Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: You take your Bibles and turn if you will to Paul's second letter to Timothy. Two Timothy first chapter now two Timothy chapter one. I want to just read the first few verses and then we're going to really work at this book.
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus.
To Timothy, my dearly beloved son, Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God for whom I serve, from my forefathers with pure conscience that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice, or Eunice in Greek. And I'm persuaded that is in thee also.
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee, by the putting on of my hands.
Let's pray. Father, in the next few moments, I pray that your spirit will speak to us, shine down on us, show us those things which we have not before seen in quite the same way in Jesus name. Amen.
Tonight, 2 Timothy. The author obviously is Paul. It was written somewhere around 67 AD.
The Emperor Nero was really a turning point in the persecution of the church.
Certainly the Jews and then the Christians had not been the favorite people in the Roman Empire.
But there was a horrible, horrible fire in 64 AD and Nero, as governments tend to do, wanted someone to blame.
And so he blamed the Christians.
Peter was executed first and then subsequently Paul.
It appears from what we're going to read tonight that Paul had two trials.
So he speaks in two Timothy about. He says at my first defense or at my first summation or explanation, meaning evidently that he had already appeared and had a trial, had been bound over and he is waiting his second trial.
Certainly the book is filled with advice to this young preacher, Timothy.
It is somber, but it is not defeated.
You heard it in the very few verses.
You're in my heart, you're in my mind, you're in my prayers.
And he reminds him, he says, let me just remind you, I ordained you personally.
I laid my hands on you. I spoke words of prophecy over you.
And he begins the letter by saying, I just wish I could see you.
I wish I could just see you one more time. And he says, I know. When I think about you, I imagine that you also are weeping for me.
So that if you could come see me, then my joy would be complete and your tears would be dried up.
Now, let's just talk about this letter that Paul wrote from prison, evidently on the eve.
On the very eve of his departure from this earth. Let's talk about the structure and the content of the letter first, and then we'll come to the soul of the letter.
Paul deals with power in the letter.
First of all, let me read verses 7 through 12 as he talks about the power of the gospel.
God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Be not therefore, ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner. But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the power of God, who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel whereunto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles, for the which cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
In this first passage from 7 through 12, Paul deals with the power of the gospel, first of all to give us minds that are liberated from fear and anxiety. I want you to think this is a letter written from prison by a prisoner who is going to be executed. And by the time he writes the letter, that's pretty clear his appeals have been denied. He's appearing for his last defense before Nero, and it's clear what's going to happen to him.
And yet he writes to this young preacher and he says, don't be ashamed of the Gospel and don't be ashamed of me, the prisoner. Don't be ashamed of the afflictions.
Imagine this man who is about to be executed as only Rome could execute anybody, and he is about to be decapitated.
And he says, we do not have the Spirit of fear.
I think that Paul's heart.
Maybe it's blasphemous for me to even speak for St. Paul, but I think that he would be grieved in his heart for the level of anxiety and fear that contemporary American Christians live in. While we live in the lap of luxury and. And we are still relatively safe, we have not been given the spirit of fear, but of love and of power and of a sound mind.
The second thing is it's the power of the gospel to save us and call us not just preachers. I want this to be clear. When I titled this series you've Got Mail, I didn't just mean Joey Grizzle. I didn't just mean Jensen Franklin or Mark Rutland. I mean you. You have a calling on life, to live for him, to serve him, to represent him.
You are both saved and called by the same spirit that saved and called Paul the Apostle and Timothy.
Then he says it is the power of the gospel that defeats death. Look at verse 10 one more time. But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death.
What a powerful phrase.
Not just overcome.
He says he has abolished death. I don't even know how many times I've read two Timothy. And as I prepared for tonight, that word just leapt out at me.
I don't know that I'd ever fully grasped what it means that he says he has abolished death, wiped it out. It no longer really exists.
There's just this physical doorway. There's this thing, there's this moment of transition. But death as an existential reality of the soul is gone.
God has abolished it.
Then in the next part, he talks about his power in us. The first part is the power of the gospel at a kind of theological or theoretical level. Then he talks about his power in us. Turn to chapter two, if you will, and look at verse two.
And the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.
In other words, not as. Again, as I say, not just preachers or pastors, but he says to Sunday school teachers, you learned this somewhere. You heard this, you were taught this, you read it, you studied it. Now teach somebody else so that they can teach somebody else, so that they can teach somebody else. Generation after generation after generation. It is the power of the gospel to speak through us, to pass on the faith.
Then look at verse three.
Thou therefore endure hardship or hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
It is also the power of the gospel within us to endure hardship.
I am neither a prophet nor the child of a prophet.
And I love my country. I love the United States. I'm a patriot.
I care about the future. And I'm not just speaking gloom and doom, but I do. I have to tell you, I feel compelled more and more often with greater and greater passion, to say to Americans, you've got to toughen up.
We are soft, we're squishy, we're fearful, we're filled with anxiety.
And I am not sure, I will be honest with you, with all the craziness that's happening in the American armed forces, I'm not sure that the army of the United States could even win a substantial war right now. I am not sure that this culture can be sustained against the onslaught of foreign cultures. But worst of all, I am not sure that the soldiers of Christ in the pews of America's churches can end. Endure hardship joyfully.
I am not sure that we have fortified ourselves in the power of the gospel to be ready for hardship.
Just a few years ago, Just a few years ago, I went as your pastor has gone many times. I made several trips to Ukraine. And I remember meeting in the fellowship hall of a beautiful church with bishops and pastors, Pentecostals from. Not only from Ukraine, but from other places, Eastern Europe and teaching. And we would have lunch together and we went out to eat in a nice restaurant and we had the best time. And it's all gone.
It's all gone. Ukraine is. Is.
Is a. It's like a nice house with a bear sleeping on the front porch. And now the bears come in the house. Russia has invaded. They're being bombed. All those nice people, all that.
It happened like that. They woke up one morning and Russia was in.
I just need to say to you, the power of the gospel is not just to make us have good lives. He is that it is to make us strong, gutsy, muscular, masculine Christians who can endure hardship gladly.
Then he says, the power of the gospel in us gives us the power to look beyond the current circumstances, our present situation. Look at verses 8 and 9 of the second chapter.
Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel, wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer. In other words, he says, I'm in prison like every other convict in here that stolen, robbed and killed, even in chains.
But the word of God is not bound.
Isn't that a powerful thought that Paul says he's the most important significant Christian presence in the world at the time. That he writes this and he is in bondage, in slavery, in chains, as if he were a common criminal. And he says, I my body is in chains. This has nothing to do with the gospel.
The gospel is free. The gospel is going forward.
Now back to Ukraine. Let me say to you, I have seen videos from Ukraine of people worshiping and praying and praising and the things happening in bomb shelters and where people are. And I realize that Russia may be able to topple that good country. I don't have any idea what's going to happen.
And I don't know how you feel about the war. And I'm not into politics or geopolitics. I'm just saying it does not stop the gospel.
If America herself were swept away tomorrow into the dustbin of human history.
The gospel goes forward.
The third area of power. Paul deals first of all with the power of the gospel.
The second he deals with his power in us.
The third is the power of the Word.
The power of the Word. I want you to turn, if you will, to chapter three. I want to read verses 14 through 17.
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of knowing of whom thou hast learned, and that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God, person of God, may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
God gives us the power of the Word to memorize it, to study it, and by its measure, by the power of it, to measure our lives. When he says to reprove and rebuke, you understand, it's not just for preachers to use the Word to reprove and rebuke others. He says every time you read it, it's to reprove and rebuke you.
Us.
I don't know. I never want to speak for other preachers, but there's been more than one time that I have been preparing for a sermon, got into the message and realized I'm not man enough to preach this, I'm going to have to lay that aside.
We'll come back to that another day.
Because if you haven't ever preached yourself under conviction, then let me touch the hem of your garment.
Paul says the power of the Word is to change us in his old age.
Maybe because I'm old myself, maybe because Paul is writing this at the end of his life. But I Thought much about older people as I read 2 Timothy. And I remember that in his old age, John Wesley, who was highly literate. Many people don't know this. John Wesley wrote a massive commentary on the New Testament. He wrote medical books.
He was well read, highly educated, fluent in multiple languages.
And at near the end of his life, he said, I am a man of one book.
He doesn't mean he never read anything else. He means the determining reality in what I believe and how I live is not the opinions of others. Ernest Hemingway may show me things about life. The Bible shows me how to live.
I'm a man of one book.
Then you come into the passages where it gets personal.
I think this moved me this time as I read it.
You remember at the very beginning. We read at the very beginning. I wish I could see you.
I wish I could just talk to you. Look at chapter four verses, verse nine following.
I just want to read and listen to what he says.
Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me. That's the second time he said it.
For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world and has departed unto Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me.
Take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry.
Just pause a moment and listen to this.
This is the same Mark, this is the same John Mark that Paul would not take. On the second missionary journey.
Paul said, I'm not taking him. He's a lightweight. He went home to Mama on the first trip, and I don't have time to teach babies. I'm trying to do the work of the kingdom. And Barnabas took John Mark with him and healed him up and restored him and brought him back into the ministry. Now, at the end of his life, Paul says, oh, I. John Mark is so profitable to me. If I'd have been Barnabas, I'd have said, yeah, now he is. I fixed him.
But don't you see what it means from Paul's standpoint? As you start to get older, I think you find yourself, if you will let God soften you more patient with those who stumbled early on.
And he now he just wishes he could even see Mark, who wouldn't even take on a trip with him one time.
And then, you see. Turn to verse 12.
Antiochicus, have I sent to Ephesus the cloak that I left at Troas with Karpus. When thou comest. That's the fourth time he mentioned about coming.
When thou comest. Bring it with thee. And the books, but especially the parchments.
I read that and I wondered. I wonder what parchments.
I wonder what it was.
Is it books that we now call parts of the New Testament? There's something that he left behind. I just want to see those parchments. Bring me my books. Bring me my cloak. It's cold in this prison. But I want to see you look at verse 14. Alexander the coppersmith. He did much evil. The Lord reward him according to his works. If you don't understand that verse, you have never pastored to church.
Of whom be thou aware also, for he hath greatly withstood our words. At my first answer. There it is. Where he. At my first answer. He means trial. My first defense. Where I answered for myself before this court of Nero. At my first answer, no one stood with me, but all forsaked me.
Pray God, that it may not be laid to their charge notwithstanding. The Lord stood with me and strengthened me that by me the preaching might be fully known and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of a lion.
The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. But he doesn't end there. Look. Salute Prisca and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus and Erastus abode at Corinth. But Trophimus have I left at Miletum. He's sick. Do thy diligence to come. There's the fifth time. Do thy diligence to come. Before winter.
Maybe he means before winter. Maybe he means. If you want to see me, you better get here. Eusebius greeteth thee and Putens and Linus and Claudia and all the brethren. The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you.
He is at the end of his life thinking of all the people.
Minds begin to process memories near the end of life. People that we want to see. People that we talk to, that we want to remember. He's processing all these lives, people, scenes that we studied out of the New Testament.
He is remembering both those who withstood the Gospel and those who were a comfort to him.
Look at verse 17.
Very important verse.
Notwithstanding or nevertheless, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me. When we come to the end of everything, there will be people that we remember as having blessed us, strengthened us, encouraged us, gave to us, were were strength to our bones. There'll be people that we remember and say, oh, that guy. Oh, that guy. As for him, we're going to have that. We have the same journey. We're not exempt from things that plague Paul. Paul remembers Alexander the coppersmith. You may have an Alexander the Coppersmith in your life, but Paul says when you get through with all of it, all the people, those who blessed me and those who cursed me, the bottom line is God never deserted me.
God stood with me no matter what.
You can sense in the whole letter he's signing off.
You can feel it. He's finishing up.
He knows this second trial, maybe an immediate execution. You can feel it in the lever in the letter.
I think at this advanced age in my life, there are passages in the Bible I'm not saying a young person can't get them.
I don't want to be so smug as that.
I don't mean that they aren't won't bless anyone. But I am telling you, I think there are things in the Bible that look different to you when you're old.
For example, I have a young soldier that tells me that the most powerful passage in the whole Bible is Psalm 91. Well, Psalm 91 is a Psalm about protection. I think a soldier reads Psalm 91 differently perhaps than a pastor does in an air conditioned church in the United States.
And the same is true many. Your pastor spoke about the Psalms earlier.
I think really the Psalms, young people should read them, they should memorize them, everything else. But I'll tell you, it's really a book for old people.
It's a great book. And I think there are things when I read the Psalms now, and I read them tremendously, I just read them frequently.
I love the Psalms more and more, but I love them more and more the older I get. And I think there are just passages and psalms that you can't get. Two Timothy is like that.
One Timothy is what we studied last Wednesday night. One Timothy and Titus. They're immediate. They're advice, do this, don't do that, act this way, preach this way. But they're this letter is a last letter. It's a final letter. He's pouring his heart out. And it's a preacher writing at the end of his career in ministry, whether he's about to be executed or not. He's signing off and I could feel what he was doing. I could feel this as I read it.
He's at the end of things and he's getting some stuff off his mind.
He's saying goodbyes to people. He's.
He's signaling, I'm at the end now.
That's sort of the brains of the book.
Now let's look at the soul of the book. Turn to chapter four, if you will, and we'll read verses one through eight.
I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering. That means patience and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust, they shall heap up to themselves teachers having itching ears. They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure affliction, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. Now look at verse six.
For I am ready to be offered.
He's a Jew.
That is Jewish sacrifice language.
I'm ready to be offered. You offer what you offer sacrifices for. The time of my departure is at hand.
That is, by the way, in Greek it means. That is an immediate turn of phrase is at hand. It doesn't mean by and by.
It means it's now.
For I have fought a good fight. I finished my course. I've kept the faith henceforth.
Again, a term of immediacy. Henceforth, from this moment henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day. Not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing, do thy diligence to come unto me.
He's finished. He knows he is. This is the end of it.
So he's sitting alone in a prison cell in the basement of the Mamertine in downtown Rome. I've been there.
And he's writing this letter. And he comes to that part, and he gets up and presses his face against the bars and piers down the hallway to a blood stained chopping block.
And he knows that in the morning they're going to come and fetch him.
They'll march him down the hallway, maybe to the taunts and jeers of his fellow prisoners.
They'll force him to his knees and pull his robe away from his shoulders and bend him over to that shopping block. And in a moment of blinding pain, he'll be plunged into eternity.
He thinks back over his life. All these people, good people, not so good people. Things he's done. Memories, all of this.
But then he thinks of Timothy, this young man that he won to Christ, circumcised, ordained, prophesied over who knew his mother. He knew his grandmother.
This is as close as Paul could ever have to a son. He calls him my son in the Lord.
But Paul.
Paul's never married. Paul has no real son. But this is as close as Paul could come.
I can feel that he's writing to his son.
He says, I'm about to be executed in the morning.
What does he say? When my poor headless corpse is flopping around on the basement of Nero's prison and the soldiers and the guards are laughing, don't be ashamed.
Don't be ashamed of my corpse or of the gospel that I've preached or of my suffering.
And he says to him, he's got to think, what is he going to say?
Maybe. What. What would he say? Maybe he says, look, this is. This is not panned out, son.
Go home, get a real job, sell life insurance or something. Because this, this ministry thing, this is a dead end, serious dead end.
I'm at the end, I'm about to be offered. It's finished for me. If I had it to do over again, I'd get a job.
Is that what he says?
Does he say, go on back home, keep your head down and maybe you can keep your head?
That's not what he says.
He says, preach the word, live boldly, lead courageously.
We don't have the spirit of fear, but of love and of power and of a sound mind.
Buried in 2 Timothy there is this great passage.
I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. I've made an investment against the moment of my final appearing, and I don't believe any of that will get lost.
The Eternal bank never loses my investment.
I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
A professor that I admired a great deal, he said that he can make a great case that is translated. That. The passage is translated into English upside down.
That that's not what it says in Greek.
He says, I believe. It says, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which he has committed unto me until that day.
Either way, it's great.
If he keeps that, he gives it. He gives the ministry to me and then he keeps it great.
I give the ministry to him and he keeps it great.
I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep. Keep that which I've committed unto him against that day.
Let me close with this.
I was in Nigeria many years ago.
Anybody in here remember the BIAFRAN war. Anybody remember that? Well, it's not important, except the Igbo tribe broke off from the nation of Nigeria and formed its own nation. It was a civil war, Biafra.
And the Biafran war was horrible. And Biafra lost.
Like the south in the United States, civil war lost. And it was. Biafra was taken back into Nigeria, but out of there, As a result, 2 million people died. It was a horrific tribal warfare.
After that, there was really. I hate to compare it, but like the American civil war, there were renegades, bands of soldiers that were everywhere.
There was too many guns.
War was dangerous. It was really dangerous.
And I'd gone to Lagos, and then we got an invitation to come up to Benin City. And then they said there was a town called Ogbor and would we come up there. We went up there, and then we went to a small village pretty far out called Owoyubo. And at Owoyobo, we preached an outdoor crusade, if you will, evangelistic outreach. It wasn't a crusade like in a stadium. There wasn't a stadium. It was just people standing out in the.
But there were so many people saved, and they just implored, will you go one more night?
Well, by doing that, I didn't want to say no, but by doing that, it meant that there was no way we could drive back to Benin City in daylight. And by that time, the airport in Benin City would be closed, and we'd have to drive all the way to Lagos.
Ogbor, Benin City, Lagos.
All night? All night at night.
The Nigerian highways, especially up there where we were, were dangerous. Even in the daytime, they were just dangerous.
These guerrilla bands would just take over a whole factory, Just go in and take over a factory, shoot the guards, everything. Just take everything, take.
Go off with the women, everything. It was awful, awful time. Sometimes at night, they would barricade the roads, and when the traffic would back up, then they'd go down through the car, all the cars, and we were in the middle of nowhere. So we decided to do it and go over and stay the next night. And of course, before that crusade was over, that night it started raining.
So it's raining. We're preaching this pathetic little crusade in an open grass field. The rain poured, and the people didn't. Wouldn't go to their huts. They stood there in the rain, and we preached and gave the altar call. People got saved, and we prayed with people, and then we got in the car. There were about five Nigerian pastors or driver, three or four Nigerian pastors, and me in A beat up old Peugeot.
And we're driving back and it's raining so I had to keep the windows rolled up. And it's hot in the car.
And as we drove the road was just about the width of this main aisle, maybe a little bit wider.
And it was absolutely this, just like that.
And at the bottom, every place in the declivity because it was raining, it filled up with water.
So we would just go down into a creek and up just like this.
And every time we go down, the water would be almost up on the door. I could reach my hand out the window if we rolled it down and touch water and we're going in. The palm fronds were on the bank, so the road is down here and the bank went up like this and the leaves were brushing on the windows. There's no lights, there's no road. We're just our headlights and going out and it's stone quiet and everybody's breathing. You can feel the fear and the car.
And one of the men said, if we can just make it to the main road, if we can just make it to the main road.
And I felt the fear in that.
And I started, you know, use scratch a charismatic and we'll claim a promise. And I started claiming, you know, God, you'll know. I know you're not going to let me be killed here. I thank you for divine protection. I know you. And God spoke to me and said, how do you know?
He said, paul believed me and they cut his head off.
John the Baptist had more faith than you do and they cut his head off.
What makes you think God would protect you?
I said, lord, I wasn't even afraid till you said that.
I said, are you telling me I'm going to die here? This was the bizarre thing. My family didn't know I was in Nigeria.
I had been in Ghana. These men came to Nigeria, came to Ghana to fetch me. We couldn't get a phone call through.
It was the old days of communication. Some of the old timers will know communication in and out of Africa and other places was impossible. So I had gone to Nigeria with these people. My family didn't know where I was back in the US And I said, lord, are you telling me I'm going to die on this road tonight?
And he said, I'm telling you I don't have to tell you.
I don't have to tell you anything.
I'm the Lord thy God.
I brought you here.
That's all I'm telling you. You're here because I Brought you here.
And it began to really oppress me.
The men breathing in the room, nobody talking, appearing in the dark. Those palm fronds brushing the windows.
And your imagination will get away with you. I began to imagine some guy with an AK47 out in the bush there. And I could imagine that we couldn't. If he stepped in front of the car, we couldn't even have gunned it and knocked him over. We would have broken an axle before we could reach him.
And I imagined them marching us out into the bush, you know, with our hands raised. Your imagination work. I began to feel. I could feel that moment. I thought my wife and my kids would never know where I am.
My body rotting in the forest in Nigeria, and never know where I am.
And suddenly it just came into my spirit. Like somebody whispering it almost.
I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I commit unto him against that day.
Instead of claiming things, I started committing things.
I said, God, I give you my Travis was five maybe.
I said, lord, I give you my son, my girls. I give you my wife. I commit that to you.
I commit the ministry to you. I commit my past to you. I commit my sins that we both know about. I commit that to you. I commit the future. I commit the time and manner of my death. If they shoot me dead in this bush, I commit that to you. And the more things I started committing, the more relief I felt.
I just could feel it lifting off of me.
I know whom I believed, and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I commit unto him against that day.
And it lifted off of me. And I realized then that it was the same letter in the back of that Peugeot. This is the same letter where Paul said, the spirit that we have been given.
Not the spirit of fear, but of love and of power and of a sound mind.
And I said, brothers, it's going to be all right. They said, you've had a word from the Lord. We're going to be safe. I said, no.
I know they're thinking this American is like, not helping.
I said, no, what I've had is a word. It's going to be all right.
I don't know if you can feel the distinction between it's going to be all right. Like, I want it to be all right, and it's going to be all right.
But that's a huge thing if you can get over into. It's going to be all right.
That's what Paul felt.
He said, tomorrow they're fixing to take my head off, and it's going to be all right.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you. We praise you that in the vicissitudes of life, in the ups and downs, in the lonely jungle roads, or in the teeming cities of a nation that's losing its soul, we thank you, God, that we don't have to be ashamed of the gospel. We dare not be.
We thank you and praise you that it's going to be all right.
In Jesus wonderful name, Amen. Amen and amen.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on x@doctor Mark Mark Rutland, or visit his website, Dr.markrutland.com, where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
