Covenant Lament

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Glad to be with you today. Oh, by the way, the number is 866-34-TRUTH. 866-348-7884.

866-348-7884. Years ago, I attended this church, and I played the piano there every week before the service started. The pastor had asked me to play as people were coming in, because it was a bit barn-like. And people were making a lot of noise, and he wanted to create a more reverent atmosphere there at the church. Beautiful sanctuary. Beautiful sanctuary. And there was a beautiful Steinway up at the front of the church. And I would go and practice that piano during the week just to go over what I was going to do and work out whatever frustrations. That's how I deal with a lot of things, to just go to the piano.

I'm sorry I don't have the caregiver keyboard here that I normally do on my radio program for caregivers. But as I walked in, I realized that I was not alone in that sanctuary. And there was a man in the back who would listen.

And he was the custodian of the church. Great guy. His name was Mike Hill.

Great guy. And I would stop sometimes and ask, Mike, is there anything particularly you want me to play? He said, no, no, just keep playing. Just keep playing. And so I would play some more.

And I'd ask them this repeatedly, Mike, tell me something. I'll play you the thing you want me to play. And he just loved the old hymns. He just loved for me to play. And so every week when I would show up, he would be back sweeping and putting the hymnals away and things such as that in this beautiful sanctuary. And it really drove home a lot because my father, before he became a minister, was working while in college as a custodian at a church.

And I've got a picture of my father sweeping the church. And so when I saw Mike, I would often just think of my dad and just the solitude and quiet of working in the house of God. I played for Mike's funeral two years ago because the shooter at the Covenant School there in Nashville shot Mike and killed him.

And I flew back to Tennessee from Montana and played one more time for Mike. They just released today the documents. It really wasn't one just manifesto of this shooter. I'm not going to mention her name. And I'm not going to call her a transgender. And if that offends some of you, this would be a good time to turn off the dial because I believe there is no such thing.

I reject the premise of it. Until 1994, it was called a gender identity disorder. And then in 2013, they changed it to be gender dysphoria, make it more palatable. And this individual, however disturbed they were, had been planning this for some time as far back as 2017 and went on a rampage. And she shot up that school. I remember seeing it on the news. I was in Montana. I was watching it on the news and I was watching SWAT teams go by where I used to go to Sunday school.

And it's still mind-numbing. I wrote a song. I had been working on a song up to that point and then when I kind of pulled that out and redid almost the whole song and called it Covenant Lament. And if you want to hear it, I think it's out on my website.

Certainly it's wherever you stream music. And Gracie sang it. And it just, our son was married in that sanctuary. And I played, like I said, every week in a beautiful church and Mike was there. And when I went to Mike's funeral, I remembered his words, just keep playing.

And the opening hymn was Great Is Thy Faithfulness. And I laid into it. I mean, I did not play this like a mourner.

I played it like a believer. Because Mike would have wanted me to do so. Why am I telling you this?

Because this is all in the news today as they've released the disturbing stuff that went on in this person's mind and nobody thought to say, hey, we got a problem here. And lives were forever shattered because of that. And I just, I wanted to, I'm not going to talk about her, I'm going to talk about Mike. I didn't know the other ones, and that's to my shame, but we had left Nashville by that time, but I knew Mike.

And I played for him often. And it's heartbreaking. This is what we're facing in our culture is more and more of this unbridled mental illness. And these people who talk about gender confusion, I don't see it. I don't see this as, and gender dysphoria, and all these things.

And if that offends you, tough. Deal with it. You don't have to listen to this program. Because I'm tired of mental illness being just shoved down our throats. I don't have to, I'm not misgendering anybody. They're misgendering themselves and asking me to play along.

And I don't want to do that anymore. Mike was shot defending kids. He was the first one shot.

First line of defense. And he was shot defending kids over somebody that was clearly disturbed and it was being enabled and pushed along by, I don't know. It certainly wasn't being stopped by a therapist and so forth. Are we going to speak with clarity into this? I'll probably get a lot of calls and letters. If you're going to complain about it, just send it to peter at the internet dot google. Because, you know, what do you want me to say? Either these people who are so filled with rage and dysfunction who would go into a church and shoot up and who would, I look at all these different individuals who are doing this and this is all just filled with all kinds of stuff. Either they're right or scripture's right. Now you tell me. And to me it's not even an issue.

But this is the place we're at and I'm not going to play along. She shot and killed Mike. I thought you all might want to know Mike. He really was a delightful man. Oh, he loved Gracie. He loved my wife. And every time she saw him and he saw her and he just bear hug her, he was a good man. And I miss him. And I was honored to play at his funeral because he told me, just keep playing.

Just keep playing. We're going to talk some more about this and other things if you want to weigh in. It's 866-34-TRUTH. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger.

Glad to be with you today. The number to call in if you want to be a part of the program, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. I'm going to touch base on this subject one more time and then we'll pivot to something else, I promise. My wife's a double amputee, both legs below the knee. I got to tell you that we have two sons and at no point did either of our sons, while growing up, come to me and say, Dad, I'd like to have one of my legs cut off so I can be like mom.

I have four grandchildren. At no point are they doing that. Had any of them done this, I would have immediately sought to get them proper help. Had any doctor or school teacher tried to facilitate said amputation behind my back, I would have reported them to the authorities and worse.

We would have done everything we can to throw these people, I mean, just to throw the book at them. How is that any different? When you are asking a medical doctor to add a functional part of your body so that you can identify something else, when you are willing to put chemicals into your body so that you can give the appearance of something else when you are harming yourself, how is this any different?

And how diabolical would it be for any person to affirm that kind of thing? To say, oh yeah, this is good. This is good. You are embracing your true self.

Amputate that foot off. Do you see how ridiculous this is? Do you see how foolish this is?

Do you see how wicked this is and what it can lead to when we enable this type of craziness, of insanity? The person who is struggling with it may indeed have very serious mental health problems. Clearly they do. But they are not being helped by being enabled and affirmed in their sickness. You don't affirm people in their sickness. You work to get them well.

You recognize that it is what it is and you get them the treatment they need so that they cannot be this way. But amputating a part of your body is irreversible. It ain't coming back.

And you can try all you want to spin that. Do you see the correlation there? And yet we are almost afraid to have that conversation. Just two days ago it was Trans Visibility Day. Trans Visibility Day.

I posted a picture of a bandit because that's the only trans I care about in that sense of the word that I want to make it visible. How is it a good thing if we are affirming people in their sickness? How is this a good thing? How are we ministering the truth of scripture by affirming people in their sickness? And embracing and welcoming and calling the sickness good. I understand sickness. I understand mental health issues. I understand all those kinds of things. But I would never call it good.

It's something to be treated. To help somebody walk through and to be healed and restored. God is not the author of confusion. Paul says that. He was talking about stuff in church and with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and so forth. And I understand that.

But the same principle still applies. God still isn't the author of confusion on any kind of level. And that's not the purpose of God. It's to bring peace, to bring clarity, to bring wisdom.

All of those things that He does. But when we start embracing dysfunction and wickedness and calling it good, how did we get here? How did we get here? How much more sin are we willing to tolerate? How much more are we willing to twist around so that everybody feels better? I have maintained with my audience for caregivers and with myself, it's not about feeling better. It's about being better. And even if we have to go through very painful things.

And I wanted to address that today from Lewis who called from Spartanburg last week. And he asked, is suffering required in our Christian life? And suffering is required in life. And I wanted to address that today because we talked about that, that God uses very painful things in our life to burn out things in us, to draw us closer to Him because He knows how deadly sin is. How deadly. I just don't think we realize how big a problem that sin is.

So therefore, how can we understand how magnificent the cross is if we have sinned? This 28-year-old woman was so mentally disturbed that for six years, she planned to shoot up a school and according to what I just saw on the news, her family members and her psychiatrist. I don't know, you have to go check that, but that's the initial stuff that I'm reading because they're finally releasing some of this stuff. And she festered on this hate and this dysfunction and this horrificness for years until the terrible day on March 27th, 2023 when she went in through that door that I've been in through so many times. And Mike was right there. And he yelled from 100 degrees and that brought the headmaster out and they set the alarm and you read the whole story of how the school was as prepared as you're going to be for something that crazy. And it's just horrific.

With clarity to this level of dysfunction and wickedness, not just the impairment of the individual, but all of those who would affirm that and say this is a good thing. Look at the rage that's going on around. People are acting like they're acting insane. It's like you just heard on the commercial with Barry McGuire saying people have taken crazy pills.

They're mad because Elon Musk is cutting things out of the budget and they don't like the way he's doing it so they're going to go firebomb a Tesla store or they're going up to scratch out on people's cars that people had nothing to do with this. They're prepared to go into this level of vitriol with the confidence of the gospel. We're going to talk some more about that and about Lewis' question when we come back from the break. This is Peter Rosenberg for Truth 866-348-7884. This is Truth Talk Live.

We'll be right back. Truth Talk Live! You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk. Glad to be with you today 866-34-Truth, 866-348-7884, 866-34-Truth.

Back to our last conversation real quick. When it came to affirming somebody in their desire to amputate and all those... We don't do that. I don't affirm that in that, oh, this is good, this is normal. I try to help fix it and not fix the amputation because you can't, but what we try to do is provide a prosthetic limb and that's what we've been doing for 20 years. We turned 20 this year at Standing With Hope. My wife envisioned this after giving up her legs and we have treated hundreds and hundreds of patients and built a lot of legs and they go walking and leaping and praising God. It's an extraordinary thing. I'll never forget our first patient came in and he had a prosthetic leg and he walked poorly, but we didn't stop there. We didn't say, hey, you're doing great, go.

It's all good. No, we examined him and we fixed the problem. What it is, is he found someone else's leg and he put it on to try to make it fit him, but it was too big and so he wrapped up the amputated limb in a bunch of cloth and tried to get a socket, but he couldn't bend the knee, so he couldn't ride public transportation or anything like that because it was stiff.

It's very dangerous to do that. We took that leg, threw it away, and built him a brand-new one that fit him perfectly, and he was running in the parking lot of the clinic there, this dusty clinic there in Accra, Ghana, and he was running that week. It was exceptional. We even tried to just give him two thumbs up and say, hey, yeah, you got a leg, you're doing great, buddy.

No, no, no, no. We made sure it fit properly. That is not affirming the fact that he had a leg and it's okay. That's saying, we can do this better. We recognize that you're an amputee.

The leg is gone, so let's give you a good prosthesis so that you can function. That's how you help people. That's how it's done.

You don't sit there and just celebrate. They're weird like that. They're called devotees, devotees. They love to just get real weird with amputees. We had a problem with that one time when we were at a convention with some stuff years ago, and I never heard of such a thing, but there are people like that that just got a fixation for that.

I mean, there's so many crazy things out there, and are we able to go into that with clarity? Well, my wife did, and she said, I'm going to put a prosthetic limb on my fellow amputees, and I'm going to point them to Jesus, knowing that that leg is only a temporary measure for this world, before God, but I'm going to tell them about this Savior we have. If you want to help us be a part of that and help us do more of that, we're on a campaign for this year, 25 for 25. $25 a month, 25 for the year 2025, and we'd love to help. They go walking and leaping and praising God. Literally, it's a gift that keeps on walking, and you can find out more about that.

Go out to my website, peterrosenberger.com, and you'll see the links to it. It's Stating with Hope, and we have a prosthetic limb donation program. If you have somebody in your life that has passed away and you have a used prosthetic limb. Somebody called me the other day.

I'm not kidding. They e-mailed me through our website. They said, we found somebody threw a prosthetic leg in our dumpster, at our business's dumpster.

We thought somebody could use this, and they were right. That leg gets shipped to a facility. It's a prison done in Arizona, and inmates volunteer to disassemble it so we can take all the parts and recycle the parts and build a brand new leg for a new patient, but we can recycle the foot, the knees, the pylons, the screws, the adapters, the tube clamps, all those kinds of things, and so absolutely, we could take it. We won't redo the socket because that's custom fit for that patient, just like our first patient.

We could reuse the foot, but we can't reuse the socket, but if you want to send it, go out to our website, peterrosenberger.com, and you can see all the links to do that and see how you can get involved. Now, Lewis called last week from Spartanburg, and I wanted to address this really quickly because Lewis asked a question, is suffering necessary? Is it required? And I understand the nature of the question. Suffering is a part of this life. We are all subject to everything, ultimately death. None of us are getting out of this thing alive should Jesus tarry.

Now, the degree of suffering is always the unknown, is the variable, because some people seem to suffer far more than others. But I want to throw something at you. Lewis, if you're listening down in Spartanburg, and I'd like to throw something at you. My wife is in the hospital right now. She just has had now her 90-second surgery, and we're still trying to get her wounds to heal up so that she can go home.

We've been here for over nine weeks. She's had five surgeries since she's been here for this stretch and since her car wreck. You know, this has been going on since 1983 with her car wreck. There are multiple surgeons here that have worked on her. One was a neurosurgeon, the other a couple of different orthosurgeons. And I let these surgeons take my wife, who I've been married to now for a lifetime.

We've been married all my life. And they take her into a room, and they put enough drugs in her to make her unconscious. And they do things that I would not want to watch. I've been up close and personal to enough of this that I don't want to see it.

I went to music school, not medical school. Now, some of you, I don't. I've actually assisted on one procedure, but I wasn't happy about it, that it was just, we were in a situation where it had to happen. That's another story. But they do just ghastly things, and they use tools that are just, gives you the shudder to look at some of them. And I don't know much about any of these people. I have faith that the University of Colorado medical system here has properly vetted them. I have faith that they have passed all their stuff, and they've been licensed, duly licensed, and all those kinds of things. But I have, you know, I don't know their family.

I don't know many of them. I don't even know their walk with the Lord, even though Grace and I have them pray with us every time. We do the praying, mostly.

But it would pray over us. But I don't know any of those things. And yet I'm willing to trust them to do these things to my wife, very complex procedures that would take me a lifetime to be up to speed on, if I could do it at all. And the reason I'm telling you this is, how is it that we're willing to trust a flawed human being who we know very little about to do excruciatingly painful things, so much so that it requires enormous amounts of chemical intervention postoperatively to ease the pain and elaborate things. And yet we don't look at them with suspicion.

We don't look at them with, like, you know, why are you doing this to me? But we do that with God, who we do know. We have a great account in His Word of who He is and the love that He has for us and the assurance that we can have in Him. And yet we will be highly suspicious of God, but not of somebody who wears a white lab coat with a doctor in front of their name. We'll be reverential and deferential to these individuals. But when it comes to the way we address God, when things are painful for us, do we have the same approach? And I saw this with Gracie before she went into that surgery when I was praying, God, 91 is too much and Gracie stopped me, and I told you this last week, and she said, no, it's not. It's what He says is necessary. It's what He says is necessary. Thank you, doctor.

Thanks for your help. She takes the hand of her surgeon and thanks her surgeon, and she's in agony postoperatively, but she is putting herself in that surgeon's hand, and his and hers for that matter. Do we do that with God? Do we allow Him to take our hand?

And do we say thank you? Because I know you're doing what is best for me, and this is very painful. I've yet to see Gracie come out of any surgery, just chip her and, oh, that was great.

Let's go do it. She comes out of every one of them in pain. She knows no life outside of pain. I've seen her fuss at a doctor, but I don't see her fuss at God. That's something to think about, isn't it?

You want to weigh in on that? 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. This is Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger.

We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. I have an article this week on my Substack page.

You can go out to, again, PeterRosenberger.com and see this. And it's where I've just put, every Monday I put a thing from my book, A Minute for Caregivers, when every day feels like Monday. And this one is, what do you think?

What do you think? And it tells the journey I had of surgeons who have asked me a different point of what I thought was going on with Gracie, which I'm quite moved that they would do that. I've often, embarrassingly, inserted my opinion during my wife's long medical journey. But I was never, I didn't recall being frequently asked for it, particularly by surgeons. But they were watching her responses to the recovery process and the lead surgeon looked at me and he said, what do you think? Now, four decades has given me a little bit of diplomacy and discretion.

They give medals for discretionary valor. And I certainly understand the things about my wife that no medical professional could have had with her now for so long. And I've watched these things. And, you know, so I have understanding of this, but that said, a lengthy list of unpleasant events continues to teach me the value of keeping my opinion to myself and only sharing what I've witnessed and experienced. So when the surgeon sought my thoughts, I stayed on message. And I did not share my opinion, even though he asked me, what do you think? I didn't share what I think, my opinion on it. I avoided speculating and just shared what I've observed, just what I've experienced. Nodding with understanding, he ordered a few additional tests and evidently in part based upon my response.

And he continued looking for solutions and they moved on. But I'm learning to stay in my lane. And instead of giving my opinion, I'm saying, here's what I've seen. Here's what I've witnessed. Here's what I've experienced. And why am I telling you this? Well, it's at my Substack page. And you can go and read that if you want. I think it'd be encouraging to you and sign up for it. And you can get them every Monday.

They're free. But I want to take you to the Book of Lamentations. You ever spend much time in the Book of Lamentations? Lamentations 3. It's a powerful chapter. And Lamentations 3, 17. Let's start there. And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace.

I forgot prosperity. And I said, my strength and my hope is perished. Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. This is the prophet Jeremiah.

They called him the weeping prophet. My soul hath still in remembrance and is humbled in me. He can't disconnect himself from the horrific memories of the painful things in his life. In one translation of the ESV it says, my soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Now listen to this.

But this I call to mind. And therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercy's never come to an end. I love that song.

You ever do that? If I had the keyboard here, I'd do that song. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

I love that song. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. That's where we get the hymn from. The Lord is my portion, says my soul.

Therefore I will hope in Him. And this is a pattern you see repeatedly from the prophets of God, from the apostles of God, and from Jesus Himself in Scripture. Recognizing that these are painful things. But anchoring themselves in what they have seen, witnessed, and experienced. Their opinion is not what's needed here.

It's their testimony of their experience. This is what I've seen. This is what I've witnessed. When that doctor asked me what I thought, he really didn't need me to speculate on medical science.

I understood what he was asking. What are your thoughts on what I've witnessed? Here's what I've seen. Here's what I've observed. In Scripture, Revelation says, they overcame by the blood of the Lamb in the word of their testimony, not the word of their opinion.

These are the things I've experienced. And that's why I loved that hymn that we did at Mike's funeral, Great is Our Faithfulness. And I'm sitting there at the piano just feet away from the casket of this man who used to listen to me week in and week out as I played at that big sanctuary. You can see the cover of my CD is Songs for the Caregiver, and I'm playing at that sanctuary.

And Mike would sit in the back row. Sometimes he'd take a break from sweeping and straightening it up. And I played Great is Our Faithfulness. Reminding myself of the devastation in front of me. My soul is cast down within me like Jeremiah. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me, he said. It's hard not to do that. Two years ago, I think it was today, two years ago tomorrow, when the funeral was, but I was sitting there playing this.

Playing one more time for Mike. And I remember these words. Therefore I have hope. Great is thy faithfulness. This is how we function as believers, to remind ourselves of these great truths. That's why Moses preached this amazing sermon at the end of Deuteronomy.

Don't forget these things. And David says in Psalm 119, it was good that I was afflicted that I might learn your steps. So Louis, I don't know if I've properly answered your question. Is suffering necessary? Suffering is essential to the human condition. It is not going away. Misery is unnecessary.

That is a choice. But when we anchor ourselves in the Lord, even the predictions that we have, like Jeremiah says here, the worm went in the doll. It's hard to understand just how bitter that kind of stuff is. Even that becomes subject to the truth of the faithfulness of God. We will have painful, painful things in this world. And Gracie and I understand that.

In fact, as soon as I'm done with this program today, I'm back in her hospital room, where we've been for almost 10 weeks. Misery is a choice. And the difference is, instead of raging at all these things and inflicting harm on ourselves and others to somehow feel better, we anchor ourselves in the truth of God's Word and understand that He is interested in us being better. And He will give us an unconcurrence in theological terms, where what man means for evil, God means for good.

Joseph showed that in Genesis with his brother. Even Judas and Pilate had a role to play that was beyond them, and they were doing it out of the wickedness of their heart, but God used it for His purposes. The things of this world are subject to Him. And that gives me great comfort and great hope that none of this escapes His providence. These surgeons that have operated on my wife have done horrifically painful things to her with the hope that she'll be able to stand straighter and be healthier and live a better quality of life.

And I thank them for it every time. How much greater the great physician does and does these things. So to Lewis and all the others that may have that same question, it all boils down to, do we trust Him? Do we trust Him? And you say, yes, I do trust Him. Well, why do you trust Him? Why do you trust Him? Because you're supposed to?

Because somebody told you that He's worth trusting? Or have you experienced firsthand the redemptive and restorative work of the gospel in your life? That is what anchors us. That firsthand account, that understanding.

This I'd recall to mind, and therefore I have hope. And that's why I love that hymn. I say it to you guys almost every week. Oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast in our eternal home. That anchors us in something that transcends the physical surgeries and the spiritual surgeries that go on in our life.

If you're willing to trust somebody you barely know that wears a lab coat and has a name preceded by the word doctor, are you willing to trust the one who stretched out his arms and paid the price for your sins? So no matter what comes our way, we can, as Mike told me many times in that sanctuary, just keep playing. Just keep playing, Peter. That's how I do it. That's how I see it now. Didn't always. But that's truth, and that's Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger, PeterRosenberger.com. We'll see you next time.