From the Pastor's Desk:
Words of Hope and Encouragement from Pastor John Paul Marlow:
Emerging from the Jungle (Chapter 6)
By: Pastor John Paul Marlow
September 2025
The way out is the way up. Certainly, the journey must begin, immediately. Procrastination is the thief of time. If we read all the books in the world, and we would hear all the sermons of the world, and, if we tried every wonder drug there is...we would not be able to see our way out of the tremendous suffering of mankind. However, the first step is to look up.
Look fully into the face of God. The prophet, Isaiah, asked the question: "Who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" We can see light coming from
above. Remember, however low we may have been...that perhaps today may be...there is more light when you look up, and say: "Lord, lead me from darkness into the river of understanding of my relationship with my Creator." I must convince myself, first, that there is only one way out of the forest of sin, six thousand years and more, of mankind trying to find his way out and ignoring Jesus Christ, who said, two thousand years ago, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." If any man had the remedy to free himself from his own passion, pride and sin nature, he would have found it long ago. Of making of books, there is no end. Of giving formulas for success, there is no end. And the offers of various medical remedies... If medical science could cause man to be morally upright, the great institutions of education across the world would have populated the earth with righteous souls inhabiting the earth and leading men back to the Garden of Eden.
Now, let us consider pathways that are in the way of Jesus Christ. The first pathway is repentance from sin. Sin is the transgression of the moral code of God found only in the Holy Scriptures. Repentance is genuine sorrow in the heart and spoken words pleading with Christ, the Mediator, to wash the sins away in the blood of Christ. Repentance is not a catchy saying. And we repeat...repentance is not a poem we quote or a song we sing; a club we join. Repentance is agony with God...a spiritual crucifixion of our will to God. Do not try to avoid this path that leads out of the jungle. The Bible tells us that "Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, not to be repented of but the sorrow of the world worketh death." So, repentance is not just saying, "Forgive me" or "I'm sorry." True repentance that God recognizes is hurting; with the plea to God, "Not my will, but Thine be done." The second path we must take that leads out of the jungle of life into the Eden of God is that, once we have truly repented and confessed Jesus Christ as being the Lord, we then begin the road of discipleship. That road can only be traveled to the clearing ahead by being disciplined, daily, by our will and conviction to be as much like Jesus Christ on this
earth as we possibly can be. And the only way to do that is to hunger and thirst after righteousness of God; and you have now become a disciple of Jesus Christ. And you can begin to see that the road is opening, more and more, away from the broad way of sin and you are getting closer to being a son of God. Scripture tells us, "...Now, then, are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."
So, the steps taken to move away from the jungle of the world begins with repentance, godly sorrow; and it continues into the path of humility, true worship and true forgiveness and obedience to Christ. And, finally, after passing the test for true conversion and true discipleship and true manifestation of the sons of God, we arrive so cut free from the world and its ways, that we are now walking in humility and the love at the Garden He has given us. And, for the first time in our life, we feel the vines around us entangling us, of flesh life and natural life.
Pastor Marlow from Bradenton Gospel Tabernacle can be reached at: pastormarlow777@jacobsladderoutreach.org
