Call to Worship
Come friends and sing in sweet accord
With many pleasures tell
The covenant made with David's Lord (repeat)
In all things ordered well. (repeat)
This covenant stood ere time began
That God with men might dwell
Eternal wisdom drew the plan (repeat)
In all Things ordered well! (repeat)
Twas made with our Lord for His bride
Before the sinner fell
Twas signed, and sealed, and ratified (repeat)
In all things ordered well. (repeat)
(Tune: "There is A Fountain" Pg 222)
~~~ O ~~~
The Inward Warfare
And grace and sin by turns prevail; I grieve, rejoice, decline, revive; and victory hangs in doubtful scale: But Jesus has His promise past, That grace shall overcome at last.
- John Newton
“We can give without loving, but we cannot love without giving.”
- Alexander Duff
~~~ O ~~~
“For if any man think himself to be something,
when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” - Galatians 6:3
If we can learn that we are NOTHING, then we have learned something. But if we think we are something, then we have learned nothing. Scripture says so. Scripture says if we think ourselves to be “something when (we) are nothing” we are deceived. In other words, we are not special, unique, invaluable nor irreplaceable (in spite of what our mothers may think.) Each of us is just one sinful human being among billions of others just like us. We are born sinful, rebellious, ignorant and totally dependent upon the grace and mercy of God to teach us, change us, and give us any value or worth in this life. Apart from God’s revealing, teaching grace we know nothing. Apart from God’s constraining grace we can do nothing. Apart from God’s keeping grace we will amount to nothing.
Matthew Henry once said, “Since God made everything out of nothing, if he is going to use us, we are going to have to be nothing” God made everything from nothing, that way he gets all the glory. There were no natural materials to work with, no means to use which could share in His creative glory. He simply spoke everything into existence. So it is in salvation. God finds nothing in the sinner to work with. No faith, no knowledge, no mind or heart to seek Him, so He simply must speak (by His Word) our salvation into existence. He must simply (yet powerfully) command us to hear, see, repent, come…LIVE! God gets all the glory!
There was nothing to work with and no one helped Him in the work of our salvation. If any think they “made a decision”…. “Let God into their heart” … “made Jesus lord” …”accepted him as savior”, that person DECEIVETH HIMSELF. One more time, “For by GRACE ARE YE SAVED through faith; and that NOT OF YOURSELVES: IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD.” (Ephesians 2:8)
- Pastor Paul Mahan
“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”
- Martin Luther
EVERY TEXT IN GOD’S WORD IS GOD’S TEXT
Campbellites are disciples of Alexander Campbell (1788-1866). They deny salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone – apart from works. They believe instead that a sinner is not saved until he is baptized.
In a conversation with a Campbellite some years ago, I asked him, “Is baptism a work?” He replied, “Yes.” I asked, “Were you saved by baptism?” He replied, “Yes.” I asked, “Were you therefore saved by works?” He replied, “Yes.” When I informed him that Ephesians 2:8-9 declares salvation is by grace through faith apart from works, he refused to reconsider and instead replied, “That’s one of your texts!” (Evidently there are texts to which the Campbellite mantra “Where the Scriptures speak, we speak, and where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent” does not apply!)
No! Every text in God’s Word is God’s text! “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16f).
But men of sects, contrary to the above-cited “man of God”, treat God’s Word as a smorgasbord from which each chooses which texts belong on the plate of his own sect, leaving the rest for the plates of other sects. Assumedly the above-cited Campbellite had already chosen which texts belonged to his sect, and was willing to leave the rest to others, Ephesians 2:8-9 specifically to me.
Let every member of the church of Christ treat every text in God’s Word as God’s text, neither adding to or taking from them (Revelation 22:18f; Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverb 30:6).
– Pastor Daniel E. Parks