https://pastorrichbitterman.substack.com/

Pastor Rich Bitterman, 742 Buttermilk Spring Road, Galena, MO (2025)

11/14/2025

This flight got a little wild. Here’s the seating chart:

Row 1: Charles Spurgeon, Larry the Cucumber, and Mr. Rogers

Row 2: Moses and John MacArthur

Row 3: Corrie ten Boom, the Ark Encounter mascot, and a heavy-metal drummer

Row 4: C. S. Lewis and Bob Ross painting Aslan

Alright… where are you sitting?

11/14/2025

Why Do 60 Percent of Young Americans Say They Prefer Socialism?

Did you know that surveys now show more than half of young adults in America hold a favorable view of socialism? Think about that. A majority of the next generation, the sons and daughters of the most prosperous free society in human history, now lean toward a system that starved millions, shattered families, and crushed entire nations under the weight of centralized power.

Another study reports that nearly two out of every three adults under thirty believe the government should control major industries. Others believe socialism is fairer, kinder, more compassionate than the system that lifted billions out of poverty around the world.

The statistics land like a cold wind across this country.
Whispers rise in classrooms where ideas bend young minds.
Conversations shift in dorm lounges long after midnight.

A quiet pulse moves through social feeds and city streets where the next generation imagines a different way of life.

A shift in the soul of a nation usually begins quietly.
This one has begun loudly.

And the church, for many years, left the microphone on the table while everyone else kept talking.

--A Story That Vanishes When No One Tells It--

Not long ago I stood in a sanctuary at a former church and asked the simplest questions. When was this building first opened? Who preached on that first Sunday? How many came? What did they believe? What did they hope for?

The room fell still.
Pews creaked as people shifted.
No one spoke.

Because no one knew.

The eyewitnesses had passed. Their memories vanished with them. The papers were never written. The stories were lost. A church that forgets its own beginnings soon forgets other beginnings too. How faith grew. How truth spread. How the Spirit moved. How God preserved His people.

Years before Christ saved me, I walked into a home to give an estimate for my business. The house felt still, almost hushed. An elderly woman sat near the window, her posture straight, her eyes steady. As we spoke, she lifted her sleeve and revealed the numbers inked into her arm.

A Holocaust survivor.
Not a story in a book.
A story breathing in front of me.

She spoke quietly about hunger, loss, and the terrible power of a government that demanded everything and crushed those who resisted. I stood frozen, listening to a warning etched into living skin.

That moment branded itself on my heart. When the last witnesses fade, the caution they carry fades too. And when the caution fades, the next generation begins to imagine that the systems which once brought suffering might somehow bring salvation.

A nation works the same way.

When the last grandparents die who fled communism, the story dies with them.
When the last Cuban exile passes away, the warnings fade.
When the last Venezuelan whispers their testimony to an empty room, the hunger they endured becomes an abstract idea instead of a real scar.

Silence is a seed.
Given long enough, it grows into something dangerous.

--The Church That Burned with Holy Fire--

Acts 5 opens like a gust of wind in a quiet house. Believers flooded the streets of Jerusalem. Some carried the dust of faraway regions on their sandals. Some wore clothes stitched in other tongues. All of them gathered in a single heart and a single soul. It felt as if heaven bent low over the rooftops.

People sold land and opened their homes and shared their food because grace taught their hands to open. They looked at the weak with tenderness. They looked at the poor with compassion. They looked at their possessions as tools for generosity rather than trophies of self.

This was koinonia.
A fellowship shaped by changed hearts.
A movement that rose from love, not law.

It felt nothing like socialism.
Socialism demands.
Koinonia offers.

The difference is not subtle.
The difference is everything.

Peter stood before Ananias and said words that echo across continents and centuries. “While it remained, was it not your own? After it was sold, was it not in your control?” The early church knew what modern theories forget: private property is not a sin. Private property is a stewardship from God. When the Spirit moves, generosity flows freely, but it flows from the heart, not from the fist of a government official.

Communism says the state owns what you earned.
Christianity says God owns you and transforms what you give.

The early believers did not redistribute wealth because leaders commanded it. They did it because Christ changed them. Their giving was free, joyful, voluntary, and full of worship.

No ideology can replicate the miracle of a redeemed heart.

--The Mask That Cracked in the Middle of Worship--

Ananias and Sapphira stepped into that sanctuary with smiles that did not reach their souls. Their hearts were painted for an audience. They wanted the applause that Barnabas received. They wanted the glow of admiration. They wanted their names whispered as examples of generosity.

They laid their offering at the apostles’ feet. The room watched. The masks glimmered in the light.

But under the surface lived a different story.
A story of calculation.
A story of deceit.
A story of the quiet rot that forms when a person loves image more than obedience.

Their judgment struck quickly. The thud of bodies sent a chill across the church. The story traveled through the city like a warning etched in stone. God purifies His people. He refuses to let hypocrisy settle where His Spirit dwells.

The church felt the fear of the Lord.
The city felt the weight of it.
Holiness always ripples outward.

--A Street Filled with Shadows and Cries for Mercy--

Outside the walls, the apostles walked through narrow corridors and busy markets. People lined the roads. A mother lifted her sick child. A man battled an unclean spirit. The desperate pressed forward as if the touch of Peter’s shadow could undo years of sorrow.

And it did.
Bodies healed.
Tormented minds cleared.
The lame stood.
The weary breathed with strength again.

Imagine the sound.
A shout from one corner of the street.
A gasp from another.
A wave of praise rising through the alleys.

The council in Jerusalem felt their grip slipping. Their robes no longer inspired awe. Their authority no longer held weight. Crowds followed fishermen instead of scholars. Truth grew louder than tradition.

So the rulers locked the apostles in prison.

Yet morning came, and the prison stood empty. Guards at their posts. Doors still locked. Chains still hanging. Only the prisoners were gone. Someone ran breathless into the council chamber with news that froze the room.

They were preaching again.
In the temple.
In broad daylight.
In the same place the council forbade.

Courage always unsettles the comfortable.

--The Same Pattern, Reborn in Our Day--

The struggle in Jerusalem is the struggle in every nation. The human heart resists truth. Power resists surrender. Pride resists repentance. And when the church softens its voice, other voices rush into the silence.

Universities teach theories that sound compassionate but fail to account for human sin.
Social media floods the young with simplified slogans about equality.
Celebrities praise systems they have never lived under.
Teachers frame collectivism as kindness.
Activists speak about fairness without acknowledging the cost authoritarian systems demand.

Young adults have grown up immersed in these voices.
Their influencers carry more weight than their pastors.
Their professors shape their worldview more than their parents.
Their screens are full of stories that mock capitalism and glorify socialism.

The church did not teach them another way.
The church did not warn them about the hunger in Venezuela or the cells of Cuba or the broken families in Eastern Europe.
The church did not open Scripture and show them why coercion contradicts the gospel.
The church stayed quiet because it feared controversy.
And silence preached a sermon all its own.

One generation rises with open hands waiting to receive a government strong enough to take everything and merciful enough to give back only what it chooses.

--What Scripture Shows When We Let It Speak--

The Bible carries a wisdom that exposes every flawed system.

Exodus warns against coveting and taking what belongs to another. Socialism begins with coveting. It ends with taking.

Proverbs honors diligence and stewardship. Collectivism erases those distinctions and crushes excellence.

Paul tells the Thessalonians to work quietly and eat their own bread. Central planning erases the connection between work and reward and calls it compassion.

Acts 5 affirms private property.
Second Corinthians calls generosity cheerful and voluntary.
First Samuel warns what happens when kings gather too much power and place heavy burdens on their people.

Every page carries the truth: systems built by human hands will eventually betray the people who trust in them.

Because human beings need more than food distribution and standardized wages. They need redemption. They need the Spirit. They need a Savior who changes hearts so deeply that generosity rises like a well from within.

No political system can create that change.
Christ alone can.

--The King Who Will End Every Failed Government--

A day is coming when the sky will open like a torn curtain and the true King will return. Not from a political party. Not from a ballot box or especially not from a manifesto. He will come with scars that shine brighter than any crown on earth.

The King who comes will carry a rule untouched by corruption.
Justice will flow from Him with perfect balance.
Compassion will pour out freely without the cold calculations of policy.
Power in His hands will lift the broken rather than feed itself.

All the governments of this world will stand like cracked statues before a blazing sun. They will cast long shadows for a moment, then collapse under the brightness of His glory.

Until that day, we live in the tension.
We preach.
We warn.
We teach the next generation what Scripture says about the human heart and the God who can heal it.

Because a nation does not fall when socialism becomes popular.
A nation falls when the church forgets how to speak.

The apostles stood in the temple courts after a night in prison and filled Jerusalem with their doctrine. They carried bruises on their backs and fire in their voices.

We may not carry their bruises yet.
But if we stay silent, our children will carry chains.

Speak now.
Teach now.
Tell the story while there is still time.

Christ is risen.
Christ reigns.
Christ will return.
And until His feet touch the earth again, we stand in the temple of our generation and testify.

11/13/2025

Where Angels Pointed and Kings Bowed

A weathered carpenter’s hand grips a chisel beside a pile of straw as golden light pours across the wood, symbolizing Joseph’s labor and the foreshadowing of Christ’s cross.

The room was still. Night pressed against the shutters. A half-built cradle leaned in the corner, the scent of cedar hanging in the air.

Joseph woke to a voice that had split his sleep apart. The dream felt alive, brighter than any torch. A presence had spoken his name with weight and authority.

Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. The child within her is from the Holy Spirit.

He sat upright, palms open on the blanket, the heartbeat of the universe thudding in his chest. Outside, the first rooster began to stir. Inside, the silence felt holy. A virgin with child. A womb filled by breath, not flesh. The eternal moving into time, unseen and unstoppable. The promise of God had taken shape in the belly of a girl.

That morning, he made his choice. He took her home. He carried the mystery, not understanding it but believing it.

--The Miracle Announced by Heaven--

God refused to whisper. He painted the sky with light.

An angel appeared to Mary. Another to Joseph. A host to shepherds who watched their flocks. The heavens opened like a wound of brightness. The earth, for the first time since Eden, heard a perfect chorus again.

Prophets had spoken it long before they could see it. Isaiah said a virgin would conceive. Micah named the town where it would happen. Then came the night when every syllable breathed life. In Bethlehem, the prophecy became heartbeat and skin.

And as if Scripture were not enough, a new star climbed the sky. It burned like a torch that refused to stay still. It shimmered over deserts and cities, moving as if it knew its destination. It did. The wise men saw it first. They followed its pull through wind and wilderness, guided by light only heaven could command.

When they finally saw it rest above a house, their throats filled with laughter. God had written His announcement in the constellations.

--The Names That Tell the Story--

When the child came, Joseph named Him as instructed: Jesus. It was a common name for uncommon work. It meant the Lord saves. The world would one day say it in every language, on every continent.

Yet another name wrapped around that tiny life: Emmanuel. God with us. Not above us. Not beyond reach. With us in dust and hunger. With us in tears and blood. With us in the fragile cry of a newborn who made the galaxies.

He was flesh that carried eternity. A king who would learn to walk. The Word that had become a whisper in a mother’s arms.

--Gifts that Spoke of a Cross--

When the visitors arrived, the child was no longer in a stable. The air was thick with incense and travel. They bowed low before Him, robes gathering the dust of the floor.

Gold gleamed in the firelight, fit for a king.
Frankincense filled the room, rising like prayer toward the ceiling.
Myrrh waited in the shadows, bitter and strange, the scent of burial.

The gifts told the truth no one else yet understood. This King had come to die. The cradle and the cross were carved from the same wood.

--The God Who Rules Light and Thought--

Every element of the story moves under a single hand. Angels appear at the right hour. Stars travel along invisible strings. Dreams arrive like letters sealed by the Spirit. The same voice that spoke galaxies into orbit enters the thoughts of a carpenter while he sleeps.

The One who set Orion in the sky now directs the small corners of Bethlehem. He bends the path of planets and the mind of men with equal precision. Nothing too vast, nothing too hidden. The light that governs the universe now flickers in a child’s eye.

That is the God revealed in this birth. Infinite power clothed in frail humanity. Majesty wearing a carpenter’s name.

--The Gospel that Divides and Seeks--

The birth of Christ is not gentle for everyone. Light reveals what it touches. Herod felt the tremor in his throne. He sent soldiers instead of shepherds. His world was too full of himself to make room for another king. The same star that led the wise men to worship drove Herod into rage.

Self-worship cannot stand before Christ. The proud sense the threat long before they understand it.

But those who seek, find. The men from the East had read the heavens and left everything behind. They crossed dry lands, carrying questions heavier than their gold. When the light disappeared, they kept walking. When it reappeared, they rejoiced like men who had seen hope itself rise from the dust. Their search ended not with an argument, but with adoration.

No one reaches the manger without being led. God begins the journey long before we take the first step.

--The Only Right Response--

They saw the child. They fell to the ground.

That is the heart of worship.

Their knees pressed into dirt. Their gifts opened. Their silence became prayer. They called Him King not with words, but with posture. They gave what they carried, then they gave themselves.

Worship is not emotion. It is surrender.

Gold may honor Him as King. Incense may rise toward Him as God. Myrrh may wait for the day His body will need it. Yet the truest gift is the life that bows before Him, the will that yields to His hand.

You may not have treasure, but you have years. You may not have incense, but you have voice. You may not have myrrh, but you have breath. Lay these at His feet.

That is Christmas. The bending of the soul before a Savior who once lay in straw.

--Light in Flesh--

Look again at the scene. The night is heavy with silence. The wind presses through cracks in the stable wall. A star waits above, patient and sure.

Inside, the mother sings a lullaby. The carpenter keeps watch. The baby stirs. His eyes open to the world He made.

Every beam of light finds its source in Him. Every atom holds together by His will. Yet here He lies, wrapped in the weight of our world, small enough to hold yet too great to measure.

This is how God entered our story. Not as thunder. Not as fire. But as light wrapped in flesh.

And His name is Jesus.

11/12/2025

God Spoke Over the Ozarks Last Night

It began like a whisper of color at the edge of the sky.
A faint green shimmer, thin as breath on glass, brushed above the pines.

The wind was still. The cattle were quiet. Every sound in the valley seemed to hush, as if the earth itself was waiting.

Then the heavens opened.

Light poured over the Ozark hills, rolling in silent waves of green and violet and blood-red. It spilled across the tops of the cedars and danced on the water far below, turning Table Rock Lake into a mirror of the unearthly. The gravel beneath my boots glittered with frost. Even the dog stopped barking. I could feel the cold air press against my chest, heavy with something larger than weather.

The northern lights had come to Missouri.

The sky moved like a living thing, folding and unfolding, bending around unseen hands. The colors cried out with mysteries only God could answer.

--When God Speaks Without Explaining--

I saw Job in my mind, sitting in the dust. His body broken, his heart emptied of answers. His friends had lectured him, his prayers had echoed back in silence. And then God came.

With a storm.

The Lord spoke out of the whirlwind and asked,
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?”
“Have you commanded the morning since your days began?”

He did not tell Job why he suffered. He showed him Who holds the stars.

Last night, many in the Ozarks felt the same Voice still speaking. It had no sound, yet it carried power that could split the heart clean open. The colors over the ridge were declaration. Every wave of light seemed to say, You are small, and I am not.

--The Question We Keep Asking--

We still ask Job’s question.
Why do the innocent suffer? Why does grief visit the godly and famine find the faithful? Why does the child die while the criminal thrives?

We press God for explanations. He gives us Himself.

He knows what information cannot heal.
He knows the soul needs wonder more than it needs logic.
A glimpse of glory can still a thousand arguments.

Job wanted a courtroom. God gave him a cathedral. The walls were made of thundercloud and lightning. The pulpit was the horizon. The sermon was creation itself, blazing with power no man could tame. And Job finally understood that peace is not found in answers but in the presence of the Answerer.

--The Mystery That Is Mercy--

After the storm, God took Job on a walk through His world. He spoke of lions and ravens, of mountain goats giving birth, of the wild ox and the ostrich that crushes her own eggs. He pointed to the war horse pawing the ground, nostrils flaring with courage, and the eagle circling in the heights.

The message was simple: My ways are mysterious, but they are also kind.

He feeds the lion its prey.
He knows when the deer goes into labor.
He teaches the hawk to fly south before winter.

Nothing in this world breathes apart from His care. Every heartbeat in the forest and every fish beneath the ice depends on the same hand that flung Orion across the sky.

So if He governs creatures with that kind of tenderness, can He not govern our pain with purpose? The mystery is not evidence of cruelty. The mystery is mercy wearing a veil.

--The Sky That Preaches--

The colors above me deepened until the whole hillside glowed. The oaks stood black against the northern fire. For a moment it looked as though the ridge itself was burning. I stood still, tasting the cold, my heart pounding like a drum inside my coat.

I thought of the Behemoth and the Leviathan, those untamable beasts God spoke of to Job. I thought of how Job’s pride broke under the weight of that revelation. I could feel the same breaking begin in me.

Who am I to question the God who paints the night?
Who am I to call Him into account?

The One who commands the aurora does not answer to dust. He is not cruel. He is wild and holy and good. The One who feeds the raven has not forgotten me.

--What the Hills Taught Me--

I did not go inside until the light faded. The frost had thickened. The fields were white, the trees coated in silver. The stars returned to their quiet watch. But something in me had shifted.

I realized that faith is not built on explanations. It is born in the presence of majesty. The same voice that questioned Job still asks us, Can you grasp the mystery of the dawn?
And the right response is not an argument. It is awe.

If you are walking through sorrow, the question you carry may never find an earthly answer. But there is something better. There is a God who governs both galaxies and grief. He rules the light and the dark. He feeds the sparrow and names the storm.

The Ozark sky last night preached a sermon without a word. It told me that heaven’s silence is not absence. It is power held in patience. It told me that the One who made the lights still holds the world together, even when we cannot trace His ways.

--Today’s Truth--

The God who set the northern lights over the Ozark hills has never lost control of your life. He governs your sorrow and your joy with the same steady hand that guides the stars. His presence is not partial. His care is not careless. Look up. The heavens are still speaking.

11/11/2025

You are never more than one prayer away from the warmth of God’s face.

11/10/2025

The Creator’s First Cry

John 1:1-18

The air was thick with the smell of sheep and wet straw. A candle guttered in the corner of the stable, its small flame trembling in the dark.

Mary’s hands were trembling too. They rested around the wrinkled body of a newborn whose first cry had just sliced through the silence. Joseph knelt beside her, eyes wide with the fear of every father who knows he has seen too much.

Outside, Bethlehem murmured and shifted, but in that small room eternity had bent low and drawn breath.

The Word became flesh.

Flesh. A pulse, a cry, a fragile heartbeat under a mother’s palm.

John does not begin with shepherds or stars. He begins before all that. In the beginning was the Word. Before there was a sunrise or a mountain, before the first angel sang or the first seed cracked open, the Word already was.

He did not come from God like a messenger stepping out of a palace. He was with God. He was God.

The universe began with His voice. Galaxies spun out at His command. Every syllable of creation came from His mouth. Then, one day, that same Word took on skin and sinew and let Himself be carried into the world by a teenage girl.

--Before Time Began--

He was before Bethlehem, before Rome, before the first page of history. He never learned existence. He simply was. The Father could look at Him and say You. The Spirit could look and say You. Distinct, yet one. The mystery that shatters reason but steadies faith.

When John says the Word became flesh, he does not mean that God turned into something else. He means that God took on something more. The infinite wrapped Himself in limits. The One who spoke fire into the sun felt cold. The One who built the oceans tasted thirst. The Creator stepped into His own creation and became part of it.

--The Word Stood in Straw--

A woman groaned. A man prayed. A child wailed. That is how God came. The same hands that once shaped galaxies now gripped the finger of a carpenter. The mouth that ordered the stars now searched for milk.

The Word became flesh.

He had lungs that filled and emptied. He had skin that bruised. He had a heart that could break. He grew tired by noon, hungry by evening, and slept when His body gave out. He laughed. He sweated. He learned the way to the well.

The God who spoke from Sinai walked the streets of Nazareth and listened.

--Two Natures, One Christ--

He was not half of each, but whole in both. Fully God, fully man. His deity was not diluted by His humanity. His humanity was not swallowed by His deity. They met, not in mixture, but in mystery.

He remained what He had always been, even as He became what He had never been. He kept His glory, yet covered it in humility. He held the universe together while learning to walk. He governed the stars while borrowing bread.

He did not pretend to be human. He was human, down to the marrow. A real body with nerves that fired when the hammer struck His thumb. A real soul that wept when His friend died. He grew in wisdom and stature because His mind learned as ours must learn. He felt joy in His spirit and sorrow that almost killed Him. The Word became what we are, yet without sin.

--The One Who Made Man Became a Man--

He invented lungs, then borrowed a pair. He created the womb, then entered one. He wrote the law, then kept it. He crafted the tree, then was nailed to it.

No one else could save us. The work was too great for man alone, too personal for God at a distance. So the God-Man came. Only He could stand between holiness and guilt, because He was both holiness and man. He became what we are so that we could share what He is.

He descended not by accident but by choice. Every breath on earth was a step downward, from throne to cradle, from cradle to cross, from cross to grave. Each step chosen. Each one love.

--The Descent of Christmas--

We talk about the “spirit of Christmas” as if it were warmth and generosity. But the true spirit of Christmas is descent. The Son of God lowering Himself beneath everyone else. The Shepherd becoming the Lamb.

He lived without wealth or privilege. He knew hunger, mockery, betrayal. He bore the weight of a world that would not recognize Him. Yet His descent did not end with birth. The manger led to a carpenter’s bench, the bench to a road lined with jeers, the road to a hill where nails waited.

The Word who made flesh became the Word pierced by it.

On the cross He cried the words we were born to cry: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Heaven closed its door. Darkness fell. The body of God sagged against the wood He had spoken into being. Then silence.

The immortal died.

Three days later, the air stirred again. Breath returned. The Word walked out of the grave still wrapped in flesh, still scarred. And He has never taken it off.

--The Glory We Behold--

John says, We have seen His glory. Not the blinding fire of Sinai but the quiet glow of mercy. Glory that stoops. Glory that touches lepers and lifts children. Glory that bleeds.

He came not to crush us but to carry us. Not to condemn the guilty but to call them home. The same Word who created light now speaks it into darkened hearts.

--Learning the Shape of His Humility--

If we truly grasp the incarnation, pride collapses. To believe that God took the lowest place is to lose every excuse for climbing over others. The story that began in straw leads to service.

“Let this mind be in you,” Paul wrote, “which was also in Christ Jesus.” The mind that counts obedience greater than comfort. The mind that bends to wash another’s feet. The mind that delights to take the lowest seat at the table and call it grace.

The Word became flesh, and that means the highest glory the world has ever seen wore work clothes and carried a towel.

--Behold the Miracle Again--

This is Christmas. The thunder of heaven tucked into a cry. The Creator cradled in His creation. The infinite Word wrapped in skin.

He has entered the dust, and He is not leaving it behind. The God who once lay in straw still wears a body and still bears the scars.

So light your candles. Sing your songs. Give your gifts. But remember the miracle under it all.

The One who spoke you into being has stepped into your story.
He is still flesh.
Still faithful.
Still full of grace and truth.

11/09/2025

May Christ be exalted from every pulpit this morning!!!

11/08/2025

The TikTok That Should Break Every Christian’s Heart

The sound starts small.

A baby’s cry, thin and uneven, bleeding through a speakerphone somewhere inside a church office.

The receptionist pauses, glancing toward a muted hallway of framed mission statements and coffee steam.

“Hello? I’m sorry to bother you,” the voice says. “My baby hasn’t eaten since last night. I ran out of formula. Could you help me? Please. She’s only two months old.”

For a breath, there’s silence. Then the trained tone of policy returns.

“I’m sorry. We only assist church members.”

The baby’s wail pierces again. The call ends.

That’s the moment the world heard.
And it kept hearing.

A woman began phoning random churches.
She played the cry of a hungry baby through the line and recorded every response.
Church after church turned her away.

A mosque in Charlotte said, “Yes, we can help.”

The clips spread across the internet like a modern parable.

What are we seeing in these calls?
A stunt? Maybe.
A setup? Possibly.
A mirror? Absolutely.

John wrote his first letter to churches who had grown familiar with truth but faint in love. He said the sign of real faith is not eloquence or knowledge or pedigree. It is love that moves.

“We know that we have passed from death into life, because we love the brothers.” (1 John 3:14)

That love is not abstract. It is not a doctrine or an emotion. It acts.

John writes, “Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” (v. 18)

The girl on the phone did not need a doctrinal statement. She needed a bottle, filled and warm, placed in trembling hands by someone who believed that love requires motion.

--The Church That Forgot How to Bleed--

John says there are three marks of genuine new birth:
Obedience to God.
Love for His people.
Belief in the truth about His Son.

In this passage, he holds the second mark up to the light.

To love, he says, is to give. To hate is to take.

Cain was the first man to choose hatred. His story drips through human history. He brought an offering, but his heart belonged to envy. When his brother’s sacrifice pleased God, jealousy festered until it erupted into slaughter.

John says the spirit of Cain still walks the earth. It fills hearts that cannot rejoice in another’s righteousness. It hardens men who prefer reputation to mercy. It stands in pulpits and turns off phones.

The knife has changed shape, but the wound is the same.

“Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.” (v. 15)

Hatred does not always scream.
Sometimes it simply hangs up.

--The Formula of Faith--

Abel’s offering cost him blood. Cain’s cost him convenience.
The church is always choosing between the two.

There are sanctuaries where light pours across spotless carpet while the food pantry sits locked behind a steel door. Committees meet to discuss stewardship while mothers cry in parking lots.

That is not caution. It is Cain.

John points us instead to the pattern of Christ: “By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us.” (v. 16)

Love is the giving impulse.
It moves toward need even when that movement costs something precious.

He laid aside His garments to wash feet.
He laid aside His life to wash souls.

The church is meant to carry that same pulse. To lay aside. To pour out. To risk. To give.

A congregation that cannot give formula will never carry a cross.

--The Sermon from the Phone--

The woman with the recordings is not a prophet, but her videos carry the weight of one. Each clip is a tiny judgment seat.
Her phone has become a pulpit.
Her question is a sermon.
And the world is taking notes on our theology of love.

Isaiah once spoke to a people who sang psalms while the poor starved outside their gates. The Lord answered them:

“Is not this the fast that I choose, to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house?” (Isaiah 58:6–7)

God’s people have always been tempted to substitute ritual for compassion. We confuse attendance with obedience, giving with generosity, policy with righteousness. But the test has never changed. The hungry still cry out. Heaven still listens for our answer.

--The Question Everyone Asks--

Was she lying? Was it real?
Maybe not. Maybe she faked the cry. Maybe it was all performance.

Yet love does not begin by cross-examining the suffering.

Christ fed crowds who would betray Him the next day.
He healed lepers who would forget His name.
He gave to those who could never repay.

If we wait for certainty, we will never show compassion.

The Samaritan on the road did not ask the beaten man for proof of identity. He saw a need and bound the wound.
He did what the priest would not.

The question is not whether she lied.
The question is whether we still love enough to risk being deceived.

--The Judgment We Forgot--

Jesus told His disciples how the world will be sorted.

“I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink.” (Matthew 25:42)

They will protest. They will say, “Lord, when did we see You?”
And He will say, “When you ignored the least of these, you ignored Me.”

Every unanswered call is a test of what we truly believe about that passage.

The voice on the phone was not Emma’s alone. It was Christ’s.
And we were too busy to recognize Him.

--When Love Costs Something--

John drives his point home with one question that leaves no place to hide:

“If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17)

That is not hyperbole. It is anatomy.
The absence of generosity is the evidence of spiritual death.

Love cannot survive behind glass. It breathes only when it gives.

--To the Ones Who Still Answer--

Some still do.
The quiet saints who keep grocery cards in their glovebox.
The widow who slips twenty-dollar bills into envelopes without return addresses.
The pastor who meets strangers at midnight beside the Walmart formula aisle.

The world may never see them.
But the Father does.

John says, “By this we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him.” (v. 19)

The one who loves need not fear judgment.
The evidence is already on record.

--The Call that Keeps Ringing--

The church has a thousand programs, a thousand plans, a thousand policies. But heaven’s question still comes as a single sound:

A baby crying in the dark.

That sound is not politics.
It is not manipulation.
It is a reminder.

We are known not by our statements, but by our response.

The next time the phone rings, may someone answer.
With bread. With bottles. With tears.
With love that looks like the cross.

Then the world will see something holy again.
And maybe, for the first time in a long time, the sound that echoes through the house of God will not be silence, but life.

The church is full of programs. We stock food pantries, fund outreach, load boxes for the poor. And thank God for every spoonful offered in His name. But somewhere along the way, we learned to love efficiency more than people. We fed the need but forgot the face. It is easy to give bread. It is harder to kneel beside the hungry and ask for their name. That baby on the phone is not a case number. Her mother is not a task to be managed. They are image-bearers, fearfully made, waiting for the body of Christ to act like a body with hands and feet. Jesus did not send aid from a distance. He came close enough to bleed. If we will not, then whatever we are doing…it isn’t love.

Pastor Rich Bitterman

11/14/2025

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