On September 22 Petros Roukas, senior pastor of Tates Creek Presbyterian Church left his home and didn’t return. A number of suicide notes were found later by his wife, Jan, addressed to his family and to his congregation. His body was discovered on Wednesday, September 29. Pastor Roukas had been under a doctor’s care for depression. Bryan Chapell, President of Covenant Theological Seminary, delivered the following message at Petros’s funeral. We offer it here in this spirit of “mourning with those who mourn.”Click here to read the message.
Dr. Chapell says:
I know that some will fear that if I do not shut the door to heaven to Petros for this particular sin that I may open the door for some others to consider doing what he did. I know that is a great danger, but the greater danger is to portray a god who does not understand human weakness and who draws a line beyond which his love will not go. I fear more the daily and eternal despair of belief in that god. The God we need is the one Scripture promises: the One who loves you so much that he gave his Son for you so that you need not fear even your greatest failures will deny you his eternal kingdom or his heart. Love for that God of grace will do more to hold you to life than all threats of hell from a god you dread and wish to flee. The Bible says the kindness of God leads us to repentance and draws us to life with cords of divine affection that nothing can sever. In that assurance there is love that is more powerful than death.
2 comments:
It sends chills down my spine finding this blog post. I was good friends with Petros' adopted son and had many friends who grew up under his preaching.
I didn't start attending Westminster Presbyterian Church until about a year or two after he left, but everyone knew and loved him.
The week between when he disappeared and when they found the suicide note was so surreal. I remember talking to people who were holding out hope that they would find him alive.
I was living down in Bloomington at the time and had already made plans to visit Muncie before the whole incident unfolded. I got to town shortly after it was discovered they found his body dead. Without a doubt I had never seen my friends that somber before.
I remember talking to one friend who said, "if the gospel wasn't enough for him, how do I know it will be enough for me."
I know I've typed a lot, but really words can't compare that whole experience of the note being found and being with friends who knew this man that had brought so many closer to God.
I am deeply sorrowed by this news.
In 1986, God used Petros Roukas to start my journey into His kingdom. I remember that Sunday, he preached on Hebrews 12, "Spanking the Saints". I attended his church, the Tillotson Presbyterian Church for the remainder of that year I attended Ball State University.
Some of his greatest sermons were asking us why we were there at church at the 8:30 service. Was it to "Get it over with" so that you could get on with your Sunday afternoon to watch Football or go shopping or go out to eat? He had a way of stripping away to the core of what was driving people.
Again, he is sadly missed by me and his affect he had on me back in 1986!
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