"The LORD is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him." (Lamentations 3:25) *************************************************************************** WE HAVE AN ADVOCATE TUNE TO From Every Stormy Wind LM WORDS BY JIM BYRD
1. Ye saints look up with cheerful eye, And see your King who reigns on high; Behold the Savior on His throne, The Advocate for all His own.
2. Be never filled with dark despair, Come cast on Him your ev’ry care; And trust His interceding grace, Whose blood redeemed His chosen race.
3. Since by His blood we’re justified, His prayers will never be denied; ‘Tis Christ, with sympathizing love, Who represents us high above.
4. Come then unto the throne of grace, To Christ, Who is our Hiding-Place; And rest in Him and be at peace, His love for us will never cease. ********************************************* CONGREGATIONAL SCRIPTURE READINGS: MORNING: PSALM 99 EVENING: LUKE 11:45-54 *********************************************
Daily Readings -March 18-24 Sunday - Joshua 17-19 Monday - Joshua. 20-21 Tuesday - Joshua 22-24 Wednesday- Judges 1-2 Thursday - Judges 3-5 Friday - Judges 6-7 Saturday - Judges 8-9 *************************************************************************** WHY MEN GO TO HEAVEN OR HELL The scriptures tell us that "the blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). Also, we are told that His name is called "Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). Among their many sins are the sins of unbelief and their consequent rejection of Christ all the days of their lives prior to their conversion. So what determined their salvation and made it sure? Was it their reception of Christ? John tells us that the difference between those who reject Christ and those who receive Him lies in a distinction made by God Himself! No one in their natural state ever receives Christ. Men neither "do" any thing to be lost or anything to be saved! We became sinners in Adam by virtue of something he did. "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12). Many on earth will never hear of Christ so as to be able to reject Him, yet they will perish. Why, because they are sinners! John writes, "He came unto His own and His own received Him not." But then he says, "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to becomes the sons of God." Why did these receive Christ and many others continue to reject Him? John says that it is because these who received Him "were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, \sect ulnor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:11-13). Why were these born of God? Because of the efficacy of the blood of Christ! They are saved because God "accepted" them "in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:6). Christ is that glorious God-Man Person whose blood shed was a particular price paid to redeem a particular people! God says, "for the transgression of My people was He stricken" (Isaiah 53:8). That is the design of Christ's atonement and the extent of it since whatever God desires to do that's what He does. (Job 23:13) And that is the message of the Gospel. God, in the tri-unity of His sacred Persons, is the cause of salvation and the gospel of particular redemption in Christ goes up to His throne as a sweet fragrance "in those that are being saved and in those that perish" (2 Corinthians 2:14-16). Many will die in their sins, not because of what they do or don't do, but because of what they are. Salvation is of the Lord! As Bro. Barnard once preached, "Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them" (Jeremiah 6:30). –Pastor Gary Shepard
*************************************************************************** THE STRAIT GATE AND NARROW WAY "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth to life, and few there be which find it." (Matthew 7:13-14)
The natural man believes there must be something more required for entrance into the kingdom of God than merely the person and work of Christ. "Surely," he reasons, "if I am to be saved, there is some contribution I must make - a law to keep, duty to perform or religious ritual to be observed." But the Scripture declares it is a strait gate and a narrow way; strait and narrow in the sense there is only room for Christ and His justice-satisfying obedience. If you think that your self-righteous deeds, called "filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6), are required for salvation, you are dead wrong. Christ and His work of redemption is the only way of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. In the matter of a sinner’s acceptance before a holy God, there is no room for Christ’s imputed righteousness and the sinner’s manufactured righteousness (which is, in reality, unrighteousness). If God were to permit your righteousness to pass through in addition to Christ’s, He would have to make the gate wider and the way broader, which He will never do. –Pastor Jim Byrd
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