The Spirit must descend and produce new birth. Pastors are primed to long for the Holy Spirit. Every day, they are being backed further and further into the corner of God’s sovereignty, where they realize that they are weak, fearful, trembling, unpersuasive, and unwise (1 Cor 2:3-4). Many will dig a hole in the ground, hide, and quit. But others will fall to their knees with tears in their eyes and desperation in their hearts. When they do, the Lord will respond with faithful mercy because even when we are faithless, He remains faithful. He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim 2:13). 

1) Sisyphean Striving – The Job Can Feel Pointless (Ironically)
Work is difficult when the purpose is obscured. The story is told about two janitors working in the NASA building during the 1960s. One janitor was depressed because he thought he was insignificant compared to the literal rocket scientists in the building. He found so little purpose in his mopping the floor compared to their space exploration that his work began to feel completely meaningless. His friend, on the other hand, was always whistling while he worked. Finally, someone asked the second janitor, “Why are you so happy at work while your coworker is so dejected?” The happy janitor replied, “I love my job. I’m putting a man on the moon!”
The two janitors perceived radically different levels of fulfillment in their identical jobs solely because they had different perceptions of what they were doing. Fulfillment came to the second janitor because he thought what he was doing was important. The exact same work was drudgery because the first janitor thought it was meaningless. Pastors are a lot like the first janitor. They enter their calling hearing that it is the most exalted calling in the whole world. I heard the story a few times in seminary that a pastor immediately denied requests that he run for president of the United States because to do so would be a demotion in his eyes. This is true.
Every pastor has this expectation of the work—it will feel like the most important thing in the world because it is! Nothing is more important than sharing the gospel of eternal glory. However, most pastors do not experience this level of meaningfulness for long stretches of time. Though they expect their work to be meaningful, when they actually do the work, they don’t see the fruit. They know that preaching the gospel is the hope of the world and that it changes people’s lives. But they often preach the gospel, and nothing changes. Actually, that’s not true. They preach the gospel, and things get worse. This is why Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet.
Imagine you were a farmer, and you worked tirelessly to grow various crops—wheat, corn, and other vegetables. If you saw your job as growing as much food as possible and storing it safely, you would likely have a degree of satisfaction. You might not be doing anything important with the food you grow, but it’s safely stored, and the future possibility of using the food for something good would encourage you. That is like studying the Bible, which is the pastor’s main job. A pastor can study the Bible and enjoy the work because it is storing up biblical wisdom and helping him grow spiritually.
Now, imagine that your job as a farmer was not only to grow and store that food but to cook the food for people. That is the second half of the pastor’s job. He not only must study the Bible, he must take what he learns and feed it to the Lord’s sheep. He must teach. If the farmer was tasked with cooking but the people he gave the food to didn’t seem to benefit, it would be discouraging. If the people said, “This food is too cold, too hot, too bland, too spicy, not what I like, better down the street, etc.” It would be hard to hear. Furthermore, if the people did not seem to benefit from the food, it would be crushing. If they didn’t grow and in fact, were getting sick, the farmer would want to give up. Why on earth do all the work of growing the food then cooking and serving it if the people not only don’t like it but aren’t benefitting from it? No sane farmer would stick with that task.
This is what many pastors feel like. They study the Bible and prepare sermons, but the people often complain. Some complaints are bearable because we know it’s going to happen. The desire to quit occurs not when people complain but when the preaching doesn’t seem to “work.” Nobody gets saved, the people don’t grow in godliness, the church culture doesn’t get any better, and maybe it even gets worse. The pastor spends 20 long hours slaving over his sermon, and when all is said and done, in the words of a pastor I know, “it’s like it never happened.” Many churches today are in this exact situation—no growth, lots of complaints, and it just gets worse. In these circumstances, the pastor feels exactly like the farmer whose food gets rejected. We expect pastors to continue on happily in this situation, while we would never expect the same of the farmer!
In a word, many pastors feel like their work isn’t accomplishing anything, and it may even be making things worse. Complaints and critiques ring loud, and compliments hollow. Fruit is unripe, and sin is rampant. When I joined the Army, I was sorely disappointed at the reality of the work. The recruiter videos have almost nothing to do with what the job actually was. But I couldn’t quit because I had great friends, and the government forced me to stay. Pastors often find themselves in a similar situation, yet they are often the loneliest people on the planet and feel like everyone wants them to leave. It’s a miracle so many stay!
This might sound pretty bad, but it gets much worse. Many pastors think they are joining the ministry to serve God as humble servants. Unfortunately, some don’t understand what their true motive is. Though they say and think that they want to serve God, in the back of their minds, they imagine the ministry to be about them—they get pats on the back, people listen to them, they don’t have to work very hard, they even get famous with megachurches and book deals. If a pastor has this secret idol of the heart and the Lord is kind enough to give him a failing ministry, he may find himself not only questioning the point of his work, but he may also question his calling! He may realize that he was never called in the first place because he isn’t willing to serve the Lord if it hurts. He didn’t really want to serve the Lord as a servant, but he wanted to speak as a celebrity. The pastors who find themselves in this situation have salt poured into the wound. They find the work much less fulfilling than they thought it would be, and they find their hearts much more sinful than they thought they were. It’s a double whammy of pastoral burnout.
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These numbers suggest that the “no” votes on the highly-contested, SSA-related overtures were disproportionately those of teaching elders. Of course, the reverse can also be assumed, that a disproportionate number of the “yes” voters were ruling elders…. Does this suggest a disconnect between pew and pulpit (RE/TE)? Or is it a metro/blue suburbs vs. rural/red suburbs disconnect? Or southeastern vs. the rest of the country (assuming more REs attend from the southeast)? There are likely many theories, no one of which explains all.

The recorded “no” votes on the controversial overtures 23 and 37 from the last Presbyterian Church in America General Assembly (PCAGA) are now available in the just-released minutes of the 2021 summer assembly. Recording of votes is optional and generally indicates strong feelings or convictions on a given issue or measure. One conclusion that might be drawn from these numbers is that teaching elders (TEs) in the PCA are far more likely to have strong feelings about these overtures than are ruling elders (REs).
Overture 23 had 1855 votes cast. It passed 1438-417 (71% for, 29% against). 137 “no” voters recorded their votes (33% of those against). Of that 137 only 18 (13%) were ruling elders. Ruling elders made up 25% of all commissioners (616 out of 2115 total elders).
Overture 37 had 1826 votes cast. It passed 1209-617 (66% for, 34% against). 177 “no” voters recorded their votes (29% of those against). Of that 177 only 18 (10%) were ruling elders. Again, ruling elders made up 25% of all commissioners.
These numbers suggest that the “no” votes on the highly-contested, SSA-related overtures were disproportionately those of teaching elders. Of course, the reverse can also be assumed, that a disproportionate number of the “yes” voters were ruling elders.
This is speculative, but if the recorded TE:RE “no” vote proportions are an accurate representation of all “no” voters it might be reasonable to suggest that approximately 55 ruling elders voted against overture 23 out of 616 in attendance. For overture 37 the number of total ruling elder “no” votes might have been around 62 out of 616 in attendance.
Does this suggest a disconnect between pew and pulpit (RE/TE)? Or is it a metro/blue suburbs vs. rural/red suburbs disconnect? Or southeastern vs. the rest of the country (assuming more REs attend from the southeast)? There are likely many theories, no one of which explains all.
The recorded “no” votes can be found on pages 89-99 of the 2021 GA minutes.
Brad Isbell is a Ruling Elder in Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oak Ridge, Tenn. This article is used with permission.

The revolutionaries always want to create a new world order, but always end up destroying man and civilisation in the process. Nothing new here. But the Davos elites have no interest in history. We should, however. If we will not learn from history, the prospect looks very bleak indeed. Hopefully a volume like this will wake up enough people to take a united and forceful stand against this great globalist evil.

This is not the first book to appear in recent times critiquing the Great Reset, Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum, and related matters. Some of these volumes I have already reviewed here. But this is the newest and perhaps the best. At nearly 500 pages, the collection of essays found here is first rate.
The editor has assembled a great lineup of leading intellectual heavyweights, including Douglas Murray, Victor Davis Hanson, Conrad Black, Roger Kimball, Angelo Codevilla, David Goldman and a number of others. All up the book has 16 important essays, plus introductory and concluding pieces by Walsh.
All the key issues are examined here: Covid tyranny, socialism, globalism, economics, politics, China and the social credit system, Big Tech, national sovereignty, the WHO, the WEF, Schwab, Bill Gates, critical theory, green energy, population matters, politicised science, cultural Marxism, climate alarmism, health fascism and so much more.
It is good that all the bases are so carefully being covered here. Given the rapid pace at which the nefarious agenda items of the Davos elitists are being realised, this book could not be more timely. The plans the activists have for their globalist utopia are not something that lie ahead – all this is already well underway.
Walsh explains early on why such a volume is so very much needed. It will be too late if we wait around for the history books to look back on the Great Reset. The issue NOW is whether “the formerly free world of the Western democracies will succumb to the paternalistic totalitarianism of the oligarchical Resetters.”
And he is right to speak of how the secular left West is so receptive to all this: “In an age of atheism and disbelief, note the religious fervor of neo- and cultural-Marxism and the messianic quality of Schwab’s anti-humanistic Great Reset.” Quite so. Once you ditch Christianity, plenty of false religions will rush in to take its place.
His closing paragraph nicely informs us of just where we are heading in the Schwabian dystopia: “The satraps of Davos don’t want to simply reset a post-Covid world. Or a post-fossil fuels world. Or even a post-racial world. They want to run it, forever, and while they no longer have need of a god, they’ll always need an enemy. They may not believe in a power higher than themselves, but they certainly believe in demons, and their most irksome devil is you.”
Others pick up on the quasi-religious nature of all this. As Hanson puts it in his essay, “When ‘great’ is applied to a proposed transnational comprehensive revolution, we should also equate it with near religious zealotry.” Marxism and radical greenism have both been pseudo-religions, and they come together in the Great Reset.
He and others of course note how Schwab and Co have capitalised on Covid, and want the whole world under their thumb in order to ‘keep us safe’ from further pandemics, including climate change disasters they assure us are just around the corner.
Many of the writers give us terrific descriptions of who these folks are and what they want. But I especially like how Conrad Black characterises our Davos Divines:
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