April 2, 2006
Those who seek to justify themselves before God continually seek to justify themselves before men. — Those who are justified before God never need to justify themselves before men.
Daily Readings for the Week of April 2-9
Sunday 2 Samuel 1-3 Thursday 2 Samuel 13-14
Monday 2 Samuel 4-6 Friday 2 Samuel 15-17
Tuesday 2 Samuel 7-10 Saturday 2 Samuel 18-19
Wednesday 2 Samuel 11-12 Sunday 2 Samuel 20-21
· I am preaching today for Shiloh Baptist Church in Huntersville, NC, where Bro. Ralph Dale is pastor. We are delighted to have Bro. Maurice Montgomery with us today. Bro. Montgomery will preach this morning and tonight. The Lord willing, I will return home on Monday and preach to you Tuesday evening.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Lindsay Campbell-6th Sally Poncer-7th
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: Darrin & LeAnn Duff-10th Darvin & Cathy Pruitt-16th
NURSERY DUTY THIS WEEK
Today: Pam Wood (AM) Celeste Peterson (PM) Tuesday: Shelby Fortner
O The Sweet Wonders of the Cross! — Don Fortner
(Tune: #308 — Higher Ground — LMD )
1. O the sweet wonders of the cross, the cross where God, my Savior, died!
Eternal life my spirit draws from Jesus Christ, the crucified.
Oh, let the praises of His name forevermore engage my tongue!
Adore, my heart, and trust the Lamb, the Lamb who sits upon the throne!
2. Love, beyond conception great, that found a Ransom for my soul,
By which God can, by truth and grace, in sov’reign mercy make me whole!
In Jesus crucified I see how grace abounds and justly reigns
To save a guilty wretch like me, while God his justice yet sustains.
3. Yes, justice reigns, and mercy too. In Jesus crucified they meet.
He paid to justice all its’ due, and fills with grace the mercy-seat!
Such are the wonders of the cross, and God’s amazing love and grace,
Which saved me from eternal loss, shining in my Redeemer’s face!
Believer’s Baptism is the means by which saved sinners publicly confess their faith in Christ, identifying themselves with Christ, his people, and his gospel. The symbolism of this ordinance is tremendous. Being symbolically buried with Christ in the watery grave and rising with him to walk in the newness of life, we declare that our Savior fulfilled all righteousness for us, and that he has, by the merit and virtue of his sin-atoning sacrifice for us, put away our sins and raised us from spiritual death. Following our Lord in baptism, we declare to God’s church and to all the world that Christ is our Lord, he bought us with his blood, and we are his. If God has given you faith in Christ, his command to you is, “Arise, and be baptized.”
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“If Any Man Defile” — 1 Corinthians 3:16-17
“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?” — The Holy Spirit tells us that every assembly of God’s saints is “the temple of God.” That makes the gathering of God’s elect as his house for public worship tremendously important. It is the most important and most beneficial assembly of men on earth. To rob yourself and your family of the benefit of this assembly is to court reprobation and seek the everlasting destruction of your own household (Heb. 10:25-26).
“The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.” — God the Holy Spirit dwells in this temple. There is something profoundly mysterious and wonderful about the gathering of God’s saints to worship him. When we come together in the name of Christ to worship our God, no matter how many or how few, the Son of God assembles with us (Matt. 18:20), and the Spirit of God abides in our midst! The presence of God is promised in no other place on earth; but it is promised to the gathered church of God. Here, and here alone, the eternal God has promised to meet and commune with mortal men (Ex. 25:22). It is in this assembly, and only in this assembly that God promises to give out his Word (Ex. 25:22; Rom. 10:17).
“If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” — The words “defile” and “destroy” are translated from the same word. They are translated differently because both translations are needed to convey what is here stated. The word from which these two words are translated means, “to waste, wither, corrupt, destroy, and spoil.” Paul is declaring that every man (preachers in particular) who wastes and withers, corrupts and destroys a local church, taking the spoils of God’s temple for himself, as “Nebuchadnezzar carried the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon,” shall be wasted, withered, corrupted, destroyed, and spoiled by God.
The temple of God is “defiled” by those men who, rather than preaching Christ crucified, preach the wisdom of this world and, by philosophy and vain deceit, corrupt the minds of men from “the simplicity that is in Christ.” By the enticing words of man’s wisdom,” they divide the temple and tear down its walls; and they do so with the most self-serving, malicious designs of spoiling it, taking from it whatever they can for themselves, seeking their own things. — “He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory.”
It is written of all such men, “him shall God destroy.” By their own mouths, they shall be damned. God is the avenger of all false doctrine, false worship, and of everything that is contrary to the gospel. “For the temple of God is holy.” The house and worship of God, the people of God and the gospel of Christ are holy things, never to be used and abused by men for vain purposes. “Which temple ye are.” Notice that the word “temple” here was added by the translators. In reality, the Holy Spirit is saying, “which you are.” That is to say, you can be sure that God will avenge his own elect. Because we are his holy people, sanctified to him and for him, he will destroy those who seek to destroy us.
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The death of Christ our Lord as a fact happened at a point in time. But in the design of God and the effects upon the eternal destinies of men makes it the most wonderful event between the eternities. Even though it happened in time, it has no date at all when seen from its purpose, which is “from before the foundation of the world” the Lord Jesus is “the Lamb slain”. He is the Lamb slain to the close of all things. What took place and what was accomplished by the death of Christ is still taking place, going on, even now.
The water and the blood, which flowed from His wounded side, were soaked up by the earth and are gone, but the effects of the water and the power of His blood are going on now. When we view the death of Christ, of the water and the blood from God’s point of view, it is eternal. It is also eternal for those for whom He was pierced, continually bearing witness to the satisfaction of God and our eternal salvation. Pastor Don Bell
“Jesus Wept”
Nothing can be more soothing and consolatory to a poor, sorrowful, afflicted follower of the Lord Jesus in his hours of suffering, than the consideration that he who is now exalted at the right hand of the majesty on high, was once, when on earth, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” And the highest possible relief to the anguish of the soul under temptation is the consciousness of the sympathy and compassion of Christ. He who wept when upon earth in beholding the tears of his people, cannot be unfeeling of them now though in heaven. Robert Hawker
Translations of Scripture
If you want a purely historical account of the history of Israel, read the Good News Bible. If you want a purely intellectual account of the Holy Scripture, read the Moffatt translation. If you want a very good version of the Scripture with several shades of meaning to certain words and phrases, read the Amplified Version. If you want a purely modern-day, fundamentalist interpretation of the scripture, read the Living Bible. If you want a very good reference Bible to help you study, use the New International Version. If you want a fair version that does away with the fact that God must be propitiated, read the Revised Standard Version. If you want a fair version that does teach propitiation, read the American Standard Version.
But if you want to study God's Word with an eye to seeing Christ exalted in all the foundational doctrines of the gospel and of the Person and work of each of the three Divine Persons as they are revealed in one God, you must read and study the King James Version. None of the other versions, either singly or combined, can compare to the beauty and power of the King James Version as it is written. Many of the above versions, in their attempt to make God's Word understandable to the unregenerate mind (whether the common man or the intellectual), destroy the basic foundational truths of our faith concerning God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin, salvation, redemption, and God's eternal purpose as they are revealed in the King James Version. Charlie Payne
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