07/20/2026
The gospel truly is powerful.
Back in 2012, I had the privilege of meeting Lowell and Mae Ivey—a dear young couple who had been married for only about one year at the time (they now have six children! The whole family is pictured here last year with Lowell’s grandmother). Lowell had served fifteen years in prison for armed robbery as a gang member. During those years, he spent much of his time in solitary confinement, where the Lord converted him after about six years behind bars. He wanted to thank me for ministering to him in prison through my Heidelberg Catechism sermons. He told me that he had been born again under an Arminian preacher, but soon felt that something was wrong with Arminianism because he heartily believed that he was saved by grace alone.
Around that time, one of my former elders—entirely on his own initiative—began mailing one of my Heidelberg Catechism sermons every week to several hundred prisons. I didn’t even know he was doing this until several years later. I often thought that was a rather strange thing to send to prisoners—but happily, I never told him that! Well, to make a long story short, Lowell got on this mailing list. There, in solitary confinement, he read those weekly sermons. He later told me, “God used these weekly sermons more than anything else, to make me thoroughly Reformed. So, I want to thank God for using you as a major instrument in my life to bring me to embrace and love the doctrines of sovereign grace!”
After being released from prison, Lowell then met his dear wife, Mae, in a Presbyterian church. (Incidentally, Mae comes from the Davis family, who once served as missionaries in the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil. Later, their daughter Berry and her husband Johnny Serafini and their children were our neighbors while Johnny was studying for his MDiv at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids. The connection here is that Mae is Berry’s sister.) After Lowell and Mae were married, Lowell went to study at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, became a pastor, and now serves in the PCA’s Metanoia Prison Ministries! Marvelous, sovereign, and humbling are the ways of God! He uses weak means to accomplish His sovereign, gracious will.
I love to tell that story because it reminds me of what a glorious gospel we have—one that transforms those who are in literal prisons, as well as the (equally real) prison of sin and enslavement to the devil. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:15). Hallelujah!
The power of the gospel is what has inspired the next Puritan Reformed Conference (scheduled for August 20–22), which will be on the theme of evangelism and missions. Please join us in Grand Rapids this summer! I’d love to see you there! https://events.g3min.org/prc26.
