We spent a significant amount of our vacation last week in Wolfe County Kentucky sitting on the porch, talking and drinking cold, sweet ginger ale. (They call it Ale-8 in Eastern Kentucky). We enjoyed the hot tub a little. We hiked in the mountains some. We visited Hoedown Island a few times. Lois and I had a date night at the Hemlock Lodge, halfway up the mountain to the Natural Bridge. They were serving a dish called “Kentucky Brown” and they were featuring Blackberry Cobbler. Oh, my. We visited Emmanuel Baptist Church, a fine church in Stanton pastored by an equally fine man, Pastor Gregg Webb. Holly and Chuk sang. Holly and her sisters sang in the park in Campton on Thursday night. Mostly, though we just sat on the porch and talked.
One night we were out on the porch listening to the frogs and crickets and silence and looking out into the unusual darkness.
Chuk broke the silence and said; “Down at Natural Bridge I noticed some writing on the bathroom wall.”
“It said; ‘Susan Johnson is a whore.'” (name changed)
“Someone had crossed out ‘whore’ and written ‘daughter of God.'”
Then it read “Susan Johnson is a daughter of God.”
Sitting on the porch in the dark looking out on the stars and hearing Chuk’s simple story touched a deep place in my soul.
Satan could write some very damning and embarrassing things about me for all the world to read. That is true for all of us–no exceptions. He would even accuse me before the Father’s Throne, but Jesus Christ took all the evidence against me and nailed it to the cross. He cancelled my debt. He destroyed the evidence. He is changing me inside-out. I have a dark past, but I have a bright future.
John wrote: “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (Revelation 12:10-12 ESV)
Over all my guilt and shame and the accusations against me he has written: “Ken Pierpont is a child of God”
If you would like to listen to a message on this theme here is a link to my Good Friday message: Cosmic Blackmail. https://kenpierpont.com/2012/04/cosmic-blackmail/
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
August 20, 2012
