Ministry, Spiritual Warfare, Suffering, & Prosperity | Q&A With Rev. Christopher Gordon (Part 1)

Abide was blessed to have Rev. Christopher Gordon of the United Reformed Church speak at a 2024 Retreat at Zephyr Point, located on Lake Tahoe in Nevada where he covered passages from Daniel and Revelation. The theme of the retreat was “How to Live in the Last Days”. The following information is at times directly quoted or is a summary of the questions and answers. For all the videos from the weekend, click here for the full playlist on YouTube, including the five sessions, along with the question and answer session. 

Q: What five books would you take on a deserted island? You can assume you already have the Bible, the Creeds, the Confessions, and Calvin’s Institutes. 😂

A: Oh, wow. I like Calvin. Thomas Watson on repentance is excellent. I believe you should have a balance of good contemporary works with classics that have stood the test of time. 

Q: What is your biggest piece of advice for couples or people who want to go into ministry? What has been the most difficult aspect of ministry in your life?

A: If there's a couple that wants to go into ministry they should realize first that it's a calling. If you look at the calling of prophets and pastors (I realize prophets are different in the Old Testament) there has to be a real big burning desire to want to tell others and preach the gospel. The ministry is hard! Ministry is one of the most difficult things to do mainly because there's a lot of spiritual warfare with it. I never felt I knew even how to be a pastor up front. The Seminary gave me the tools to learn how to read the Bible and how to preach the Scriptures. But, there's something the Lord has to give you–that's the ability from the Spirit to be able to communicate…I heard a question years ago of somebody who was being examined and they were asked, “You're at the mall and you see people walking around. What do you see?” I knew right away what I’d say—dead men walking—the Dry Bones of Ezekiel 37. People need life, people need the gospel, people need to be saved, and people need deliverance. So, you have to have a love and drive to want to be used of the Lord which is a remarkable calling to give a message that actually has the power of Romans 1 to save people. The Lord put that great desire in my heart to preach. I had to learn how to be a pastor in many ways because Seminary doesn't train you for that but your wife is a crucial component in that she has to be supportive and understanding. You're in a fish bowl and she's in it just as much. I've seen many go in the ministry whose wives are not supportive of that and it will not work. The wife has to understand in some sense that though she's not the pastor she is called to this, too. 

Q: Do you have a favorite Puritan?

A: Yes, my favorite Puritan is William Perkins. If I had to take one Puritan on a deserted island, it would be him. Most people don’t know much about him, but Reformation Heritage Books recently published his 10 volumes, which had been out of print since the 17th century. Perkins is considered the father of Elizabethan Puritanism—essentially the “granddaddy” of Puritans. You’ve got to read the granddaddy! Thomas Watson is also excellent.

Q: Can you share a personal example of an experience of a spiritual attack? 

A: We have images in our minds of what a spiritual attack is. There are very serious passages we read in Scripture where there is demonic influence in people’s lives, and we haven’t quite known how to deal with that. I do think it was a unique period because Jesus was walking on the earth, and the whole kingdom of Satan was in uproar, so He allowed that in a sort of extra-normal, extraordinary way to happen to show Jesus’s power. I’m not saying those things don’t happen today. I think they do happen today, but I think you have to be careful because there are obviously real medical diagnoses of people who can have serious things like schizophrenia, and I’m not about to say that’s demonic, right? So, I think we think in those terms only. 

Luther used to say, “The devil’s God’s devil.” In other words, the devil can’t do things on his own. Think of when he had to come to Job and ask for permission before God. Okay, so the kinds of attacks that the devil likes are exactly what I talked about the other night—the tactics—the spiritual attacks to try to wreck your faith, to try to expose some sin in your life, to wreck your credibility. I think we need to remember: was Judas demon-possessed? Satan entered him. Did he run around like a crazy man? No. It’s not really what we think. Satan entered him. He went away and betrayed Jesus. He went and sold Him for money. Now, that’s a special circumstance. He doesn’t let that happen to His sheep. He would never let that. The devil has no power over you. The devil has no way to harm you. He is doing what he can apart from the sovereign care of God, whatever He allows. 

Let me give you a perfect example of that—Paul’s thorn in the flesh: “Unless I should be exalted above measure, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan, to buffet me, to torment me. Concerning this thing, three times I pleaded with the Lord that it might depart from me.” He said, “No, my grace is sufficient for you.” Well, what was it? Paul was obviously allowed to have Satan buffet him, to hit Paul. You could go through the range of possible explanations. Was it the Jews? Was it his eyesight? Was it some kind of physical infirmity? Was it his speech? You’re never told, and I think we’re purposely not told because Satan tries to buffet us in all kinds of ways that the Lord may allow. For what purpose? See, this is the powerful thing about it. In the sovereignty of God, He may allow it to be used so that you are coming to Him in prayer, and He may not change even the circumstance, but He will change your perspective through it so that by the end of that, when Christ says to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you,” Paul says, “Okay, I’m going to boast in all this now, my infirmities, reproaches, needs, and persecutions for Christ’s sake. For when I’m weak, then I’m strong.” See, that’s the backwardness of the Christian life. We think when we’re strong, we’re—no, it’s when you’re weak. And God may allow things like that to happen actually to showcase His power in you as you overcome that.

Q: Any advice for individuals who may not be going through a particular time of suffering or trial but want to get their view off themselves and onto the Lord?

A: Well, it’s like Bob Godfrey once said: “If you’re not going through a trial today, get ready—you will tomorrow.” So, it’s all coming. We’re all going to have trials; that’s just the reality of the Christian life. “Through much tribulation, we enter the Kingdom,” right? If you’re not having a trial, in some ways, that’s not so good a place because that’s when you’re most vulnerable. You know, it’s like the “Life is Good” T-shirts. Don’t wear that. Life is good in the Lord, but not in the worldly sense of that. This can be a real danger when there’s no trial or testing. This is how God builds character and perseverance in us. This is how, afterward, these things yield a peaceable fruit of righteousness in us. That’s what’s working out in us. But if we can say, “Well, I’m not in a period of trial,” that’s when you have to keep your guard most up. That’s when we turn more to earthly comforts and earthly things to try to find happiness rather than Christ. The reality is that when we are being buffeted, we are looking to the Lord more. It shouldn’t have to be that way, but that’s just how life goes. If you’re in a good place today, thank the Lord for that—there is nothing wrong with that. If you’re in a place where you’re saying, “God gives me good gifts to enjoy in this life,” I don’t want to paint the picture that this life is miserable for the Christian. This life is not miserable for us. We are the most fulfilled, happy people. That’s why Paul says, “I can rejoice in suffering.” We know who we belong to; we know where we’re going. We have that can’t be taken. We live in that joy no matter which way we’re tried and tested. 

It’s kind of like my father-in-law saying the Russian Christians were concerned about Americans for years: “How do you do it with so much prosperity? How do you stay focused on the Lord?” That’s a real challenge, isn’t it? You have persecuted countries like my friend in Turkey who has to carry around an AR as a pastor because people may come in and bomb the church. That really is a story. You have to make a decision: “Am I going to go to church today at the risk of death?” In America, it’s a far different thing: “Am I going to go to the soccer game today or to the beach or water skiing?” See the challenge in that? I don’t think riches are easy. I think that’s the delusion of it. I think riches actually make for a hard life if you’re full of everything. That’s why Jesus said, “How hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” It’s not that riches are bad—everything comes from the Lord. The problem is that it’s so much more difficult for somebody who has everything to think they need anything, and that’s the challenge with that.

Q: So you’d say the greatest challenge for the American church right now is realizing we have a need?

A: I think it’s been the challenge for a long time, but I think the culture is bringing us into a situation where you can’t fence it much anymore. I think it’s going to get more so like that. You can’t be lukewarm. You have to state your claim, and I think that’s healthy. I don’t want to go through any of that. I don’t want to go through what Daniel went through. I don’t want to be put in a position where they set it up so that the law of my God is set up against the government, and now I’m faced with that scenario. But that’s why that chapter is there: to encourage you. He can change the hearts of people. He overrules the circumstance. He’s that sovereign. By the end, the whole nation might be bowing to the Lord. I mean, that’s the encouragement of that. We have to live by faith in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. That’s why I think Philippians 4 is important: “I’ve learned in every situation I am to be content. If I’m full and I have lots, I’ve learned to be content. If I have everything taken away and I’m in prison and people have to bring me my food, like Paul, I’ve learned to be content.” That’s the mystery of sanctification.