What is Your Jordan? – Loud Cry International
The Derangement Syndrome That Matters: A Father’s Heart and the Grace That Saves
By Ps Ron Kelly
"If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven..."
A Word Before We Begin
I’ll lean a little bit on some Bible commentary found in the book Prophets and Kings today. You may value that as exceptionally well-stated commentary. I believe it’s special and inspired—but not everybody here will necessarily think that. What I will share from it today will only glorify the glory that God is due.
The Paradigm Shift That Changed Everything
About 35 years ago, I had the biggest paradigm shift of my life.
The biggest paradigm shift I had was discovering that Jesus loved me—that He would have died just for me.
But a close second came a few days later, when a tiny baby was laid in my arms. My firstborn. I was never the same.
I preached a sermon once on Protestantism and Republicanism. We’re living in an interesting age where people identify through partisan politics before they identify through truth. That’s dangerous. I don’t want to offend anyone here today—but if I do, it’ll be in the name of gospel truth.
That’s just how I’ve chosen to live.
Every once in a while, I’ll address issues in the political sphere. I believe God has a moral voice that must be interjected into secular dialogues, even legislative and legal ones. The church is not to sit on the sideline and be silent while the world muddles around for a sense of high ground.
But when I do that, someone will inevitably say I have “Trump derangement syndrome”—or Biden, or Obama, or Clinton. Let me be clear: I don’t have presidential derangement syndrome with any of them.
What I do have is parental derangement syndrome.
Once that baby—bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh—was laid on my chest, my mindset clicked over into fatherhood. And it’s never been able to come back. Praise the Lord.
Go and Learn What This Means
Years ago in India, I was reading through Matthew’s Gospel. In chapter 9, Jesus said: “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
A day or two later, I read the exact same verse in Matthew 12.
I thought to myself: There are over 23,000 verses in the Old Testament. Why did Jesus quote this one twice in His short ministry? And why did Matthew write it down both times?
The odds are incredibly low—unless it matters more than we think.
We call him the Good Samaritan. But Jesus wasn’t trying to identify who was “good”—He was identifying who your neighbor is. And here’s the truth: Theological orthodoxy is not the greatest testing truth.
The greatest testing truth is this: Does your heart get plucked by the plight of suffering humanity?
If the answer is no, you could be an expert on the state of the dead, the sanctuary, the Sabbath, the Spirit of Prophecy, and the Second Coming—and still end up amongst the devils.
We are here to represent the character of God. And the character of God understands that human compassion trumps just about everything else.
We live in a weird world where truth and grace are pitted against each other. To all my Seventh-day Adventist friends: John chapter 1 says Jesus came full of grace and truth—not full of truth and grace.
There’s a big difference. Until a person knows how much they are loved, they cannot bear the truth about themselves.
In the very first chapter of Steps to Christ (page 12), it says: Jesus never censured human weakness.
Moses: A Man With a Lifelong Problem
By the time this story is done, I’ll be deductive and just tell you my point:
Moses had a lifelong problem. It was impatience.
And Moses was snared by that lifelong snare right at the very end—and it cost him entry into the Promised Land.
If you’re battling lifelong challenges today, take heart. So did he. If you want victory, take heart. He found it.
God will not leave you to the artifices of Satan or the hereditary dynamics of your DNA or your upbringing. Jesus has the ability to finish what He started. He’s the Master Workman, and we will be His masterpiece throughout all eternity—showing what He can do with a mess.
The Results That Seem Almost in Vain
Here’s what Patriarchs and Prophets (page 471) says about Moses just before he dies:
“Notwithstanding all that God had wrought for him, notwithstanding his own prayers and labors, only two of the adults in that vast army that left Egypt had been found so faithful that they could enter the Promised Land.”
Then this sentence: “But as Moses reviewed the results of his labors, his life of trial and sacrifice seemed to have been almost in vain.”
If you’ve gotten to a phase in your life where you look back and wonder what you did with it—you’re just like everybody else who’s taken a few minutes to wonder if any of it added up to anything.
The Rash Act and the Long Journey
Exodus 2. Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. He looks this way and that, sees no one, strikes the Egyptian, and hides him in the sand.
The next day, two Hebrews are fighting. Moses says, “Why are you striking your companion?” And the man replies: “Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian?”
Moses was afraid. He fled.
Signs of the Times, February 19, 1880:
“Moses was too hasty. He supposed the people understood that God had raised him up to deliver them. But the Lord did not design to accomplish His work by warfare, as Moses thought, but by His own mighty power, that the glory might be ascribed to Him alone.”
It was a rash act. Wrong decision. Good motivation—but not God’s plan.
What followed? Forty years in the wilderness of Midian. Seemed like a great loss of time to shortsighted mortals. But infinite wisdom placed him there to develop his honesty, his forethought, his faithfulness, his caregiving—even his ability to identify with the needs of dumb animals.
Here’s the problem: Moses hadn’t had stern realities of life yet. He’d had luxury, privilege, pomp, and blessing.
So God sent him to the backside of the desert to learn honesty—which is the journey of learning to see in yourself the things you might not like to see.
If there’s one thing that ruins most fellowships, most churches, most marriages, most parent-child relationships, it’s someone who’s fundamentally dishonest.
The Devil Knows Your Back Door
Forty years later. Moses is now the meekest man on the planet.
But his sister Miriam dies. The wandering is wearing on him. And suddenly—the stream stops flowing.
Numbers 20. No water. The people complain—again. After the Red Sea, after the plagues, after manna for 40 years, after a cloud by day and fire by night—they still say: “Why have you brought us to this wretched place?”
Moses and Aaron fall on their faces. The glory of the Lord appears.
God says: “Take the rod. Assemble the congregation. Speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water.”
Paul tells us that rock was Christ. Moses had already smitten the rock once—back at the beginning. That was the smitten Savior, struck once for the sins of the world.
Now? Just speak. The door of access is open. Talk to the Rock.
But Moses—exhausted, grieving, fed up—gathers the assembly and says:
“Listen now, you rebels! Shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?”
And he struck the rock twice.
God, in His goodness, still sent water. But then He said:
“Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”
I’m not sure any harder words were uttered by God since the expulsion from Eden.
The Plea That Broke Heaven’s Heart
Deuteronomy 3. Moses pleads:
“O Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness. Let me cross over and see the fair land.”
Verse 26: “But the Lord was angry with me on your account and would not listen. The Lord said to me, ‘Enough! Speak to me no more about this matter.’”
One commentary says the original Hebrew reads as if God was beside Himself.
Can you imagine what it was like for God to create the world in six days, knowing He would give it to Adam and Eve? And then to watch them trade it away?
Moses robbed the people of a great lesson that day. He made it look like he was the one bringing water. He robbed them of knowing they could talk to God directly.
But Moses knew God is merciful. So he pleaded.
And God—the Father who knows how to give good gifts—had to say, “We’re not talking about this anymore.”
What Moses Saw on the Mountain
Deuteronomy 34. Moses goes up Mount Nebo to Pisgah.
And the Lord showed him all the land. But here’s the thing: from Pisgah, you cannot see Dan. You cannot see Naphtali. You cannot see Ephraim, Manasseh, Judah, or the western sea.
So I believe God gave Moses a vision.
I believe He showed Moses not just the land as it was, but the land as it could be. He showed him the future of Israel. And if you value the commentary in Prophets and Kings—He showed him Jesus coming as a baby, rejected as King, dying on a cross, lying in a tomb, rising from the grave, ascending into heaven.
And Moses watched.
And when the angels cried, “Lift up your heads, O gates!” Moses saw himself in that retinue of welcomers.
God answered his prayer. Moses was the first person raised from the dead in the Bible.
On the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses stood with Jesus. And when Satan claimed Moses’ body, arguing that “dust to dust” was final, Jesus didn’t enter into accusation. He simply said: “The Lord rebuke you.”
What Moses couldn’t do by crossing the physical Jordan, he did by crossing the Jordan into eternity.
This Is the Glory of God
When God has to tell us no, it’s because He has something better.
How many things in your life haven’t turned out like you thought? Does the devil show up in your older years to see if the back door is still open?
He did with Moses.
Did you stumble? So did Moses.
But God knew this man loved Him. Moses humbled his heart. And he was forgiven.
All the love flowing in the human heart from its beginning has had its source in God.
If you don’t understand that Jesus came full of grace and truth, you don’t understand the gospel.
On the cross, just like Samson—who grabbed two pillars, grace and truth, and brought the house down on himself so that we could live forever—Jesus did the same.
Friends, we better be the most gracious people on the face of the planet. The most loving. The most lovable.
We cannot abandon the moral waymarks. But we better understand what Jesus said:
“Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does the Lord require? To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
Everything we teach matters. The sanctuary matters. We are living in earth’s final chapters of opportunity for grace.
But our real business is to make sure the world can taste and see that the Lord is good.
May God bless us. And may we desire to go with Moses to the better land.
Amen.