Dr. Kelly Nelson Birks. It’s one thing to be a preacher. It’s another thing to be a studied, doctrinally sound, man of the Word of God. To know what it is you speak of. As evidenced out in the foyer, in a few of Kelly’s Bibles that are on display, you will get a small glimpse of Kelly’s life work. He pored over this book and pored over it again and again and again.
You see, early in his life, God called him to this work and by God’s grace, many here today can attest that he did it well.
The call of God was upon his life from his youth to be a Pastor/Teacher. As a young boy and only child, he would set up a makeshift pulpit in his living room and his parents would take their places on the sofa as his congregation, to hear him preach.
They told him, of course, that he was an excellent preacher!
Well, while excellent according to mom and dad, a much greater & unbiased excellence was looming on the horizon ahead of him.
Kelly loved to play drums! I think he told me he was 7 when his dad bought him his first drum kit! You know his mother truly loved him to allow those in her house!
Some have called him the “rock and roll preacher,” but the truth is, as a young man, God providentially directed him, through the guidance of his pastor, to attend Bible college. He surely saw the potential in Kelly as a leader and as a teacher.
While there the first year, he struggled between wanting to be a drummer and wanting to be a pastor. At that time, the Lord really dealt with him about the call on his life and Kelly completely gave up his drums and devoted himself to his education & growth in the things of God.
Little did he know that the Lord would give him back his drums at a later time. So often, we may feel that God is taking something or someone away from us, only to discover later, that His Word is true…..He really does give us the desires of our hearts, just as His Word promises in Psalm 37:4.
So, as the story goes, Kelly graduated from L.I.F.E. Bible College in Los Angeles with a bachelor of arts degree in pastoral theology.
Several years as a Pastor in both the assistant and senior levels followed.
Much more study and digging and mining the treasure that is the Bible, also followed, and with it, much growth, much progress and much increased light.
We are admonished in Ephesians 4:15 to grow up in the Lord.
How do we do that? We do it by studying what we profess to believe. As a Christian, we are called upon to know what we believe and why we believe it, so that we are able to explain it to someone else. And many here will recall the countless times Kelly prayed, “Lord, now help us to teach what we have learned to someone else.”
Kelly did precisely that. May we follow in his footsteps.
We also grow up in the Lord by sitting under the tutorship of a called, Godly man who knows his Bible backwards & forwards & inside and out.
Proverbs 1:7 tells us that the fear or reverence of the Lord is where knowledge begins.
And listen to the next chapter of Proverbs, vs. 1-15 regarding growing up:
“My son, if you receive my words & treasure up my commandments within you,
Making your ear attentive to wisdom & inclining your heart to understanding;
Yes, if you call out for insight & raise your voice for understanding,
If you seek it like silver & search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord & find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge & understanding;
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,guarding the paths of justice & watching over the way of His saints.
Then you will understand righteousness & justice & equity, every good path.
For wisdom will come into your heart & knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
Discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil & delight in the perverseness of evil, men whose paths are crooked & who are devious in their ways.”
Kelly, by God’s grace, did these things. He received &
treasured God’s word. He made his ear attentive to wisdom & he
inclined his heart to understanding. He called out for insight and raised
up his voice for understanding. He sought it like silver & searched
for it as for hidden treasure & by so doing, he became rich.
Again, may we follow in his footsteps.
In the years of pastoring that followed, Kelly earned a Master’s
degree in Theology, followed by two doctorates in Biblical studies….one in
Philosophy and one in Ministry.
As time moved forward, he found that staying true to the biblical text of
Scripture and staying true to the Lord Himself would result in loss. Loss
of his job, loss of brothers and sisters in Christ whom he held dear, and loss
of large numbers filling the pews each week.
Loss is a funny thing in this life. What the world sees as success differs greatly from what God sees as success.
Kelly preached verse by verse through the word of God. Sometimes people just do not like what God has to say.
Thus, in 1997, an independent Bible preaching church was established. Her name is Messiah Reformed Church. Dr. Kelly Nelson Birks has been her pastor for all but 3 of these years and she has been a small, successful church because God has opened the understanding of a few. (She is still meeting in homes in Omaha as I write in 2020)
The Friends Church where Kelly had been pastoring when he first arrived in Omaha initially, saw fit to see Kelly out the door due to his study & adherence to the biblical doctrine of God’s Sovereignty in salvation & His sovereignty in everything else for that matter.
The PCA or the Presbyterian Church in America, welcomed him into their denomination for a time until, due to further study, God changed his eschatology. Kelly now saw what the Scriptures and History confirmed: Jesus Christ had returned in AD 70 when Jerusalem was judged….when her temple was burned to the ground by the Roman armies, when the Old Covenant was ended and the new beginning…everything Jesus had prophesied about these events had taken place. We were not waiting for them to occur sometime in OUR immediate future, like so many mistakenly believe. Kelly’s presuppositions on this subject had blinded him to this for many years. The PCA’s presuppositions were still blinding them.
Kelly had to go.
When Kelly was very ill, I contacted one of these churches….the name of the
church had changed & I actually thought the people now using the building
would not even know Kelly, but I wanted to request the use of their building in
the event Kelly passed away & because I thought it would be sentimental to
end Kelly’s story where it had begun here in Omaha. This is what I
was told:
“Dear Mrs. Birks, Although we certainly empathize with your sorrow at this difficult time, our group of elders cannot in good conscience permit you to hold the funeral here. It is our understanding (based upon the previous relationship your husband had with our church, our denomination & our former pastor, that the church your husband pastored – holds to a Hyper-preterist theology. We see this view as being antithetical and out of accord with true Christian doctrine. Were we to allow a funeral here conducted by your church’s elders, we would be acting against our own convictions concerning a key element of biblical orthodoxy– the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the future resurrection of the body. If your church’s theology no longer holds to this view, or you would be open to allowing one of our ministers to conduct the service, we would be willing to reopen dialogue, but as of now, this is the opinion of our leaders. Sorry that this answer is not what you desired.”
As I read this pastor’s email to
myself, I looked over at my beloved husband, sleeping next to me in his chair
& praised & thanked the Lord, that in the course of his life, he had
not feared men nor had he compromised the truth because of them. He had
sacrificed the things every Pastor hopes for in the beginning of their
ministries: a growing congregation and men of like mind to help &
advise, among other things.
I responded back a day later in order to correct his wrong understanding with
the following:
“Hello Pastor ____________________. Thank you
for getting back to me.
Yes, we are preterists at Messiah Reformed Church. However, we are not
‘hyper preterists.” My husband is reformed in his theology and preterist
in his eschatology. Most Christians have not studied the preterist view & I
understand your feelings regarding it and respect your church’s stance on
declining my request. In Christ, Kari Birks
God, through the prophet Isaiah, tells us that the man to whom God will look upon with favor, is the man who is humble in spirit and who trembles at His Word.
Kelly knew full well the great responsibility he had in the call of God upon His life and he did tremble in the handling of God’s Word.
This explains why he could never be accepted into any denomination of Christianity fully. Where man’s word differed from God’s, he took exception.
This taking exception was not an easy thing to do. Who doesn’t
want to be accepted and belong to the larger group? What truly Godly man does
not desire to be surrounded by other Godly men for friendship, fellowship and
accountability?
Kelly would not compromise or go along to get along.
The apostle Paul’s heart was heavy with concern when he wrote to encourage the Colossians. He wrote that his desire was that they would reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
That would be Kelly’s same concern for each one visiting his website today. He would want you to know the rich treasure that His Jesus was to him and he would desire for you to come to know Him or perhaps to come to know Him better.
Thank you for visiting today and we hope you will return often.
