fight between Krakauer and the author of another book about the same events, which is critical of Krakauer’s criticisms of one of the guides. It is an interesting read on its own, dealt with issues of journalistic integrity and fact checking.
Date Started: April 16 Date Finished: April 21
I really enjoyed this book. Robison writes with clarity and humor (whether or not it is intentional humor is hard to say, given that he is writing as an Aspergian). There are times when he comes across like a real life Forrest Gump–a social misfit who winds up in the right place at the right time to make an impact on the world that a so-called “normal” person could never make. The main difference is that instead of meeting Presidents like Forrest Gump, Robison met rock stars.
The book is also genuinely moving as it gets into the time Robison spends with his own son.
I would recommend this book to anyone that has someone on the autistic spectrum in their life, as well as anyone that just enjoys a well-written, if quirky and oddball–memoir.
Date Started: April 20 Date Finished: April 28 Challies Challenge Category: Novel set in a country other than your own
This book was a feast. Moving, deeply Christian, informative, poetic, redemptive, beautiful. The characters are richly drawn, multidimensional, and fully realized. The prose is gorgeous. The message and the issues are timeless, as relevant to Ferguson, Missouri as they were to Soweto, Johannesburg. I will go back to this one again. And for what its worth, the 1995 film version starring James Earl Jones and Richard Harris, is on Netflix. While it isn’t a perfect movie, it is perfectly cast.
This year, I’m using J. Stephen Lang’s The Christian History Devotionalduring my daily quiet time. Every so often, I’ll pass on some thoughts here.
On this date, in 373, Athanasius, one of the most influential shapers of Christianity outside the NT writers, died. We can thank Athanasius for the fact that we have 27 books in the New Testament; and that the Nicene Creed affirms Christ is the “same substance” as God. One of his most famous quotes, from On the Incarnation:
God became what we are that he might make us what he is.
All great reasons to remember him, even if he looks a lot like Saruman from “Lord of the Rings.”
Who did Job think he was, telling God he would “cling to his righteousness and never let it go”?
One of the most rewarding parts of my work week happens on Monday nights from 8:30-10:00, when a group of men gather together for a deep dive into the book of Romans. Some of us are trying to memorize the entire book. Others are memorizing the two or three verses that go along with each session. But all of us are benefiting from the intense, focused study on the book that launched the Reformation and is the foundation for arguably the most well-known gospel presentation, the Romans Road.
The dominant theme of the first three chapters of Romans is that none of us are righteous. Not one of us–no, not one–can stand before God with any shred of righteousness that comes from ourselves.
Which makes the book of Job such an enigma. You know the story. God and the devil make a wager over the life of Job. God gives Satan permission to mess with Job, taking away everything from Job except his life. Job’s friends come to console him, and wind up arguing with him for about 25 chapters. Basically, they all tell him that he is being punished because of some unconfessed sin. But Job’s not buying it. Which leads us to Job 27:3-6:
3 as long as my breath is still in me and the breath from God remains in my nostrils, 4 my lips will not speak unjustly, and my tongue will not utter deceit. 5 I will never affirm that you are right. I will maintain my integrity until I die. 6 I will cling to my righteousness and never let it go. My conscience will not accuse me as long as I live! [Job 27:3-6 HCSB]
Does anyone else look at this and think that Job sounds really full of himself? Humility is a Christian virtue. All of us have to admit we are sinners before we can trust Christ for our salvation, right?
So where does Job get off saying things like, “I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it?” Is this arrogance? Does it fly in the face of Paul’s teaching that “there is none righteous, no, not one?” (Romans 3:10) I don’t think so.
Job’s confidence is not in himself, but in the trustworthiness of God. Job believed in a God whose will and ways could be known. Other gods from other religions were fickle and capricious. You never knew what you might have done to displease the god of the rain when there was drought, so you danced and sacrificed and cut yourself until the blood flowed in an effort to get his attention (remember the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18?) A king wouldn’t know how to gain the favor of the gods so his army would prevail in battle, so he might sacrifice one of his own sons to Molech by throwing him in the flames (Jeremiah 32:35). Or think about the Greek gods we studied in high school. Mortals were constantly subject to the whims and jealousies of the gods. When Zeus and Hades were angry at each other, humans paid the price.
But Yahweh is different. He can be known. He has given us His laws and decrees. We know what pleases Him and what doesn’t. And this is the confidence Job was clinging to. No matter how many times his so-called friends argued, “well, you must have done something wrong to be suffering in this way,” Job stubbornly and steadfastly held on to the idea that he knew what it took to walk with God, and that he had done it. When Job says things like “I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live,” he was not expressing confidence in his own goodness, but in God’s justice.
I am so thankful that our God is predictable. He is not capricious, punishing humans on a whim or a lark (I admit, some would argue that’s the whole storyline of Job. I encourage you to watch this excellent animated walk-through of the book of Job from the fine folks at the Bible Project, and then let’s talk.). Don’t get me wrong. There is still none righteous. But Job teaches me that we can trust in God’s unchanging character. In every situation. In every place. For all time. Praise Him!
Thanks to Stand Firm magazine, a daily devotional for men published by LifeWay Christian Resources, for getting me thinking in this direction during my quiet time this morning. 
There is a scene in 
In his book 
This year, I’m using J. Stephen Lang’s 
