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: If you have your Bibles, if you'll take those please and turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2 if you will. 2 Timothy chapter 2.
In just a moment I'm going to begin reading at verse 15.
I was raised to believe in the power of words.
My mother was not formally educated. She was a 9th grade dropout. She never finished the 9th grade, but she believed if one could read, one could learn anything.
And she was a massive reader. She and she inflicted this addiction on us.
I don't remember learning to read. I could read fully when I started the first grade. I don't know that my mother taught me to read. I think she just willed it.
I don't know if any of the rest of you were raised by a ferocious she lion or not, but my mother believed if one could read, one could learn anything. And if one could read, one could learn words.
And my mother taught me and believed that to use a word wrongly was some kind of a sin against the cosmos. And she, she believed in vocabulary. She had vocabulary lessons with us when I was a child and she, my mother, a ninth grade dropout, she had a functional vocabulary that would make William F. Buckley jealous. She was well spoken, well read and she wanted us to have this. Words were important. Words are important to me and I and obviously they're important to God.
The whole Bible can be understood in terms of communication. That is a permissible hermeneutic. God did not fashion the world, he spoke it.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Communication, particularly the spoken word, is critical to our understanding of who God is. Now I believe in words and words are important.
We get them wrong so easily. I have a really good friend who played. He's elderly as I am and he played basketball at abac. I don't know if any of you know Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, but he played basketball there, was a huge star, and then transferred over to Georgia Southern where he was an All American.
And he and his team played for a national championship. They lost that game, but they played for a national championship. And he was a two time All American in basketball.
The coach at ABAC was a Christian.
The team had been assembled from everywhere. He had a great gift for bringing in players, mostly that had been kicked out of other schools. And he brought them in, but they weren't believers as the coach was. So he would always take them to church.
He took the team to a revival at a Pentecostal church one night. And right on the end of the third pew, right where you're sitting, there was a boy sitting there who had never been in a church in his life. He was broke. Brooklyn, New York, and he had never been in a church.
And so the evangelist, this Pentecostal evangelist, seeing this basketball team, decided to lower the guns to deck level and load with grape shot.
He just wanted to notch his gun with one of these basketball players. But he wasn't getting the response he wanted in the sermon. So finally he leaped off of the platform and ran out to the basketball team, particularly the boy on the inn from Brooklyn. And he said, are you a sinner, son? Answer me. Are you a sinner? And the boy said, no, sir, I'm a guard.
Words are significantly important, and that's one of the reasons that I enjoyed this writing this Word of Life series.
This word today is a simple word. The word is nevertheless. Now, let me just talk to you for a moment about what nevertheless is.
Nevertheless is a bridge word, a fulcrum, if you will, that exists between two balancing realities.
On this side, some kind of significant truth, and on this side, a thing that challenges it.
So what nevertheless says, this thing is true. And this thing can never make this any less.
This cannot change this. This cannot alter this. Nevertheless, this remains true.
Whatever that balance is, nevertheless is the fulcrum, if you will, on which these two truths exist. It's used in a vast multiplicity of places throughout the Old and New Testament. I'm not obviously going to speak on all those, nor even all the ones that are in the book. For that, you have to buy the book. And by the way, they asked me if I would sign books in the lobby when it's over. I'd be happy to do that.
My signature in your book makes it defaced and therefore worthless.
If you have your Bibles, though, take those and we'll see. One place where the book Nevertheless. I want to speak to just a few places where the word nevertheless is used. 2 Timothy, chapter 2, beginning with verse 15, Paul is writing to a young preacher, and here's what he says. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
But shun profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat as doth a canker. Canker is an old English word. It means gangrene.
And their word will eat as doth gangrene. Of whom now he mentions two men, Hermeneus and Philetus, who, concerning the truth of er, saying that the resurrection is past already and therefore overthrow the faith of some, nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure. Having the seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
So listen what he says, and then we're gonna pray. He says, here are these two men who are teaching all kinds of error, namely that Christ has returned, the resurrection has happened, and you've missed it.
He says, no matter what they say, nevertheless the truth of God, the foundation of God stands sure, never lessened by what somebody else teaches. Put your hand on your Bible and let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that in the next few moments your Holy Spirit will strengthen us, open us, quicken us to receive all that you have for us in the mighty name Jesus, the strong Son of God. Amen.
There is an all out, satanically engineered attack on the fundamental truths of the Bible.
It is a coordinated, demonically inspired attack.
It is in all of culture. I'll give you one place where it is in spades, because I spent so much of my life there getting educated. And then as the president of two different universities, and that is in the university and in the setting of higher education, There are people who are working in higher education who have so made shipwreck of their own faith, if they ever had any.
And they have sharpened their attack to a razor's edge with which they intentionally are bound by some kind of a demonic oath to gut the faith of unsuspecting freshmen who have spent 17, 18 years in churches just like yours, hearing the fundamental truths of the gospel. And then they get into a context like that where people are better educated, where there may be higher intelligence in some way of counting that, where others are cooler, smarter, sharper, whatever it is, and intimidated by all that they hear this attack on the fundamental truths. I want to empower you this morning with one great word. Listen to this word, nevertheless, where you can say to anyone, I hear everything you're saying. I hear all that you're teaching. I hear the gangrene that you're putting forward. I hear the poison, I hear how cleverly you say it. I can hear your education. I see your PhDs, I see all of that. And nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth true.
Nothing, they say, nothing they say, nothing they teach, nothing they believe. It doesn't matter if every clever, intelligent, cool, articulate person in the whole world believes that the foundation of God is crumbling, it will never be less than it is it. Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure.
When I was in seminary and I went to an admittedly liberal seminary, I'm not defaming them, they would say, they are proudly right now.
I went to take my master's degree. My PhD was in California, but my master's was here in Atlanta at Emory University.
And my Old Testament professor, my Old Testament professor was a forthright, admitted atheist. He was a German professor named Hendrickus Borsch. And he delighted on the first day of class to say to the students, he said, my name had a big long beard and a big fat tummy. And he would say, my name is Hendrickus Boers and I teach Old Testament and I'm an atheist. Open your Bible. And he spent the rest of the semester, an Old Testament professor at a seminary spent the rest of his semester trying to attack our faith.
I didn't want to fight. I didn't want to fight. I just wanted to get through and get out and get away from that German and get on with my faith. But there was one boy in our class from Arkansas, and David fought him tooth and nail. He argued with him every day, argued with him all day.
One day, Boris was teaching on the crossing of the Red Sea.
And he said, the reason it's recorded as a mistake, the way we understand the crossing of the Red Sea is because of a mistranslation.
Boris said, it's not the Red Sea. He said, it's translated Red Sea. It should be the Sea of Reeds. And he said, the Sea of Reeds is nothing but a shallow swamp at the deepest place to two or three feet. And David raised his hand and Dr. Bohr said, what is it, David? He said, I want to thank you. He said, I know we fought all semester, but he said, today you have quickened my face. He said, I want to thank you so much, Dr. Boris. I don't know how to thank you. And he said, what are you talking about? He said, think what a mighty God that can drown an entire army in three feet of water.
I just wish that I could empower every student, indeed every one of you, no matter what context. It's not just at the university setting. It is a cultural phenomenon right now that is attacking the fundamental reality, the unchanging ineluctable undiminished foundation of Almighty God. And when we we can say, I can't explain it. I don't have the apologetics, I may not have the education or the vocabulary, but I have one thing to say nevertheless. The foundation of God standeth sure, that gives us a great hope and encouragement.
The second place I want to point out to you that it is used is in 2 Kings, chapter 2. Let me quickly tell you the setting. Elijah the prophet, sort of the dean of the prophets, is going to be taken into heaven. His assistant Elisha, knows that. Indeed, the entire prophetic community knows it. And they realize that God's about to take him. So Elijah the older, who's going to be taken, says to Elisha the younger, you stay here and I'm going to go over there. Elisha says, no way. I'm going to go with you. I'm going to watch you. I'm going to see what happens. And he stays with him. He won't let him go. They cross the Jordan. Miraculously, they move forward. Finally, Elijah says to Elisha, all right, what do you want?
And Elisha says, I want a double portion of your anointing.
And Elijah says, you have asked a hard thing. You have asked a hard thing.
Nevertheless, if you see me when I go up to be with God, God will grant you what you ask for. Nevertheless, there are all kinds of things happening in this story, and so often people misunderstand it. And I've even heard preachers say the wrong thing. It says, Elijah. People will say, Elijah went to heaven in a flaming chariot. He did not get in the chariot. A chariot of flame came between Elijah and Elisha, separating them as those who have gone ahead of us into God's presence. There is a separation, but beyond that, look, how exciting it must be. How alluring. A flaming chariot. Angels, horses, all the rest. The temptation would be to watch it.
But instead of allowing himself to be distracted, even with something miraculous looking, he keeps his eyes on Elijah, because that's what he said. Nevertheless, if you see me, you'll receive it. And so when Elijah goes up to heaven, not in a flaming chariot, but in a whirlwind, when he goes up, his mantle falls and Elisha receives.
We live in a complicated, desperate, dark world.
And what we're going to need is the nevertheless of faith in a hard thing.
Sometimes I believe that Christians get the idea of a kind of anemic pedestrian prayer life. God bless Mommy and Daddy. God, don't let the dog be sick. Let me keep my job.
We never Want to ask a hard thing? We don't want to pray that big thing. We don't want to pray for that miracle. I believe in the 21st century we're going to have to redevelop the nevertheless of a hard thing to reach up to God and say God I want to pray. Put it a different way. If a hard thing assaults you, a big thing to pray big prayers. Now obviously to God there's no such thing as a little thing and a big thing, but to stretch our prayer life and to live in the kind of calm, dramatic, powerful faith that can reach God for huge things.
Many years ago when I was just a young guy starting in missions and I came under the great influence of a wonderful old man of God, quite an elderly guy. I was in my late 20s and he was younger than I am now but he seemed to me absolutely amazingly old.
He was a man of such great calm faith. His faith changed my life. I was a Christian and a spirit filled Christian, but his faith, the operation of faith.
We were in our hotel one night, we were supposed to preach the next day at the state penitentiary, Tamaulipa State Penitentiary in Ciudad Victoria, Mexico. And he came to my room and he said, we're not going to the penitentiary tomorrow. We're going to go down over the mountains and down and see if we can find this village named Canytas. I said what do you know about it? He said I don't know anything about it. I said where is it? He said I don't know. I think it's down near Tula.
I said, tula? Oh God, Jim, that's in the middle of the desert. Please let's don't go. He said, don't go. He said, stay here. Well I don't want that old man to drive that truck over the mountains. So I said, I'll go. I said why are we going? He said I don't know, I don't know. He said, I just years ago I heard some people in a restaurant talking about the village of Canytus. It just been in my mind ever since. And last night God told me, tomorrow go down to Canytas. I said, jim, that's it.
Please let's don't go. We're going to get lost. He said, we're going. We drove down there, we got lost.
I told the crazy old man we'd get lost.
We stopped at every Pemex station south of the Rio Grande. Nobody had ever heard of Canytas. We drove further and further out into the desert. Finally we Got off of the road.
We're out in the middle of a sun baked desert, no road, nothing. And the truck broke down.
I was.
I said, jim, what are we going to do? He said, we're not going to do anything.
I said, what kind of an answer is that? What do you mean we're not going to do anything? He said, what do you want to do? He said, look, what do you want to walk to? Nothing.
He said, what do you want to walk to? Which direction do you want to walk? He said, you keep saying what are we going to do? What do you want to do? He said, can you fix a truck? I said, I know nothing about trucks. He said, me neither. He said, that's the reason I don't carry any tools.
I said, what are we going to do? He said, I don't know what you're going to do, Mark. He said, I only know what I'm going to do. Crazy old man got out of the truck. There was a little mesquite tree about this tall and at the bottom was a pool of shade little bit bigger than a soup bowl. And Jim laid down and put his head in that puddle of shade and went to sleep.
I'm not sure why, but his calm faith irritated me immensely.
I said, this old loon is going to get us killed and he's not even worried about it.
He's old. He doesn't have anything to live for. I.
I am a young man.
I went over and kicked the sole of his boot. I said, jim, wake up. We can't just sit here. We can't just lie here. What are we going to do? He said, we. I don't know. He said, I don't know what we are going to do. He said, I know what I'm going to do. He said, I'm going to lay here with my head in the shade and see how God fixes this.
I found it strangely irritating after a while. Way on the horizon a little cloud of dust appeared. It got closer and closer and closer and louder and louder. And I realized there was a beat up battered blue panel truck coming toward us across the desert. Straight across the desert. Jim lifted up his head and he said, ah, that would be it.
I said, that would be what? He said, we'll see.
That panel truck drove up beside us in a cloud of dust. A teenage boy. The sliding door was roped with a rope. He untied that rope. He hopped out with a blue bandana that had about five tools in it. He climbed up on the bumper of our truck, lifted the hood, tampered around in it for just a few minutes. He looked over at me and he said, listo, listo. I'm ready. I climbed in, cranked that truck. He slammed the hood, gathered up his tools, got back in the blue panel truck, and it drove off.
I said, jim, who were those people? He said, how would I know?
I said, where did they come from? He said, you got me.
I said, you knew they were coming. He said, how would I know?
He said, I have never been here before in my life.
I said, jim, I don't know why it irritated me at that moment. I would rather have died.
It's interesting, isn't it, how we can be irritated by somebody else's miracle.
He said, mark, listen to me.
Is Jesus in the boat?
I said, what kind of a question is that? He said, no, answer me. Is Jesus in the boat?
I said, well, yeah, Jesus is in the boat. He said, no danger can swallow the ship. Where lies the master of ocean and earth and skies?
If we're going to live and walk in this dangerous and troubled world, this crazy, tumultuous political nightmare in which we live, it's going to be because we walk in miracle faith that says, nevertheless, I believe in God.
Here's the third Psalm, 106. A fascinating place. It begins by listing the sin of the Hebrew people from the time they leave Egypt until they get to the Red Sea. That's no time.
That's the first day or two journey. And it begins how they're rebellious and angry and they wish they were back in slavery. And all of those things are filled with doubt and anger and unbelief. They come to the Red Sea and the Red Sea's ahead of them. The Egyptian army is behind them, and they're just kind of as a miserable, wretched, angry, sinful rebels. And then the next verse, verse 8 says, Nevertheless, God saved them.
Now, I got a word of encouragement for somebody here. I don't know who it is, but you have a loved one. You have someone you care about that you're praying for. And Satan dances around your bed while you pray for them and says, he's in sin, she's in bondage, they're in addiction. They'll never get saved. God has nothing for them. You hear is your word. You look at Satan and say, I hear everything you got to say, but I got something to say. Nevertheless, God will save them.
Hold on to God and believe for the salvation of that lost loved one.
All of the sin that our loved ones who are in all the sin that they commit cannot ever make the truth of God's saving grace any less.
Nevertheless, God will save them. Nevertheless.
Not only that, what about you?
I know one of the lies that the devil tells, don't you?
This time you've gone too far.
This time you sinned it one time too many. This time you failed one time. Now God will never save you again.
What Satan wants to do is convince us while we're in sin that nothing is wrong with it.
And then the minute we turn to God, he wants to convince us that it's unforgivable.
He's a liar. And the truth of the truth is not in him. He's the Father of lies.
So he convinces people to sin, telling them there's no sin in it. As soon as they begin to repent and turn to God, he tells them it's unforgivable.
Listen to what I'm going to tell you.
If you are concerned that you have committed the unforgivable sin and that you're worried about it and fear God because of it, that is the proof that you have not committed the unforgivable sin. God still loves you. God cares about you. Now this, what I'm saying is no permission to go on in chronic sin. I'm not talking about that. What I'm saying is that the nevertheless of God toward our sins is. We say, oh God, look what I've done. Oh God, look how I failed you. Oh God, look at the sin. Look at the times I've done it. Look how many times I've repeated it. Oh God, do you see all that God says? I see it nevertheless.
I am the God who saveth thee.
We need to stand on that nevertheless for ourselves and for our loved ones.
There is one more that I want to lift up to you. Because it's the most important nevertheless that we say is important.
But the most important nevertheless is the one that Jesus says in the 22nd chapter of Luke.
Jesus and his disciples. Just as we had communion here as pastor, let us in communion here. He leads the apostles in that first communion. Then they go back over the kidron to the garden of Gethsemane, and he leaves them there to go away and pray.
This is extremely important.
Nothing is hidden from Jesus eyes.
He knows what lies ahead. This is very, very important.
The arrest, the torture, the crucifixion, none of that is a surprise to Jesus.
He's not praying in a vacuum. He is praying in the face of prophetic reality. He can see the crown of thorns being pressed into his forehead. He can see the blood running down his own face. He can see the whips on his back. He can see the humiliation. He can see his mother at the foot of the cross, weeping and crying. He can see even hear himself cry out from the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He can see the feeling of God forsakenness.
He can see the horrifying weight of sin being pressed into his body. He can see all that.
Is it any surprise then that he says, God, I don't want to do this?
Yes, Jesus is very God, but he is also very man.
And the man of him, the humanity of him, saying, God, don't make me drink this cup if I don't have to. Is there some way that your plan can be accomplished without me having to drink this cup of pain and humiliation and torture and death?
I don't want to go through this.
If he had stopped there, we're all doomed, all damned.
If Jesus had lived a perfect and sinful life, sinless life. If he had lived a perfect and sinless life, if he had taught every great thing that he taught. You hear people say, oh, Jesus was a great teacher, but he wasn't the Messiah. If he had lived a perfect life, sinless, if he had taught everything that he ever taught, if he had done every miracle that he ever did, healed every person, he ever healed and lived to be 99 and died in a nursing home in Jerusalem, we're all going to hell.
Because the Bible is perfectly clear. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.
Jesus had to not only die, he had to be killed. And he had to shed blood from the crown of thorns. The wound in his side, the wounds in his hands. Jesus had to die a bloody, horrible, terrible death. And he didn't want to do it.
Who in their right mind would?
So he said, God, is there some way I can avoid this?
The next word determines the story of humanity.
Nevertheless, not my will, but thine.
Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation in the cross we see the gracious and loving and redemptive heart of God Almighty. Jesus on the cross is yielding to the love of God for sinful humanity. That, nevertheless, is the fulcrum on which all our hope rests. Yes, I've sinned. Yes, the nightmare of sin is around me. Yes, I live in a sinful world. Yes, disappointed others. I've disappointed God. Nevertheless, Christ died for me.
Nevertheless. Thy will and not mine be done.
Well, let me close with this.
Many years ago, when I first came to Atlanta to go to graduate school.
I took a job. I played sports, multiple sports, and coached and refereed, and I took a job. There was an inner city school that their football coach had left, and they hired me for one year to be the interim football coach.
I don't know that one boy on that team remembers me, but I remember them.
It was a fantastic experience.
They were complicated, undisciplined, incredibly talented, fun, funny, and immensely irritating.
And it was a. It was a fascinating experience.
One of the things they enjoyed, really enjoyed, was what I called competitive trash talking.
They would get in a circle and two boys would just go at each other, saying things to each other. And the people on the outside, the boys on the outside, would kind of cheer and laugh and egg them on.
One day, I was in the little shack which passed for an office, for a coach's office, and two boys. Our quarterback, Roman, who was wonderfully talented, fast, talented, very intelligent, very facile with his speech, was in contest with another boy who was a massive offensive tackle named Jerome. We all called him Romeo. And Jerome was there, and they were attempting this trash talk battle. Jerome was out of his league.
There was no way he could keep up with Roman. Roman was pouring insults. Intelligent, clever, funny, outrageously obscene. He was pouring insults on Jerome like hot lava. And I could see from a distance Jerome was getting more and more frustrated, more and more frustrated. He didn't have anything to say. He couldn't beat him.
Roman was just beating him. And the other boys are laughing and clapping. And suddenly I realized, I've got to rush in there and save my quarterback's life.
Before I could move, Jerome reached over behind him and wove his massive fingers through the face mask of his helmet. And without one moment's hesitation, he brought that helmet around and hit Jerome. Hit Roman right on the side of the head, knocked him unconscious.
Then he stepped over and looked at his prone body and he said, oh, yeah.
And I felt to myself, for a boy with a limited vocabulary, he had held up his end of that argument pretty well.
It was in that moment that I said to myself, I want a word.
I want an oh, yeah? Word.
When there's arguments, events, circumstances that I. I can't defend. I. I don't have the wherewithal in apologetics. I don't have the education, I don't have the vocabulary. I may not even have the faith.
I just feel like I'm melting before everything that's going on. And Satan.
Satan's sneering, mocking, laughing, dancing around me. I need a word. I need a word, and the scripture gave me that word. I'm able to look right straight into the eyes of demonic, evil, historical collapse, geopolitical nightmare and say, I see it all.
Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on X at Dr.markrutland or visit his website, drmarkrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
