Our text Scripture from John 16:22 is one of my favorite passages. I had a difficult time working on every secular job that I ever had. As a born-again Christian who was living for Christ, I endured horrible persecution in the workplace. I worked as a truck mechanic between 1987 to 1993. During that rough time, I had a 3-pound hammer thrown at me. Thankfully I ducked! One co-worker spit on me. Another threw my toolbox onto the shop floor, flipping it over. I was called every foul and dirty word you can think of. I was sexually harassed, physically assaulted and slandered for all the years I worked with heathen men. They knew I was going to school to be a preacher, so it was open-season on me!
To help me cop with the bad situation, working in an ungodly environment, I took a big permanent black marker and wrote Bible verses on my toolbox. One day I read the following precious verse from John 16:22 and it's truth burned in my heart, “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” I still always find great comfort in this PROMISE from God. The dear Savior Himself promised every believer, that one day we will all see Him again, and IN THAT DAY, we will never have to hide from wicked men, and dread going to another day in the heathen workplace, because Christ promised YOUR JOY NO MAN TAKETH FROM YOU!!! I love that so much! I am glad that God gave us these precious promises!!!
Dear reader, I used to hide in the restrooms at work from my abusive co-workers. That was when I worked for the U.S. Postal Service between 1993 to 2009. I filed an EEO complaint for a Hostile Workplace Environment, but they ignored it in Chicago. In hindsight, the blacks protect the blacks, and Chicago's post office is 80% black. All my abusive supervisors and manager were black (African American). Although I thank God for my career, without which I wouldn't have medical disability retirement today, it was a hellhole to work at the U.S. Postal Service. All manner of wickedness (bullies, haters, punks, military babies, homosexuals, transgenders, thieves, adulterers and blasphemers) thrive in the U.S. Postal Service!
I was severely rear-ended by a church bus in 1992, and then fell down a mailslide at work in 2004, which aggravated and worsened my neck injury. I have a working brain from God, and I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but I have made a lot of bad decisions throughout my life, simply because I didn't know how to handle different situations. The only reason I am still single 16 years later, after my first and only wife abandoned and divorced me in 2006, is simply because I am not too good with people, and I don't know how to find a wife.
Anyway, when I moved to Guam from Chicago in 2004, a group of wicked unbelievers from the Philippines ganged up on me. It caused me tension at home. So I filed another EEO (Equal Opportunity Employment) complaint for a Hostile Workplace Environment. This time I knew what I was doing and I WON! The judge ruled in my favor and made the U.S. Postal Service pay me $42,000 in damages for the cost of my divorce. The judge (who flew in from California for a 3-day hearing in 2009) blamed the U.S. Postal Service for my divorce. I am glad that the judge was honest, and saw the truth about what was going on at out facility on Guam.
One of my Catholic co-workers had found my Jesus-s-Saviom.com website ministry and harassed me for it. Other co-workers joined him, harassing me relentlessly. They ripped up Chick Tracts and put them on my toolbox. They stopped up toilets and overflowed them while I was in the restroom. They stole my cars and house keys. They stole my work. They sabotaged my workplace machines for which I was responsible to maintain. They tore up my work orders. They lied about me to management. They followed me around, stalking me, trying to find any fault in me possible. I felt like Daniel in the lion's den.
One enraged Filipino co-worker threatened to come to my home and kill me, right in front of a workroom supervisor. Since she was also from the Philippines, she did nothing. But she honestly told the judge during the hearing what had happened, and to my surprise admitted that she did nothing. Her lame excuse was: “Men in the Philippines don't mean what they say.” I knew right there and then that I had won my EEO case, and sure enough, by God's grace I did. That same angry co-worker pulled a switchblade on me on the workroom floor in front of a different Chamorro supervisor. She also did nothing. However, she was honest and admitted to the judge that the incident did happen. So I appreciate the honestly of these ladies in supervision, even though they were incompetent as supervisors for dismissing the threats against me at work. I could mention hundreds more unpleasant memories of horrible things that ungodly co-workers did to make my life miserable in the workplace.
Dear reader, perhaps you can relate to some of the things I am sharing with you. I also met some good men over the decades, whom I befriended in the secular workplace. I had a friend at work years ago, a gentleman named John from Minnesota. He had originally gone to school to be an airplane mechanic, but after 911 the industry dried up and many people were laid off. So John came all the way to Chicago to test and apply for a Technician's job at the Post Office. John and me attended a non-denominational church together in Norman, Oklahoma.
It was at that church that their pastor got up at the end of his sermon, crying, and said: “Always remember folks, that 'GOD LOVES PEOPLE.'” I don't remember the title of his sermon, or what he preached about. But that pastor will never know until he gets to Heaven, how much that one statement (GOD LOVES PEOPLE) made upon me that Sunday morning. His sincere tears and quivering voice as he spoke the truth moved my soul. It was because of that godly pastor that morning, that I started my: “GodLovesPeople.com” website ministry.
Oh, how I wish today that I could get pastors to heed and understand that the things they say, their attitude toward error, their attitude toward false prophets, their attitude toward truth-tellers, and the manner in which they treat all people, REALLY DOES MATTER!!! The inspired Word of God teaches that men love praise. Proverbs 27:21, “As the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; so is a man to his praise.” A wise pastor does not insincerely flatter people, but he understands that just a few kind words spoken at the tight time can make all the difference in the world. I heard Pastor Jack Hyles says in his sermon titled: “The Blessing Of Sin,” that all it takes is just one person to make all the difference in a backslidden person's life. One person can get that backslidden person back into church! I agree with Pastor Hyles:
“I am a little tired of the Pharisees running around this country. I mean the honest truth is ladies and gentlemen, where is the mercy of God shown in God's people? Where's the compassion?” —Pastor Jack Hyles, a quote from the sermon: “The Blessings Of Sin”
I love the preceding sermon so much that I made this 7 minute excerpt from it, which I titled: “We Never Give Up On A Man”(Dr. Hyles mentions in this excerpt a Rescue Mission in New York, which uses this beautiful saying as their mission slogan. I love it!). Brother Hyles also emphasizes that we ought never mark people off. DON'T MARK PEOPLE OFF!!!
Pastor Jeff Redlin of Campus Church at Pensacola Christian College gave up on me, and I never heard from him again. He treated me like garbage as a divorced man. I am not preaching this over and over because my feelings are hurt; but rather, because something needs to CHANGE at Pensacola Christian College!!! Jeff Redlin needs to go! Why in the world would they select a childless man to be their pastor, who has no biological children of his own? I am not being unkind, but Mr. Redlin lacks fatherly love for the flock which God has entrusted to him at Campus Church. I came to their church with my life in shambles, hoping to make a fresh start! But Pastor Redlin might as well have pulled down his trousers and crapped on me, because that's how he made me feel. Who wouldn't feel that way when Pastor Redlin scolded me as a 54 year old man, for confiding in him that I hoped to find a wife at Campus Church? What a horrible, immature and rotten pastor! Jeff Redlin would be wise to heed Pastor Jack Hyles 55 years of pulpit wisdom:
“Do you know what? Do you know all most backsliders need? All they need, is one person who really cares? That's all they need. One person. Somebody said: 'What happened to all these converts here? [They] walk down the aisle and get baptized, and they don't stick.' You! You happened to em. I watch you. A fella will get baptized, walk down here, and stand right there like he was in an exile on Patmos. While you yackety, yackety, yackety, yackety with all the members of this church; your little circle. And that poor fella gets no attention at all. And one friend could make the difference in that fella right there! You haven't got time for him, you're too busy yacking with your little circle of friends here at the church. You don't believe in fellowship; I believe in it! Let me tell you something—there's not a sinner that ever got saved, not a backslider ever in sin, but what couldn't be kept and cleaned and sustained, if he had somebody who really cared.” ~Pastor Jack Hyles, a beautiful quote from the sermon titled: “The Blessings Of Sin.”
Five minutes of praise will do more for a man then a lifetime of criticism. I love this true story of the great soulwinning preacher, Gipsy Smith, as a young boy when he got saved:
Gipsy Smith (1860-1947) tells a wonderful story of when he was a young lad, and had just got saved. As a gipsy boy, he was used to being despised and shunned away by society, but an elderly Christian man befriended him with a few kind words of PRAISE which transformed his life:“The dear old man passed on, and I watched him turning the corner out of sight forever. I never saw him again. But when I reach the gloryland, I will find out that dear old man, and while angels shout and applaud, and the multitudes who have been brought to Christ through the gipsy boy sing for joy, I will thank that grand old saint for his shake of the hand and for his 'God bless you!' For he made me feel that somebody outside the tent really cared for a gipsy boy's soul. His kindness did me more good than a thousand sermons would have done just then. It was an inspiration that has never left me, and has done more for me than I can describe. Many a young convert has been lost to the Church of God, who would have been preserved and kept for it, and made useful in it, all for the want of some such kindness as that which fell to my lot that day.” —SOURCE
Jesus knew that it is people who so often take away our happiness. That is what Christ meant, for no man can truly take away our soul's joy. The word “joy” here comes from the Greek word “chara” from which we get our English word “charisma.” The Greek meaning of chara is “cheerfulness, that is, calm delight.” People may take away our cheerfulness and calm delight, but they cannot take away the inner joy of knowing that our names are written in Heaven. Luke 10:20, “Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.” Praise God! But when people do deprive us of our happiness (i.e., what HAPPENS to us), Jesus PROMISES us that the day will soon come in eternity, when NO MAN TAKETH YOUR JOY FROM YOU!!! And what a day that will be, when my Jesus I shall see. ...
What a day that will be,
When my Jesus I shall see,
And I look upon His face,
The One who saved me by His grace;
When He takes me by the hand,
And leads me through the Promised Land,
What a day, glorious day that will be.
What A Day That Will Be
Dear friend, by the way, it really does matter how people treat one another. When I first attended Campus Church at Pensacola Christian College during the summer of 2021, Pastor Jeff Redlin treated me like garbage. Someone (one of my enemies) slandered me to him because of my ministry website. As a fool, Jeff Redlin believed every word, condemning me. SHAME on Campus Church's senior pastor!
I befriended Pastor Redlin, sincerely hoping to become his good friend, but he pushed me away in his immaturity, hatred and self-righteousness as a Pharisee. I trusted him with the fact that I am divorced. I explained that my former wife divorced me 15 years earlier, but he condemned me for saying that I hoped to find a wife at Campus Church. A genuine man of God would have prayed with me, reassured me of God's love, and made me feel welcomed as a stranger at Pensacola Christian College. But instead Redlin condemned, berated, abused, ostracized and hurt my feelings, humiliating me when I had shared my heart with him from preacher to preacher. That horrible little man is a monster! I never would have told Jeff Redlin anything about my personal life, had I known that he would throw me under the bus, showing zero compassion, disregarding my wounds and pain of soul. SHAME on him!
I am thankful that God has given us a precious book of several thousand promises! God PROMISES that one day He will judge Jeff Redlin for his cruel words (Matthew 12:36). God will judge him for defrauding his brother in a time of suffering, loss and need (1st Thessalonians 4:6). God will hold Pastor Redlin accountable for preaching another gospel, which requires people to repent to change their life. The following heretical screenshot is from a Wednesday evening Bible study at Campus Church on July 14, 2021 (I added the red cancellation circle, lest someone be deceived by this false teaching)...
False Doctrine Being Preached At Campus Church (Pensacola Christian College)
That is not Bible repentance! You don't repent to change your behavior. If one's behavior must change as evidence that they've really been saved, then you are looking at your works, and not Christ alone to save me. What they are actually teaching at PCC is that you must KEEP THE LAW to prove that you're really saved, which is untrue. That is why the Apostle Paul warned in Galatians 3:3, “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” A change of behavior (aka, behavior modification) has absolutely NOTHING to do with receiving the free gift of God.
Tragically, the PCC camp have been adversely affected by Bob Jones University (BJU), who've been allowed to creep into their midst in recent decades. Galatians 4:16-17, “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.” The Bob Jones crowd zealously affect PCC, but NOT WELL. BJU today preaches hardcore Calvinism! I don't like being the bad guy all the time, for TELLING THE TRUTH. But if that be the case, so be it! Serving God is worth more than the approval of man.
If Jeff Redlin had simply been a gentleman, and had been kind to me as a divorced man, who was hurting and lonely without a wife for 15 years, then I wouldn't be writing these hundreds of website articles, Google blogs and posts on Facebook to refute and expose Campus Church and PCC. I am not doing this to seek vengeance, God forbid; but rather, the Lord knows that I am simply preaching with the prayers and hope that perhaps they will repent in the manner in which they treat people at Campus Church.
And if they ever do repent, Jeff Redlin will contact me to apologize for being a jerk. I doubt if I'll ever hear from him, from all the carnality that I saw in Redlin over the three months of 2021 that I attended their church. I am so disappointed in Pastor Redlin. I truly am! I figured that the pastor of the famous Campus Church at PCC must also have a big heart, and be a great man. But in truth, sadly, Jeff Redlin has a very small heart. The church is failing today and they don't even realize it. In Revelation 3:15-17 the Laodicean church thought they were hot stuff, doing great and growing; but God called them naked, wretched and blind to their rotten condition.
Dear reader, Campus Church and Pensacola Christian College is rotten to the core today, which I saw firsthand by the horrible abusive way that Pastor Redlin mistreated me as a divorced person seeking help and love in a church. All I wanted was to BE LOVED!!! Thankfully, Jesus PROMISES in John 16:22, “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”
