Jehovah is Our God — Don Fortner
(Tune: #187 — Blest be the Tie —SM)

Jehovah is our God,
Our Portion and our Friend:
Let us, then, sound His praise abroad,
And trust Him to the end.

The Lord delights in men,
Chosen and made His own;
Receives us and forgives our sin,
And hears our every groan.

Our feelings and desires
Are pleasant in His sight;
And when our hope to Him aspires,
He views it with delight!

He calls us His beloved,
With us delights to dwell!
His kindness we have proved and proved.
His love we love to tell.

Rejoice, blest, favored saints,
For God delights in you!
Be gone my fears! Hush my complaints!
I’ll heav’nly joys pursue!

“We understand more about what Heaven is and will be to us by understanding what it is not and will not be to us. There will be no more sin – no more pain – no more sorrow – no more crying – no more war – no more death – no more sickness – no more heartache – no more fear – no more confusion – no more lacking – no more vanity – no more waiting – no more going astray – no more reproach – no more affliction – no more darkness – no more troubles – no more misery – no more wicked to oppress – no more forsaken – no more curse – no more dishonoring of God – our name will no more be called Jacob.” — Pastor Milton Howard

Gospel preachers, all gospel preachers, are co-laborers in the cause of Christ. We are not rivals, but co-laborers. One is no more important than another. Some pastor large churches in large cities. Others pastor small assemblies in insignificant little towns. But each faithful servant serves Christ in the place the Lord has put him.
Some of the Lord’s servants are very well educated. Some have very little education. Some are very eloquent, gifted preachers. Others speak with greater plainness. Some may appear to be more influential. Others may appear to be less influential. I say “appear to be” because none of us really knows how God uses men. But all God’s servants faithfully preach the gospel of Christ, telling eternity bound sinners how God saves poor sinners by his rich, free, abundant grace in Christ.
While it is true that one preacher may be more personally beneficial to you or me than another, that fact does not make him more important or more useful than another. Let me illustrate my point.
Who knows the name “Henry Scougal”? Very few. He was a Scottish preacher and theologian. He lived a short twenty-seven years on this earth before the Lord took him. Just one year before his death, he wrote a lengthy letter to a friend, seeking to show his friend the way of life and salvation in Christ. At the urging of others, that letter was published as a small booklet entitled “The Life of God in the Soul of Man.” That was in1677. Fifty years later another young man read Scougal’s marvellous little tract. It was blessed of God to that young man’s everlasting salvation. His name all who read these lines know — George Whitefield!
Whitefield was used of God as an instrument by whom thousands have been converted. But no one would have heard the gospel from Whitefield’s lips, had it not been for a man named Henry Scougal.
The same thing is seen in the conversion of Charles Spurgeon. No one outside heaven knows the name of the Primitive Methodist “stand-in” preacher from whose lips Spurgeon first heard the gospel preached with efficacy to his soul.
Let none of God’s saints ever look with scorn upon any man who preaches the gospel of God’s free grace in Christ. He who faithfully preaches the gospel to two or three of the Lord’s sheep is just as important in his place, doing what God has called him to do, as the man who preaches to hundreds. He is to be heard, respected, honored, supported and prayed for just as the preachers whose names are widely known.
You who believe are God’s husbandry. We who preach are nothing but hoes and hoses by which God works his garden. You who believe are God’s building. We who preach are nothing but tools in his hand: — Laborers Together (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13).

“And the people, when they knew it, followed him: and he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing.” (Luke 9:11)

The Lord Jesus Christ went about healing everyone that “had need of healing.” He was and is Jehovah-rapha: — “the Lord that healeth thee.” He healed all manner of diseases. He came to save and he came to heal. And he sent out his disciples with the same mission, saying: “Go, preach, saying, The kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils” (Matthew 10:7-8). What a word this is to every preacher of the gospel.

In every congregation we face there is someone who has “need of healing.” In every service there is someone who is sick and dying with the leprosy of sin, someone who is blind, halt, and lame, someone who is vexed with a devil, someone who is dead in trespasses and sins. While we cannot literally heal the sick, we do have a gospel that will heal the spiritually sick.

While we are told to reprove, rebuke, correct, and warn, we need to take care that we always try to comfort his people and heal them that have need of healing. May we always lift up Christ and him crucified, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, that every sin-sick soul may look and be healed. With every message we need to tell of him who will remove the burden of the laboring and heavy laden, who will lift the fallen and cheer the faint; who will receive the prodigal, who will forgive the forlorn, who will comfort the sorrowing, who will heal all that have need of healing.

Lantana Grace Church in Crossville, TN will host a Bible conference June 18-20. Scheduled speakers are Pastors Tom Harding, Tim James, Bruce Crabtree and Missionary Daniel Parks. Bro. Donnie Bell is the host pastor. — Telephone: 931-788-6195 — Email: dlb50@frontiernet.net

“He that hath the son hath life.” — Salvation is not what you know, but who you know. If you have Christ, you have it all (Colossians 3:11). Have you, by the sovereign grace of God, laid hold of his Son?

If you have, then you have life and that life is eternal, everlasting, forever! To know him is the one thing needful in the pilgrimage through this life. To trust him is the greatest gift that you could ever receive; and the gift is from God almighty. But that is only half of the passage. The second half needs no explanation. — “And he that hath not the Son of God hath not life!”