Call To Worship

(Tune: ‘Doxology')

1 - The love of Christ is rich and free;

Fixed on His own eternally;

Nor earth, nor hell, can it remove;

Long as He lives, His own He'll love.

2 - His loving heart engaged to be

Their everlasting Surety;

‘Twas love that took their cause in hand,

And love maintains it to the end.

3 - Love cannot from its post withdraw;

Nor death, nor hell, nor sin, nor law,

Can turn the Surety's heart away;

He'll love His own to endless day.

4- Love has redeemed His sheep with blood;

And love will bring them safe to God;

Love calls them all from death to life;

And love will finish all their strife.

5- He loves through every changing scene,

Nor aught can him from Zion wean;

Not all the wandering of her heart

Can make His love from her depart.

MORNING WORSHIP:

10:00 Bible Study: Video sermon by Bill Parker

11:00 Service: 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

You can also hear the sermons on your computer. Just click on

http://www.americusradio.com/

Birthdays: Susan Wages - June 17^th. , Jennifer Moore - June 20^th.

Satan's Devices

Satan most definitely has many "devices" or schemes whereby he would intend our destruction and make a mockery of GOD before our eyes. But Paul said we are not ignorant or blind to those schemes nor are we unequipped to do battle with him for we have been given armor, a sword and a shield which quench all of his fiery darts. Our flesh (which has a strange affinity to Satan's devices) would whisper to us of the lack of necessity to engage this defeated foe or it would provoke us to focus our attention on matters of flesh and blood, such as outward moralism, dead letter theology and unlearned questions, patriotism, times and seasons, or religious traditions.

Paul said, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled." (II Cor 10:3-6) It is interesting to note that the word which is translated "thought" in this verse is the exact same Greek word "noema" which is translated "devices" in the text that we are looking at. (i.e. II Cor.2:11)

The major venue where this warfare (which the awakened sons of GOD are involved in) takes place upon is the battleground of our minds. Paul said. "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace." (Rom 6:11-14) We are to "reckon" it to be so, or let our thought process dwell upon the very fact that we are not the servants of sin but have been made righteous by the blood of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. GOD uses the exhortations of HIS word to stir up our minds. (see I Pet.3:1; Phil.4:7; Heb.12:3; II Cor.11:3)

Paul said "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:" (Phil 2:3-5) Satan's most desired "device" is that of trying to move our "thinking" away from the contemplation of CHRIST to any number of other issues. Many of which may be of some benefit but keep us back from that which is most profitable.

"Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;" (Phil 3:8-10)

Mike McInnis - Pastor of Grace Chapel in O'Brien, Fl.

IMMUTABILITY

"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever."
(Hebrews 18. 8.)

What a mercy, my hearers, that our Jesus, on whom we build our souls' eternal all, is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever"! Whatever we look at, save the God of our salvation, we see changing. Look at the world and the things of the world - its fashion is changed. The Psalmist David had his mind awed with a view of the world, as we find in the concluding part of Ps. 102; and Paul brings David's language forward in Hebrews 1, showing that all things are fleeting, but the Lord is unchangeable. "He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days; thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." (Ps. 102. 23-27.) Our Jesus was in the beginning the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and all that therein is; our Jesus is the same Almighty God today, and He will be the same tomorrow and for ever. O what a mercy that our Jesus, the God of our salvation, is so unalterable, so eternally immutable!

Again, on the negative side of the question: if we look at nations, and empires, and monarchs, they rise and fall; but there is no alteration in our Jesus. Hear His voice: "By me kings reign and princes decree justice;" He upholds one and puts down another at His sovereign pleasure. God's ministers are to exalt Him: "Say unto Zion, Thy God reigneth" as the God of nations, and will cause all things to work together for His honour and the good of His chosen family.

Further, if we look at families, what changes there are in them! Where are our fathers? do they live for ever? No; one generation goes, another comes. But not so with our Jesus: "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore."

Look at churches; what changes take place in them! Ministers that have stood on Zion's walls and blown the silver trumpet of the everlasting gospel are removed. They are the subject of mortality, like the high priest under the law; and the loss is frequently greatly felt. But our Jesus, the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls, will never die; He is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever;" and the church is as near and dear to Him as ever it was. But as we see the Lord's servants removed from the sphere of usefulness into the immediate presence of the divine Master, we are to "pray... the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth labourers into his harvest." The residue of the Spirit is with Him.