3/29/20
Call To Worship
Praise the God of all creation
Praise the Father's boundless love;
Praise the Lamb, our expiation,
Priest and King enthroned above;
Praise the Fountain of salvation,
Him by whom our spirits live;
Undivided adoration
To the ONE JEHOVAH give!
For Thy free electing favor,
Thee, O Father, we adore!
Jesus, our redeeming Saviour,
Thee we worship evermore!
Praise the God of our salvation,
Hosts on high His love proclaim;
Heav'n and earth and all creation,
Laud and magnify His name.
(TUNE: "Come Thou Fount", pg.17)
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Remember In Prayer This Week:
Bea Reeg; Tracey Riedstra; Gina and Graham Dison; Kim Mullings;
Pam Austin; Sarah Caniano; Judy Ward; Leroy Moore; Stanley Dison;
Monica Aaron; Tye Wilson; Lael Pedersen; Devonne Lewis; Jackie Gaddis;
Dusty Adams;Ashton Ward; Rayna Kay Bartley; Diane Balsamo;
ALL THE BRETHREN effected by this virus
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"Holiness And Truth" by J.C.Philpot
As a love of holiness necessarily includes as well as implies a hatred of, and a fleeing from sin, so will a love of truth contain in it a hatred of, and a fleeing from, error. People deny the truth, trifle with it, or are indifferent to it because they feel no urgent personal need of it.
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"IMPUTATION"
To impute is to charge a thing upon a person whether guilty or not, as the circumstances hereafter are proved, or not. Thus Shimei intreated David, that he would not "impute iniquity to him" for some former transaction. (2 Samuel 19:19) And the apostle Paul (Romans 4:8) declares them blessed to whom the Lord "will not impute sin." This is the general sense of imputation.
But in the case of the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ to his people, and their sins imputed to him; the sense of imputation goes farther, and ascribes to Christ, and to the sinner, that which each hath not, but by the very act of imputing it to them. Hence the apostle Paul explains it in the clearest manner in two Scriptures: the first, in 2 Cor. 5:21, where speaking of this imputation of our sins to Christ, and his righteousness to us, he refers it into the sovereignty and good pleasure of God the Father.
For speaking of Christ, it is used, "God hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Here the doctrine of imputation is most plainly and fully stated. Christ is the imputed sinner, or rather sin itself in the total abstract, and in the very moment when he knew no sin. And the sinner is said to be righteous; yea, the righteousness of God in Christ; when in the same time he hath not a single portion of righteousness in himself, or in any of his doings. This is, therefore, to impute Christ's righteousness to his people, and their sins to him. The other Scripture that explains the doctrine is but in part, namely, respecting the imputation of sin. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." (Galatians 3:13) Here Christ stands with all the curse of a broken law charged upon him, as the sinner's Surety; yea, as the curse itself. And consequently, as in the doing of this, he takes it from his people; they are redeemed from it. The original debtor, and the Surety, who pays for that debtor, cannot both have the debt at the same time charged, upon them. This, therefore, is the blessed doctrine of imputation. Our sins are imputed to Christ. His righteousness is imputed to us.
Robert Hawker (1753-1827)
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"The Sovereignty Of God" by J.C.Philpot
"All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or say to Him: 'What have You done?'" Daniel 4:35
The verdict of God in His word is that He is Sovereign. The sovereignty of God, as exercised in all matters great or small, is often a hard thing for the people of God, especially when it touches them close. When it—takes away idols out of their bosom—blights their schemes—withers their prospects—disappoints their hopes—and stands before them as a mountain of brass and a gate of iron, which they can neither pass over nor pass through.
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"Why Did Christ Die?
According to some people, Christ died to give all a chance of being saved! I do not know that I hate anything more in my soul than to hear that. It makes Jesus Christ so little that He should do so much, and after all only to get us a chance of being saved. Why, if a man is set up in business, you see how often it happens that he fails in it; and if man cannot manage the paltry things of time and sense without being insolvent, what will he do with eternal realities? And if you come a little closer, when God "made man upright" and he had no sinful nature, what did he do with his innocence? He lost it all! And yet poor presumptuous man has the vanity to think you and I could manage the chance of being saved. What an insult it is to the Lord Jesus Christ to fix the eternal honor of God upon chance, and that chance to be managed by a poor sinful creature who is tumbling into half a dozen holes every hour of his life! NO, NO. Thanks be to God for immortal realities and certainties. WHAT IS SAID CONCERNING WHAT CHRIST HAS DONE? He has "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself;" He has "finished transgression and made an end of sin;" He has "redeemed us from all iniquity;" He has "redeemed us from the curse of the law," from destruction and from the power of the devil; He has "obtained eternal redemption for us;" He has "redeemed us to God." To the honor of the Eternal Trinity it is said, not that the redeemed shall have a chance, but that the redeemed shall "come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." The Lord Jesus Christ has done this "great" work; and He has gone to heaven shouting "Victory," for "God is gone up with a shout; the Lord with the sound of a trumpet." He rose from the grave as a demonstrative proof that sin was destroyed, law satisfied, God honored, His people eternally and everlastingly saved. And the immortal honors of God unite in their salvation; therefore, He ever lives at the right hand of the Father to make intercession.
William Gadsby