CALL TO WORSHIP

(Tune: "Jesus the Very Thought")

Approach my soul, the mercy-seat,

Where God will hear our prayer,

There humbly fall before His feet,

For none can perish there.

Thy promise is my only plea,

With this I venture nigh;

Thou callest burdened souls to Thee,

And such, O Lord, am I.

O wondrous Love! To bleed and die,

To bear the cross and shame;

That guilty sinners such as I,

Might plead Thy gracious name.

The hearing ear, the seeing eye,

The contrite heart bestow;

And bless us with Thy precious Word,

That we in grace may grow.

Psalms 94:14

For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.

Bible Study 10 AM. Video sermon by Richard Warmack

Today's Speaker: Brother Winston Pannell will conduct the 11:00 am service today. Pray for him as he delivers God's word.

Radio Broadcast: Sunday morning at 9:30am on 98.7 FM -WISK

Birthdays: Chris Jackson - Oct. 5^th., Stacy Young - Oct. 5^th.

GOD HEARS ONLY THE RIGHTEOUS

"The LORD is far from the wicked: but He heareth the prayer of the righteous." (Proverbs 15:29)

Prayer is an intimate communication of the child of God unto His heavenly Father through the Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. 4:14-16). This is why God is far from those who do not come to Him in faith through His Son. Prayer is an act of faith done by a sinner saved by the grace of God in Christ. God hears only the righteous, and there are none who are found righteous among men by nature or by our best works. We can only be found righteous before God by His grace through His imputing (crediting) the righteousness of Christ to our account (Isa. 54:17; Jer. 23:5-6). It is in this revelation by the Holy Spirit that He guides us in prayer and motivates us to pray knowing that God hears our prayers as we approach His throne of grace on the ground of the death of His Son. Christ and Him crucified, therefore, is not only our confidence in salvation but also our confidence in prayer.

Pastor Bill Parker

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The blood of Jesus Christ being the blood of the everlasting covenant - that blood which was to reunite God with men, and men with God - it was necessary, after its being shed on the cross, that it should be thus sprinkled in heaven. ‘I go,' says He to His disciples, ‘to prepare a place for you.' It was necessary that this blood should be sprinkled there, and also upon them, before they could be admitted. But by its means they were prepared to enter into heaven, and heaven itself was prepared for their reception, which without that sprinkling would have been defiled by their presence. ‘Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption.' Jesus Christ is not only seated at the right hand of God, but He is there for the very purpose of interceding for His people. By the perpetual efficacy of His blood their sins are removed, and consequently every ground of their condemnation. This never-ceasing intercession of Him who ever liveth to advocate their cause, not only procures the remission of their sins, but also all the graces of the Holy Spirit; and by the efficacy of the Holy Spirit an internal aspersion is made upon their hearts when they are actually converted to God, and when by faith they receive the sprinkling of the blood of their Redeemer. For them He died, He arose, He ascended to heaven, and there intercedes. How, then, can they be condemned? How can they come short of eternal glory?

-Robert Haldane

SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS IN CHRIST

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." God has blessed his people from the beginning with every needful new covenant blessing, treasured up in Christ Jesus their covenant Head. There is not a single blessing of grace and salvation which is not secured and deposited in him. Ah, my friends, it is well for us they are treasured up in Christ Jesus, because in him they are safe and secure. The Holy Spirit, in his appointed time, convinces the heart of the poor sinner of the need of these spiritual blessings; he gives him deeply to feel his need, and puts a cry in his heart after them. The Lord says, "I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." The poor sinner will never come to Christ, bow down before him and seek the Lord's blessing, until he is brought into poverty, destitution and indigent circumstances. He will never flee to Christ for refuge until every other resource fails him, and he is at his wits' end and knows not what to do. But, blessed be his name, Christ is a refuge for the helpless and the destitute.

--- John Kershaw, 1853

Repentance from dead works

Although we should all strive to love our neighbor as ourselves, it's imperative that we derive no confidence from that, but rather that we flee to Christ and plead His righteousness as our only ground salvation - as the sole and complete basis upon which I, a sinner, can be reconciled before a holy God - One whose inflexible justice shall not clear the guilty. I need a Substitute. In this light we should repent of ever thinking that anything proceeding from ourselves could save us or even contribute to any part of salvation. When our efforts to comply with God's will, though commendable and highly esteemed in this world - particularly among religious folks - when, or if, we assign any merit to those things, they fall into the category of "dead" works of which we're commanded to repent. And when God gives spiritual life to someone, that's exactly what they do as they see the evil of daring to place something that proceeds from them in a place of rivalry with that which only the God-man, Jesus Christ Himself, could and did accomplish.