John Markum

Tag: believe

18 Baptized in a Single Day!

Posted on by johnmarkum

As God has been blessing our ministry at Life Valley Community Church, we have been passionately and urgently calling people to give their lives to Jesus Christ and be baptized into God’s family. This past Pentecost Sunday (June 8), we were able to lead 18 people to take this public step of faith in Christ!

But what was particularly incredible was that we only had 12 people that we knew were prepared to get baptized! In partnership with Baptize America, we coordinated this baptism Sunday with thousands of other churches across the country, to proclaim the Gospel message and call people into believer’s baptism. Two people found us because of Baptize America, and another handful of people responded to the message, received Christ as their Lord and Savior, and were baptized that day, just like the first Pentecost Sunday.

I know that not every pastor or church is warm to the idea of “spontaneous baptisms” who come forward for baptism that day, but we have found that there is an appropriate way to do it. Additionally, every example we see in Scripture of baptism, it was what you might consider “spontaneous”. There are two major considerations for having successful baptisms for people who come forward Day-of a Baptism Sunday.

  1. Spiritually prepared. We want to make sure that everyone getting baptized at LVCC is doing so because they have trusted in Jesus Christ death and resurrection for their salvation. Because of this, we generally do an entire message on baptism for that day, so that we have given plenty of attention to the doctrinal concerns of people’s motives. We also have counsellors to talk to before getting baptized, so that we know we are all on the same page about why we are baptizing someone. The counselling process usually only takes 5-10 minutes after we had an entire message, and occasionally we do need to tell someone “Not today, but we would love to talk more with you so you can be ready for a future baptism day.”
  2. Physical considerations. If you’re going to offer baptism to people who did not come prepared to get baptized, at least you and your leaders should be prepared! For this, we have plenty of extra towels, a t-shirt they get to keep, as well as undergarments and gym shorts of every size. We also walk through how they will get baptized when they meet with our counsellors.

We had set a goal of 20 baptisms at Life Valley in 2025, and with an earlier baptism, we are already at our goal! What is particularly exciting to me, is that we are also only halfway through the year! And with others in our church who have recently received Christ or indicated a desire to be baptized, we have 10 more people currently needing to be baptized.

To all of you who partner with our ministry, thank you for serving Jesus with us. 2025 is shaping up to be our most amazing year yet!

Blessings,
Pastor John

Was Mary Ascended into Heaven?

Posted on by johnmarkum

Here on my blog, I have been addressing the doctrines of Catholicism that revolve around their belief that Mary was something more than Protestant Christians claim her to be. You can read more on each below. The four core dogmas of RCC Mariology include:

  • Perpetual Virginity. This is the notion that Mary remained a virgin after giving birth to Jesus, and was never sexually intimate with her husband Joseph, and gave him no children aside from Jesus (who was not biologically Joseph’s son).
  • Immaculate Conception. The idea behind this doctrine is that in order for Mary to have been the vessel for bringing God’s Son into the world, she too must have been sinless.
  • Mary as “The Mother of God”. This doctrine is based on the Greek title theotokos meaning “God Bearer” or “Mother of God”. Protestants generally reject this title, and I discuss why at the link.
  • The Assumption of Mary. This doctrine insists that Mary ascended into Heaven – or, God “assumed” her into Heaven – like Christ, Elijah, and Enoch are described as having experienced.

Let’s address the Assumption of Mary…

For starters, it is important to understand that God has in fact raised people to Heaven either before death as in the case of Enoch (Genesis 5:21-24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:9-11), or afterward in the case of Christ (Acts 1:9-11). So there is ample precedence to suggest God could have done so with Mary. But did He, and is there any evidence of this?

According to church history, Mary did in fact die, though the details are a very thin, which has convinced some (but not all) Catholics to believe she did not die at all. The historical account of her death from natural causes is referred to as the “Dormition of Mary”. Best as we can tell she seems to have died in Jerusalem, and in the company of a few of the apostles including John. This places the time of her death and/or ascension somewhere before 70 AD when Jerusalem fell to the Roman siege of the city. Yet there is no recorded mentioning of Mary’s death and assumption… with one, possible, exception…

Revelation 12:1-6,

“A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth… And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.”

Catholics will assert that these verses are a “clear reference” to Mary in the Heavens, clothed with the sun, and in a position of honor and glory, “proving” the Bible supports the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary. Here are the flaws in their “proof”…

  • Mary’s supposed ascension is never mentioned or even implied. It begins with a “great sign in heaven”, but does not indicate how the “woman” got there. We believe Heaven is full of people who were not “assumed” into the spiritual dimension. Furthermore, Mary is not even named! The imagery could just as easily be referring to the nation of Israel as a whole, and God’s protection of “her” in the wilderness for 3.5 years in the future would strongly suggest that is a better interpretation.
  • Revelation is written in the Biblical apocalyptic genre. As such, it is flush with figurative imagery which is almost impossible to interpret literally in every instance that does not give us clear indicators. If this passage even is referring to Mary, she does not “literally” wear the sun as a garment, nor does she have a literal crown of 12 literal stars… again, this strongly suggests a reference to Israel, not Mary.
  • The rules of interpretation cannot bend that far. The only way to interpret this passage as a “clear” reference to Mary’s assumption is if you decided it meant that and tried to make it fit, also known as eisegesis. By contrast, honest interpretation of Scripture requires exegesis, or extracting meaning from a given text within the intended contextual settings.

Again, I am not against the idea that God did something miraculous for the woman who brought God the Son’s incarnation into the world. As mentioned earlier, He’s done so for a small handful of others. But there is zero proof of this. In fact, we have zero historical records of any dormition traditions regarding Mary until 450-600 AD – a whopping four centuries after her lifetime! That’s a lot of time for Christian superstitions to emerge, especially in an era that was very susceptible to such infiltrations of false beliefs.

I will write one final piece concerning Mary, how Protestants generally view her, and what I think is appropriate to the mother of our Jesus.

Blessings,
Pastor John

Sermon Recap: Don’t Look Back, week 2

Posted on by johnmarkum

This past Sunday, as we continued our Don’t Look Back series, we cross-examined two seemingly unrelated stories in Jesus’ ministry: the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-27) and the paralytic man by the pool of Bethesda (John 5:2-9).

From these stories, we learned that our past experiences have the power to shape our identity and restrict God’s work desires to do in our lives, whether those experiences are marked by success or suffering. Through examining the contrasting encounters of the paralytic man and the rich young ruler with Jesus, we discover that both achievement and adversity can become spiritual shackles that prevent us from moving forward. The problem with our past is that it often becomes a matter of identity. Many people define themselves by past trauma or achievements, accepting limiting labels that cage them. The solution lies in agreeing with our heavenly Father about who He says we are – loved, forgiven, and made new in Christ. Breaking free requires total surrender, dying to self, and trusting that God’s way is better than our own. God works in the present as the great “I AM”, not the “I WAS”. He can use anyone regardless of their past and is not limited by our mistakes or successes. The challenge is to identify what parts of our past we need to surrender, what labels we’re clinging to, and whether we’re ready to fully trust God with our future rather than remaining defined by our past.

In summary,

  1. Both success and struggle can become shackles.
  2. The problem with our past is a matter of identity.
  3. Total surrender is required for victory over our past.

You can catch the entire service on our YouTube channel here.
And you can download our 5-Day Devotion based on the message here.

Blessings,
Pastor John

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