October 29, 2006

 

“My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.”            — John Newton

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Sandy Gladfelter-3^rd Wes Rozeboom-5^th

CHURCH CLEANING IN NOVEMBER: Bob and Sally Poncer

NURSERY DUTY THIS WEEK

Today: Vicci Rolley (AM) Laura Peterson (PM) Tuesday: Ruth Wall

 

Come, Poor Sinners, Come to Jesus — Don Fortner

(Tune: Love Divine #2 – 87.87D)

 

1.        Come, poor sinners, to Christ Jesus, as you are, guilty and weak.

Christ, the Lord, alone can save us. — Bow to Him, His mercy seek.

“Come,” the Lord Himself commands it. That commandment is your right.

God in vain would not have said it. Mercy is the Lord’s delight!

 

2.        Think not of your own unfitness. — Come to Christ’s fulness of grace.

Sinners find in Him completeness, pardon, peace and righteousness!

Think not to make some improvement in yourself before you come.

Come in all your base defilement: naked, sinful, vile, undone!

 

3.        Hear the Master’s words most cheering, suited for the most distressed. —

(Grace is for the undeserving!) — “Come, and I will give you rest!”

Do not perish in your sorrow. From yourself now turn away.

Do not wait until tomorrow. Come to Christ without delay!

 

Do you believe on the Son of God?

 

Has God the Holy Spirit given you faith in Christ? Do you suddenly, unexplainably find yourself trusting Christ, looking to him for salvation? If you do, it is because God has given you his gift of eternal life. — “He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life…Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ hath everlasting life.” You could not and would not believe were you not born of God. You do not need to know when you began to believe, who was preaching when you began to believe, whether you have repented enough to be a believer, or whether you believe enough to be a believer. — “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

 

         If you do, if you find yourself trusting Christ, I say to you as Ananias said to Saul of Tarsus, who suddenly found himself believing on the Son of God, “The God of our fathers hath chosen thee…arise, and be baptized.” Do not delay. Obey your Lord and Savior, identify yourself with him and confess him. — “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”

 

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Ascending to the House of God

Our Foes

Psalm 129

 

As we saw in Psalm 120, our foes are many and relentless. The slanderer’s tongue is a sharp arrow that will never cease to pierce and hurt. But in Psalm 129, as he moves up to the house of God, the pilgrim bids his foes farewell and commits them to his God. That is exactly what we must do. That is exactly what we soon shall do!

 

“Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say: Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth: yet they have not prevailed against me. The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows. The Lord is righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked. Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion. Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up: Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you: we bless you in the name of the Lord.”

 

         The Scriptures often speak of Christ and his church by the same name (Jer. 23:6; 33:16), because we are truly one with him and he is truly one with us. Without question, the psalmist here refers to both our Savior and to us. Our afflictions are his and his are ours. In all our afflictions, he is afflicted (Isa. 63:9). That which touches us touches the apple of his eye (Zech. 2:8). This has always been the case. The Scriptures plainly speak of our afflictions as our Savior’s afflictions (Gal. 4:29; Hosea 11:1; Matt. 2:14-15).

 

         The words of verse 3, “The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows,” obviously describe that which our blessed Savior endured for us when he gave his back to the smiters (Isa. 50:6), and was scourged in Pilate’s judgment hall (John 19:1). All that he suffered at the hands of men and at the hands of divine justice we suffered in him.

 

         But the Lord God has cut asunder the cords of the wicked. He has made them withered grass to be cast into the furnace. Just as surely as Christ was made triumphant over all his foes and ours as our Substitute, we shall be made triumphant over them in everlasting glory. — “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20).

 

         Hallelujah! I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine! All that concerns me concerns him; and all that concerns him concerns me. His sorrows and sufferings he has made mine; and my sorrows and sufferings he makes his. And, soon, the blessedness and triumph that he enjoys as the exalted God-man, he will cause me to enjoy. The glory he possesses as my Surety he has given to me, and shall soon cause me to enjoy forever!

 

         Though, for now, for a season, we must sow in tears, we shall finally reap in joy! So let us sing, in the expectation of the glory awaiting us, as we ascend to the house of our God to worship him.

 

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“After this the Judgment” — Hebrews 9:27

 

There is a day coming in which God shall judge all men. Every man will be judged according to exact truth, righteousness, and justice. The standard by which we shall be judged is the holy law of God himself. We shall be judged according to the books of God, in which are recorded all our earthly thoughts, words, and deeds (2 Cor. 5:10-11; Rev. 20:11-12; Matt. 25:31-46). In that great and terrible day of the Lord everyone will receive exactly what is justly due to him. None will be punished who do not deserve to be punished. And none will be received into heaven’s eternal glory who do not deserve to enter in. Those who are found guilty of any sin, or infraction of God’s holy law shall be cast into hell. Those who are perfectly holy, holy as God himself, shall enter into heaven (Ps. 24:3-4; Rev. 21:27; 22:11).

 

Strict Justice

In that day the Judge of all the earth, who must do right, will do right. He will show no lenience, partiality, or favoritism. He will not bend his law. At the bar of God there will be no mercy and no grace. The judgment seat is not a place of mercy. It is a place of strict, unbending, unwavering, immutable justice. Only the facts will be considered when we stand before God. Guilty or not guilty, righteous or unrighteous, holy or unholy, these will be the only matters of consideration in that day. “Evil pursueth sinners: but to the righteous good shall be repayed” (Pro. 13:21). “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek. 18:20). He that “hath done that which is lawful and right shall surely live” (Ezek. 33:16). God will by no means clear the guilty. And he will not punish the righteous.

 

Our Only Hope

In the light of these facts, most plainly set forth in the Word of God, it is obvious that the only hope any sinful person, any child of Adam, has of eternal salvation and acceptance with God is that he might be saved by the infinite merits of an able, all-sufficient Substitute. And that Substitute is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God! He has, by his own precious blood, completely washed away the sins of his people. They are no longer recorded in the book of God’s law against us (Isa. 43:25; 44:22). In that great day, when God opens the book, he will not find one sin recorded against any of those for whom Christ died (Jer. 50:20). Our sins were made his. He was punished in our stead. By his blood he fully satisfied the penalty required by God’s law for our sins. Christ paid our debt to God’s law. Now we have nothing to pay!

              And Jesus Christ is “the Lord our righteousness” (Jer. 23:6). His righteous obedience to God has been imputed to all who believe on him, so that in the sight of God’s holy law, according to the record of God’s own books, we are perfectly righteous. Yes, every believing sinner has been made the very righteousness of God in Christ (Rom. 5:19; 2 Cor. 5:21).

 

 

Day of Triumph

Let us look upon that day with sobriety, but not with fear. Nowhere in the Word of God will you find a believer speaking of the day of judgment with dread, or fear. It is always spoken of as a blessed day and looked upon with anticipation by God’s elect. If we are in Christ, united to him by faith, washed in his blood and robed in his righteousness, the day of judgment will not be for us a dreaded day of doom, or even of sorrow, but a day of victory, triumph, and glory!

              We must not be presumptuous. But we must not be unbelieving. We who believe on the Son of God have nothing to fear. We will endure no punishment. We will suffer no loss. We will receive the full reward of eternal glory, purchased by his blood and earned by his obedience on our behalf. Our Mediator’s record before God is our record. His merit is our merit. And his reward is our reward!

 

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