11–The Potent Prayer of A Seasoned Saint (Daniel 9:1-19) Video
Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
August 21, 2022 AM
Pastor Ken Pierpont
The “Orienting Function” of the Bible
Sunday morning August 14th I opened my message by explaining what I call the “Orienting Function of the Bible.”
People who take the Bible seriously come to know the mind of God and the ways of God and they understand the world around them even when things are difficult and disturbing. People who study the Bible and believe the Bible and meditate on the Bible tend to see a deeper significance in the common things around them and tend to have a deeper purpose and a higher joy than those who don’t… The Bible has an orienting function in our lives and families. it helps us keep our balance and know our place. It helps us deal with our past and prepare for our future. It tends to move us from despair to hope, from aimlessness to purpose, from emptiness to fulfillment. It helps us understand evil and it assures us of its limits. The passage we will study today has had that orienting effect on the faithful for many centuries around the world.
Cold Rain and Thunder | August 18, 2022 | Bittersweet Journal
Last night I put on my sunglasses for a bike ride and started down the trail. I rode east from Teff Road between the two sections of Lime Like into the woods and past fields east. Between Moscow and Reynolds a dark storm came in unexpectedly from the north east and soaked me with cold rain. I continued east into the woods but the rain was coming hard and the woods offered no protection. I turned back, then the thunder started. Now that will elevate your heart rate.
For years I have been enchanted by the undulating flight of the goldfinch along country roads. This week, for the first time, I experienced it in a different way and it was arresting.
First, the goldfinch is misnamed. It should be called the “brilliant yellow finch,” but that’s another point.
I’ve been riding my bike every day this summer. Kimmel Road is freshly paved and smooth as butter. I was rolling down Kimmel Road the other day and I saw a flash of yellow in my peripheral vision. For a few moments my speed was matched by the flight of a brilliant yellow bird rising and falling in flight along the ditch beside me. Seconds later it flew into the fencerow and out of sight. Just a splash of brilliant yellow above all the verdant green and it was gone.
I breathe a prayer. Lord, help me never to get callous to the little things along the way.
10-God’s Purposes Will Triumph Over Great Evil (Daniel 8:1-27) Audio
10 – God’s Purposes Will Triumph Over Great Evil
Daniel 8:1-27
Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
Pastor Ken Pierpont
August 14, 2022 AM
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10 – God’s Purposes Will Triumph Over Great Evil (Daniel 8:1-27) Video
10 – God’s Purposes Will Triumph Over Great Evil
Daniel 8:1-27
Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
Pastor Ken Pierpont
August 14, 2022 AM
Bittersweet Farm Journal | August 12, 2022 | 46 Years a Pastor
Good Morning Journal Subscribers;
It’s a glorious summer day in Michigan today. It is my study day (Friday). I love my study day. I look forward to it all week, crunching my administrative, counseling, discipling, evangelism, hospital calls, pastoral duties and meetings into the other days of the week. I started before light and took a break to ride my new gravel bike a little over 13 miles. It was about 58 degrees at the beginning of my ride out by Lime Lake. The sky was blue as October. It felt like fall. People walked along the trail wearing flannel or sweats. Yesterday I biked from Jackson to Concord for breakfast with a friend (Joe Sexton). After our breakfast we rolled back to town. It was good fellowship, good exercise, and a good eating at Mel’s Place on Main.
46 Years A Pastor
It’s Thursday morning as I write this. It was a Wednesday evening when I was officially called to pastor my first church and I was seventeen. I had been preaching since I was fourteen and I grew up with a preacher dad, so I had some preparation for ministry, mostly long conversations with Dad, faithful teaching from mom, and lots of practice in doing or watching all the things you do when you are a pastor and this since my earliest memory.
During my junior year in high school I was invited to sing at a little country church near the Ohio-Indiana border. After my singing one of the leaders of the church asked if I would be willing to return the next week and sing again and also preach. I returned the next week. That week Don, the senior leader of the church, asked if I would be willing to be their pastor. Within a week or so I was driving up on Sunday morning teaching Sunday School and preaching. In the afternoon I would eat with one of the good farm families of the church. In the evening I would preach again. On Wednesday night I drove up and conducted Prayer Meeting. On some Thursday nights or Tuesday nights I would drive upon and go calling around the church meeting people and trying to lead people to Christ and invite them to the church.
They licenced me to the gospel ministry in April of 1977. I actually attempted to preach through Revelation on Wednesday nights that year. Some of my high school classmates made the drive up to hear the “Teen Preacher.” A couple girls professed faith in Christ on morning. In the spring word of the teen preacher got out and Rev. Franklin Cody, who pastored the large Methodist Church in Greenville, invited me to preach for a huge Boy Scout Jamboree in the city park. Over twenty young men responded to the invitation for salvation. Only the Lord knows the fruit of that.
It’s been 46 years since then and God has given me the desire of my heart for all these years pastoring churches in Ohio, Michigan, and even Illinois for a bit. I have no other plan. I have no higher goal. I have no greater joy, beyond my fellowship with Jesus and my precious family. My interest and passion have never waned.
Bittersweet Farm
August 12, 2022
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