Church Discipline

As I am planning soon to begin a preaching series on the marks of the church, one of which is church discipline, I have reflected over our experiences here. Over the lifetime of the Sycamore congregation, we sadly have had many cases of church discipline. Below is the body of a letter written by our elders some time ago to a particular individual (the fifth one we had given him), with his name and a few of the details having been changed for this display. I offer this to serve as a reminder of the church's duty to apply Biblical discipline to wandering sheep, a testimony to the lengths we took to recover this person, and, as you read at the bottom of this post what ultimately resulted, a warning to heed the Word of God and the shepherds He has placed over the church.

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Dear Esau,

The Session of Sycamore Reformed Presbyterian Church has made repeated efforts to restore you to our fellowship, as listed below:

• Last summer in July we rebuked you for your failure to participate in worship and observe the sacraments. We also warned you about your relationship with the widow in whose home you were staying and called you out of that situation. You made an initial confession in August and returned for two weeks to the church. However, since August 31^st you have not attended a worship service at Sycamore.
• Even after seeking counsel from the Session on September 3^rd and being warned not to go, you purposefully chose to move out of town and live with the widow there. On October 1^st we again rebuked you for “showing contempt for the counsel of the court and the appearance of immorality,” as was communicated to you in a letter dated October 26^th. This letter was hand-delivered to you by the pastor.
• On December 14^th we sent another letter to you when you were in the Howard County Jail. The pastor visited you and explained that this letter indicated our numerous attempts to restore you and informed you that you had been suspended from the privileges of church membership.
• Last month you received a certified letter dated February 2^nd that called you to respond to our letter of suspension as you had promised you would do. This letter was signed by the widow. We gave you a deadline to respond of February 10^th, which you ignored, despite the fact that this letter threatened that we would proceed officially as the court of the church towards conducting a trial of excommunicating you from this congregation if you did not.
• Last Sunday, February 29^th, Elder Bob McKissick and Pastor Barry York appeared at the address listed above as your official residency. When we asked the widow if you were there, she indicated you were. She returned after talking with you and claimed that because of allergies you did not want to see us that day. She assured us you had received our certified letter and that she would tell you that we wanted to hear from you before or during our Session meeting on March 3^rd. Once again this date came and went, and we never heard from you.

Esau, how we have pursued you and sought to love you in Christ! Recall all that we did to counsel with you, to provide work opportunities for you, to bring you into our homes and into our hearts when you were still with us. We wept and welcomed you as our brother as we listened to your testimony the day you stood in the sanctuary and told of God’s grace. We have instructed you in the word of God and prayed earnestly for you. But you have spurned both God’s love and ours.

You may still claim to love God, but honestly, Esau, by the most basic measure can you say that you are demonstrating that by your actions? Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Yet you made vows to attend the worship of God and have missed them for months on end. You promised you would heed the counsel and discipline of the church when you joined, but within a few months you disdained it by putting personal pleasure and aspirations above the kingdom of God. Even now the widow claimed you were attending church together elsewhere, but your broken relationships with us coupled with your living with this woman outside marital bonds makes your church attendance abhorrent to God. Your stubbornness and refusal to listen to godly counsel has caused you to wander into grave spiritual danger, where you no longer are even able to discern the deceitfulness of your actions.

Therefore, in a final attempt to restore you, we took the following action at our Session meeting of March 3^rd:

Because of your contempt for the established order and worship of the church, and your dwelling with a woman outside marriage bonds against the Session’s particular counsel, the Session has set the date of March 17, at 5:00 p.m. at the pastor’s office of Sycamore Reformed Presbyterian Church to hold a trial to excommunicate Esau unless he presents to the Session a valid objection or repents of his actions.

Esau, please understand that if you do not leave this situation and return to us, we will have to conclude that by your own deeds you no longer are walking in a manner worthy of the kingdom of God. If you continue to ignore us and do not contact us by this date, we will be forced to excommunicate you. By that action we will be declaring that you are no longer to be considered a Christian and that your soul is in danger of the eternal flames.

Yet our heart’s desire is not your condemnation, Esau, but your restoration. Please heed the word of God, Esau, who said to Lot through the angels sent to rescue him, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you!” Leave this situation immediately, and seek refuge in Christ and the church.

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Sadly, Esau did not come to the meeting to which he was summoned and was excommunicated. Tragically, soon after this action he was stricken with a massive heart attack and died in the home of the aforementioned woman.

Small, Quick & Loving

On Friday I will be travelling with several other pastors to attend an annual dinner hosted by the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. The seminary will award a "Faithful Servant Award" to Dr. Roy Blackwood. Many were asked to write a tribute to Roy. Here's mine.

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After my first year as a student at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, I went to Indianapolis in the summer of 1989 to do an internship under Dr. Roy Blackwood. Following a day of driving with my pregnant wife and young son, and then moving into the third floor apartment of the church building, Roy and Margie came to greet us that first evening. After a few minutes of checking that we had everything we needed, Roy asked me to sit down at the kitchen table because he had something he wanted to show me. Soon, on an unfolded napkin taken from a nearby drawer, circles and Latin words began to form a diagram as Roy explained in earnest a concept to me. I realized I had just been introduced to Roy’s teaching on the Mediatorial Kingship of Christ. How many more times that summer and since I have seen - and used - that picture!

During that internship, I thought I would spend less time studying and more time doing “practical” ministry. Yet not only did I feel I was in “summer seminary” those three month, but I realized more than ever how studies and practical ministry go hand-in-hand. For under Roy’s tutelage I read the seminal work upon which he had developed his ministry, Messiah the Prince by the nineteenth century Scottish pastor William Symington, as well as studied through Roy’s doctoral work he had done on Symington’s ministry and theology. Far from dry academia, Roy’s studies came alive as I saw them lived out firsthand through his life.

That summer I witnessed warm-hearted, reference-filled, faith-building preaching from Roy, be it from a pulpit or at the bedside of the elderly. I saw how he had taken these doctrines and applied them in the development of a ministry that had seen hundreds converted to Christ, churches planted in other areas of Indiana whose pastors had been influenced greatly by Roy, and relationships that extended around the world. Roy’s heart-filled vision of the kingdom of Christ, a kingdom that knows no limits, no person outside its reach, no unconquerable enemies, propelled him to extend that kingdom wherever he went. That summer I saw federal and state legislators contact him, businessmen open their offices and schedule to him, and fathers and sons (the next generation) taught by him. What I both heard and saw left an indelible mark upon me, and it has only increased through the following two decades of ministering with this man in our presbytery.

On one occasion that summer, as Roy and I were traveling, he shared with me his testimony of how his mother had died when he was but a young child, and of a hard-pressed father who had to send him out of his home to be raised by nearby aunts. At that time, Roy said in great tenderness that he could not remember his mother, but had been told that she was “small, quick, and loving.” That description has stuck with me, for it also describes Roy well.

On several occasions when we have ministered together, Roy will stand next to me, look up, and say with that ever-present smile on his face, “Here’s Barry York, a man I look up to.” One day I responded, “Roy, the only reason you will ever look up to me is because I am standing on your shoulders.” He may be small in stature, but he is a giant of a man.

How quick Roy is in mind and body! Roy is a perpetual motion machine, constantly engaged in whole-hearted kingdom living. Even now, as he spends his twilight years caring for his beloved bride Margie, his mind is always at work. Roy is always seeking to be a kingdom-catalyst by seeing people in the body of Christ brought together who Roy always seems to know could work better together than apart. He has connected me to countless people in innumerable ways that have enriched greatly my life and ministry. One example is in the area of Greek. Believing in my Greek abilities far more than I did, he recruited me years ago to come down to Indianapolis every weekday for six weeks one summer (only Roy could have gotten me to do this!) so I could spend time in a Greek classroom with Dr. Renwick Wright. That time proved influential, as not only did that training help me to grow in my competency to teach Greek, but a number of men have gone onto seminary and the pastorate with the confidence of knowing this language.

With all these attributes and abilities one might overlook the chief quality about this man. Like his mother, he is loving. Many times during my ministry, Roy has helped sustain me through trials by his expressions and acts of love. Perhaps none have been so personal and powerful to me than just a few weeks ago. For some time, Roy, Pastor Rich Johnston, and the elders of the church have discussed with me coming to serve as pastor there. In December, they finally led the congregation to make out a call to me. When I received the call, seeing the names of so many friends tugged at my wife and my hearts, but seeing Roy and Margie’s signatures made us weep. Yet after much prayer and deliberation, in light of things including some deeply personal matters involving family, I was led to decline this call. When on the phone with Roy telling him my answer, to be honest I was scared. I could not bear the thought of disappointing him. But when I began to explain these personal matters, Roy began weeping for me and offering tender encouragements. Our conversation ended with one of the most powerful and caring prayers I have ever experienced. As we hung up, he was not the only one crying.

On occasion, I have heard some, who must not know Roy very well, describe him in ways that make it sound as if they think Roy must dominate people in the church in order to see the things happen around him that he has. Indeed, some have even called the pastors in Indiana “Roy’s Boys,” speaking as though he controls us like a bishop would do in other ecclesiastical settings. Not only would that thought be anathema to Roy, but it misunderstands both the power and love of God at work in Roy and in the church. If any of us have sought to imitate Roy’s example, or leapt when he asked us to do something, or spoken reverently of him, it is the power of love and not fear that you see. And as for me, call me Roy’s Boy if you will, but please understand if I’m given that title I would wear it with honor and with a smile. For it only serves to prove that God has fulfilled, in answer to Roy’s prayers, the truth of II Timothy 2:2, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” How thankful to God I am to know the life, ministry and love of Roy Blackwood.

Cuddle Up Like the Moon

Through the window we see the wintry sky,
The curve of the waning moon
Bright against its black cold;
A silent reminder of the One
That governs over the darkness.

It casts a warming glow on the bed inside,
The wiggling of a young girl fighting sleep
Brings smiles to a slumbering father lying near,
Thankful for the gift of a daughter's love
In this dark generation of icy hearts.

Her sudden request opens his tired eyes,

"Da-da, will you cuddle up like the moon with me?"
The meaning remaining a mystery,
Until he sees again from her pillow perspective
The ruler of the nighttime sky.

In response the father becomes a crescent

As she snuggles her little body against his,
The chattering fading and sleep triumphing again.
Yet not before she says in faith not yet full,
"It's hard to say I love God more than you."

So as she closes her eyes to enter sleep’s peace,

He whispers again of One unseen,

The Giver of all love and seasons;

And reminds her that one day she will awake

Beyond the moon in her true Father's embrace.

If Nothing Else, the Picture is Cool

This Saturday, February 7, the First Reformed Presbyterian Church is hosting their Conference on Practical Theology. Entitled The War for Poverty: Reclaiming and Restoring the Ministry of Mercy in the Local Congregation, little ole me will be speaking three times that day, with a question and answer period following each talk. I'm looking forward to the fellowship with the saints at First RPC, one of our newest congregations. I'm also thankful that several of our members, including two of our deacons who practice this subject far more than I do, will be traveling there to support me and help in answering questions that may arise.

As I have not only been buried in my study in preparation for it, but also involved in numerous pastoral situations trying to live it even this week, I have not had much blogging time. But I thought any readers of this blog would enjoy seeing the neat picture some creative person at First RPC came up with to advertise the conference (please click it to see further information), and that I could use this as a last minute plea for you to pray for our time.

The name of the conference is of course a play on President Johnson's words. But the change in the preposition highlights the Biblical truth that mercy ministry is a responsibility the mighty God who loves the orphan and widow gives to the church, and how we must fight to re-establish our position as the true dispensers of mercy. Indeed, as I will be showing, God will judge us if we fail. Hence the need for prayer!

My Decision

This blog has purposefully been quiet this past month.
I have spent the time seeking the Lord's will
about a call from the Second Reformed Presbyterian Church.
Below is the letter I sent to them in answer.

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January 22, 2009

Second Reformed Presbyterian Church

4800. N. Michigan Road

Indianapolis, IN 46228

To the Saints of Second RPC,

Having received the call made out to me on December 14^th, 2008 to join the pastoral staff of the Second RPC congregation, please know that I have been in much prayer and deliberation before the Lord regarding it. As you can imagine, having to come to a decision where I know I would have to either leave a congregation that is family to us or decline an offer by one that I also love has not been easy. Yet the Lord has used the means of His Word, counsel, providences and prayers to draw near me and to make His will known to me at this time.

Though it brings me sadness, I now inform you that I must respectfully decline this call. On Thursday, January 22^nd, I came and met with your pastor and elders to tell them of my decision and explain the reasons, many of which are very personal. Please indulge me for a moment as I assure you what were not factors in this decision.

Please know that it was not a lack of desire to help or concern for you all at Second RPC that led to this decision. Having been an intern at Second RPC in 1989 means that I have been blessed with a special relationship to Dr. Blackwood, Pastor Johnston, and many of you there for twenty years and even longer. Seeing so many names of people we love signed to the call did tug at our hearts, and to be honest seeing Roy and Margie’s there made me cry. As the call was extremely generous, the potential for ministry there is great, and the history of the Lord’s using Second RPC undeniable, please know that questions regarding these matters did not lead me to this conclusion.

The congregation of Sycamore and I will continue to uphold you in prayer, knowing that the Lord will keep building the church of Second Reformed Presbyterian. In the Spirit of Christ, who is the head of the church and places each member in the body just as He desires, we trust this interaction will only create greater love between us not less. Indeed, I pray that we might find other ways to cooperate in the gospel and support one another in the faith, building on the years of joint partnership that we have had. Thank you for the love you have shown through the consideration of me, and may the God of peace continue to bless you richly.

In the Love of Christ,

Barry York

The Snake Hunter

You have to admire the men pictured here. They are returning home from hunting an African Rock Python. Seeing how its jaws can expand wide enough to swallow an antelope, one might consider them brave in just carrying a dead one. In saying they hunt them you probably picture them surrounding one in a tree or on the ground, then using weapons to kill it or clubs to beat it. Remove that picture from your mind and read on. These men are much braver (or crazier, depending on your perspective) than that.

Adult pythons, usually 18-20 feet in length but which can get up to 28 feet and over 250 pounds, use the burrows of other animals to nest. These burrows can go down into the ground nearly 20 feet. The mother python will lay up to 100 eggs in her cache and then spend the next few months in her lair aggressively protecting them. This is where these men hunted. Again, you may imagine they smoked her out then beat her when she emerged from her tunnel. Keep reading.

To hunt this python, one of the men tied a leather coverings to his forearm and then held a bundle of lit twigs in his other hand for light. After securing a rope around him, he was lowered head first into the python's burrow, barely able to squeeze down. As he approached the snake face-to-face, he waved his leather-covered hand by the the python's mouth. The snake, already upset, struck the hand and began to swallow it. The hunter then quickly dropped the twigs, and with his other hand choked tightly the snake's never-ending throat right behind where his other hand was being swallowed. (This prevented the hunter from becoming its next meal.) At this point he undoubtedly yelled and kicked so his friends would pull him out of the hole. As he was extracted from the hole, the python was choking to death from the leather covering that had slipped off his hand combined with the choke hold of the hunter. The snake's body, naturally used when it falls on its prey with its weight and then crushes it with the strength of its death coils, was rendered useless by the narrowness of the burrow. Thus the snake, usually the predator, suffocated and became the prey. And yes, these men are taking this snake home to eat.

My job as a pastor regularly involves dealing with sin. Being it my own holed up in my own soul, working with others who have lived long in Satan's lair, or trying to hunt out the deadly lusts with searching preaching, the stubborn fierceness of sin confounds and (I must admit at times) scares me. Though these python hunters may get a certain adrenaline rush as they go down into that hole, I find little pleasurable or exciting in dealing with sin. I can even reason in my own mind, "If we are to let sleeping dogs lie, why not sleeping snakes?" Yet that's the problem. The serpent of old never sleeps, for he admits in his own words that he "roams about on the earth" (Job 1:7). And we know why. He is seeking someone he may devour (I Peter 5:8) through continually enticing them to follow their lusts. How tiring it can be to try to handle the slippery serpent and ceaseless sin. This "snake hunter" often wonders what the outcome is going to be.

Yet that's where this metaphor must go further. What encouragement can be found in turning again and again to the reminder from the Bible of the One who went into the snake pit for me! That dragon of old, with his jaws on the heel of the Savior, thought in his cunning he had brought an end to Christ at the cross. Little did he know his death bite was his own death warrant. That cross silenced forever his venomous accusations, and Jesus arose to crush his head. No wonder the Bible tells us we can see the devil flee when we resist him in Christ! Seeing salvation granted to the repentant, watching sanctification occur in His people, achieving reconciliation, witnessing an evil be used for God's purpose - these things and more remind me of the victory of the Lamb over the dragon.

O Lord, hear me pray what you have promised: "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet!"

A Confession with My Tongue (in My Cheek)

December 10, 2008

President Kenneth A. Smith
Geneva College
Beaver Falls, PA 15010

Dear Dr. Smith,

Though I know you are a very busy man, I hope you can find just a few moments in your day to hear these confessions from a father of one of your students.

First, I swiped the photograph which you see in this letter, taken at your Family Day back in November, from Geneva's website. I am ashamed to admit that not only have I posted it here, but also on my computer desktop and my blog where this letter can also be found. (As Augustine in his Confessions shows, identifying particular vices and making them public is good for the soul's cleansing.) Though I should have asked permission, the beauty of the picture was too great to resist. Certainly you can sympathize with my weakness and find it in your heart to absolve me? Especially when you consider that I had even contemplated - but then strongly resisted the temptation! - asking you for a tuition break for helping advertise your fine institution in such a lovely way?

My second confession is that I grew a bit angry with you, as the head of Geneva, back in August. After leaving my little girl at your college, the next three days I literally felt like my heart had broken. It was like someone had died! This sweet daughter of mine, who for nineteen years had filled our home with joy, music, and love, was now gone. That I could have borne. Yet when I called her during those dark days of my soul, her voice did not sound quite like mine did. Oh, sure, she said she missed me, but she kept giggling afterwards which I did not think was very funny. She could not quite hide her excitement over such things as the new roommates she had, dining on a riverboat in Pittsburgh, or the classes she was looking forward to taking. Since I could not blame her, I blamed you for making the transition so painless. So please excuse my anger. But could you not at least consider instituting a two-day period of mourning for incoming students?

Having sat under your father's preaching for three years, I know the importance of heart applications of the law as is especially taught in the final commandment. So my final confession (I hope you are sitting down at this point) is that I secretly hoped Geneva might fail for my daughter. I had a black little hope that she might be so homesick, not like her classes, or at least miss the pastor back here so much that she would want to come back to Indiana. Instead, she has so many new friends we cannot remember all their names, has loved her courses and especially the music program, and is actually growing amazingly well in the church out there.

Thank you for reading my confessions. I know that looking at these things is never pretty. But, as Augustine explains it, neither was the desire for the pears that he stole.

Sincerely Thankful,

Barry York

Putting the Twig to the Nose

When my daughter Lindsay, home for the Thanksgiving break, asked me a question the other day, at first I wondered what they were teaching her at college. "Dad, what does 'putting the twig to the nose' mean?" she asked.

Then she told me she was reading Ezekiel for her Bible class, where the angel of God points out in Ezekiel 8:17 that men in Judah were guilty of "putting the twig to their nose." Considered the family's resident Bible expert, I enjoy it when my children ask me questions. Yet I had to admit to being a bit baffled by the expression, as I had not thought about it before. As our family happened to be traveling at the time, we discussed the context a bit, I told her it sounded like a pagan ritual to me, and then promised to look it up later.

What I found was interesting and (not surprising with the Word of God) fear-producing.

This verse with its expression is from a scene where the angel of God is showing the prophet why destruction is about to come upon Jerusalem. In the vision Ezekiel is shown 25 men worshiping in the courtyard of the temple. The problem is, however, that they are prostrated with their backs against the temple, praying to the sun in the east (Ezekiel 8:16). The angel then says,

"Do you see this, son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they have committed here, that they have filled the land with violence and provoked Me repeatedly? For behold, they are putting the twig to the nose. Therefore, I indeed will deal in wrath."

My research showed that my hunch was right. Often found in pagan worship was the practice of gathering a branch or bundle of twigs and then the worshiper would put them before his face near the mouth and nose as he prostrated himself and prayed to his idol. For these Jews worshiping the sun, it could have served as a type of veil to show respect to the sun-god, and it may have been a symbol of their recognition that life was dependent upon the light of the sun.

However, there is a powerful double entendre in this expression that only the Hebrew reveals. The word for "nose" in the Hebrew (אַף -"aph") can also be translated as "anger" or "ruin." The snort of emotion from the nose and the flaring of the nostrils provide the reason for this association. Sometimes scholars in different English versions can translate a verse using these two different meanings with the same effect, as in Job 4:9.

• "By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of His nostrils they are consumed" (KJV).
• "By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they come to an end" (NASB).

With this in mind, John Calvin said that by God describing them as putting the twig to the nose, they were in effect putting the twig to their ruin. In other words, by putting the twig to their nose, they were putting the twig to His nose. They were arousing His burning anger, which is why He follows this expression with these words, "Therefore, I will indeed deal in wrath."

How careful we must live! These Jews who thought they were being trendy by using a worldly worship practice were in reality putting more wood on the fire of God's anger by the very act. As Paul said in Romans 2:5, "Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God."

Perhaps from this we could develop a new proverbial warning when we see a believer pursuing evil things or churches turning their back on God's Word as they embrace worldly goods? "Don't put the twig to your nose!"