Knowing God

God is WHO HE IS and God is WHO HE SAYS HE IS; therefore, a knowledge of God must come from Him by divine revelation. Any true knowledges of the Lord God must be revealed to us by the Spirit of God, or we will perish in ignorance, worshipping the idols of our imagination, calling them God.

God is pleased to reveal Himself in two ways; through HIS WORD and through HIS SON. “God spoke to us by His Son” (Heb. 1:1-2). If you would know the true and living God, trust not your dreams, your visions, your thoughts, or your traditions; but look to HIS WORD and to HIS SON.

“I and my Father are one; he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John. 14:9).Any thoughts or ideas of God which are contrary to the Word of God and the person of Jesus Christ are false and full of idolatry! Pastor Henry T. Mahan (1984)

WILL YOU HELP ME?

Yes, as your pastor, I desperately need your help. I’m not asking for something which is unimportant or optional, but something which is essential to the spiritual well-being of ourselves, our children and all who frequent this assembly. Nor am I asking for something which can be done by anyone and everyone, but is a privilege exclusive to you, the saints of God.

Brothers and Sisters, I am asking for your prayers. As you have graciously granted me many requests through the years, for which I am thankful, I earnestly implore you to grant me this request. For your sakes and for mine, don’t permit me to stand before you from time to time without being uplifted before the throne of grace by your personal and united prayers.

I am a mere man whom God has chosen to deal with the souls of men and the consequences are solemn and eternal. My message will either be a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death, “And who is sufficient for these things?”

I earnestly want my preaching to be profitable unto you and blessed to the salvation of your children. These spiritual blessings descend from heaven on the wings of pure grace, but God has chosen to disseminate this precious treasure through “earthen vessels.”

“Brethren, pray for us” (I Thessalonians 5:25).

Pastor Maurice Montgomery (1981)

The Blessed Doctrine Of Election

“But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thes. 2:13).

Election means that the destiny of men is in the hands of God. Many of us have regarded as an axiom the statement that every man's destiny is in his own hands. But this is to deny the whole tenor of Scripture. At no time is the destiny of the saint in his own hands, either before or after he is saved. Was my destiny in my own hands before I was saved? If so, I regenerated myself; I resurrected, by my own power, myself out of a state of sin and death; I am my own benefactor and have nobody to thank but myself for being alive and saved.

Perish such a thought! By the grace of God I am what I am. (John 1:13; Eph. 2:1-10; II Tim. 1:9; James 1:18) Is my destiny in my own hands now? Then I will either keep myself saved or I will lose my salvation. The Bible says we are kept by the power of God through Faith. (I Peter 1:15; Ps. 37:28; John 10:27-29; Phil. 1:6; Heb. 13:5) If my destiny is not safe in my own hands after I am saved then how could it be thought to be safe in my own hands before my conversion? The saint dies, his body is consigned to the grave and becomes a dust-heap. Is his destiny in his own hands then? If so, what hope has he of ever coming out of the grave with an immortal and incorruptible body? None at all if his destiny is in his own hands. Such a theory, that the destiny of the saint is or ever has been in his own hands, reverses the very laws of nature and implies that water can rise above the level of its source; that man can lift himself into the attic by his boot-straps; that the Ethiopian can change his color, and the leopard can remove his spots; that death can beget life; that evolution is true and God is a liar.

The theory that one's destiny is in his own hands begets self-confidence and self-righteousness; the belief that destiny is in the hands of God begets SELF-ABNEGATION AND FAITH IN GOD.