March 24-28, 2005 Precepts Ministry International in Straubing, Germany.
In the Fall Semester of 2003, we gathered at the airport for my third Greece-Turkey study tour. The registrar for SEBTS, Sheldon Alexander, was at the airport dropping someone off for the trip. Although officially I was “seminary faculty,” I was assigned to the college (which I thoroughly enjoyed). Sheldon said, “Greg, we want you to teach the Book of Revelation at the seminary in the Spring Semester (2004).” I had taught other classes at the seminary, so it was not so unusual to do so, but with this request I really didn’t want to do this. The Book of Revelation is not the place to begin studying the Bible, which would be true for many in that class, but Sheldon was insistent that this was the class the school wanted, so I did not resist it.
So in the spring of 2004, we had a night class on the Book of Revelation. A few weeks into the class, a young man came up and introduced himself to me. His name was Philipp Meineke. At the time I knew nothing about him at all. I later found out he was from Germany, as was his mother, Gisela Meineke, who still lived there and helps with Precepts Ministry International. Phillip had sent his mother a pre-published copy of The Cup and the Glory, and she read it. So it was somehow determined that they should do a Bible conference in Germany, and that I would be invited to be the speaker. My daughter Lauren, who was 17 at that time, went with me as a most helpful assistant.
By God’s sovereign design, they scheduled this Bible conference for the week of Easter. It was a killer schedule (from a speaker’s perspective), beginning on the Thursday night and would finish on Monday morning with lots of sessions packed in. Since it was during Easter and beginning on the Thursday night before the cross, I did basically contents for the entire book. (Of course, when I speak before a group, I have to condense it and leave out much of what is written). But this assembly in Germany was the first group that I ever went through The Darkness and the Glory in its entirety. I told the primarily German group about the church in America and how I had left them hanging (and where I had left them), and they enjoyed a very hearty communal laugh.
It was a relatively small group for what one would consider a Bible conference, but numbers in and of themselves are not a good gauge for how God works. So many multiplied and continued blessings emerged from that conference. One of them was meeting my translator, Dr. Georg Huber. I left the conference with a new lifetime friend. He is a wonderful, humble, and extremely gifted servant of God. Ironically, Gisela Meineke, who had been so instrumental in putting together the Bible Conference missed it, because at the same time, her son Phillip was getting married in America. She made it in time for a few minutes of the final session.
Not only was this the first time that I had taught the material from The Darkness and the Glory from cover to cover, it was also one of the most discouraged groups as we started our studies. To this day I have never seen a group so low when we began our study that became one of the most joyful and worshipful ones once we got to the glory. Of course, I had no idea about how the conference was going until it was almost over. I knew that many of the ones who attended were isolated as Christians and some had no Christians they knew of within a 100-mile radius. Many came from virtually dead churches. It was easy to discern the discouragement and for some an almost like “why even bother” mentality. I hoped and thought the sessions were going well, but I wasn’t totally sure. Sometimes we would finish one, and they would just stare at me; not a word was spoken. A few times I thought, “Boy, they do not like this.” I found out later at the sharing time at the end of the conference that it was abject silence before God for many of them. One man I remember said (and with no theatrics): “It was all I could do to keep getting off my chair and falling on my face to worship God in the midst of the sessions.” I have had many times like that in my own studies, so I knew exactly of what he spoke. There were many such reports. God blessed His Word going forth that conference. It greatly made an impression on me, and to this day remains one of my all time favorite and “blessed remembrance” conferences.
In March 2006 The Cup and the Glory was published. In July 2006 we left our home in North Carolina and moved to the LA area. I began teaching at The Master’s Seminary in August 2006. The spring semester 2007 I taught my first prayer class and used the book as one of the textbooks for the class. In September 2007 John MacArthur read the first four chapters of The Darkness and the Glory. As noted, very few people had read this book, so I was most interested in John MacArthur’s in-put. In a very long story, he was wonderfully encouraging about the book. At this time the book was not yet scheduled to be published, but at least I considered it affirmation from God about how it was received.
Placerita Baptist Church, in Santa Clarita, CA, adjacent to The Master’s College, had been a church I had spoken at twice in the previous summer. It is one of my favorite places to go speak. In late November I received a call that informed me that their pastor Scott Ardavanis had become sick, and they asked if I could come and speak on Sunday, December 2, 2007. They asked me to do three sessions for the morning services (each one the same) and wanted the message to lead into the Lord’s Table. So in my allotted time, I did the core material from “His Cup—The Beginning.” It was the first time I had ever done that with a group, and it was wonderfully received by many who began to consider what was it that Jesus alone was able to do that we could not do. Doing this chapter followed by the Lord’s Table was always something I had wanted to do, especially at the beginning of the Christmas season. The church did not know at the time that this was a new chapter of a book and that they were the first people I had did it with. I took it as a blessed affirmation from the Lord of which this church knew nothing about at the time.
On May 20, 2008 I officially receive word that The Darkness and the Glory will be published in the fall. As far as I was concerned, “it wasn’t official until it was official” (that is, I had laid the book on the altar before God; our “amen” is in Him.) I had run ahead of God so many times in the past and was disappointed, I was finally learning (???) to wait on Him. The publisher, Rick Kress, wrote the following rather nonchalant email: “Greg, I can’t remember if I’ve gotten back to you or not. Kress would like to go ahead with the publication of “The Darkness and the Glory,” if you’re still up for it.”
The timing was right and perfect—as all of God’s timings truly are. The new chapter had been added, and now it was a different book than when it first came into being over ten years ago.
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