Today’s Speaker: Brother Mark Pannell will conduct the 11:00 am service today. Pray for him as he delivers God’s word.
Television Broadcast: Our Reign of Grace Television program is being broadcast on WFXL Fox 31, Channel 4. The program will air every Sunday morning at 11 AM.
Radio Broadcast: Sunday morning at 9:30am on 98.7 FM –WISK.
Web Sites: Visit our web sites at: Reign of Grace: www.rofgrace.com
As God, this glorious head of all principalities and powers, has life eternal dwelling essentially in himself; as God-Man,, and the head of the church, he has everlasting life given him by the Father for all his people. This we learned from his Own; gracious mouth. The words are these: ''As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself:" "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Fatter: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." Indissoluble union to Jesus is the ground on which we partake of eternal life. Being chosen in him, made one with him, and immutably fixed in him, by an eternal act of the divine mind, we are made partakers of his life and of all his fulness. Our title to life, spiritual and eternal, is indisputable. It was freely granted, and made absolutely certain in that covenant which is ordered in all things and sure. These ancient counsels, and these acts of grace; Oh! how glorious! how precious! The eternal God freely gives eternal life, by an eternal act of his own will, in an eternal testament, to be enjoyed by all the objects of his eternal love, through an eternal union with Jehovah Jesus, and all this is confirmed by his oath: " Wherein God willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath.'' This has, at once, raised our title to everlasting life, far above every idea of human merit, and placed it infinitely beyond the influence of the caprice of mortals, and the fictitious power of chance.
--- Job Hupton
The design and extent of Christ’s redeeming work is not to be determined by the greatness and worth of His divine Person but by the heavenly covenant obligations and designs that this divine Person entered into before the world began. If I enter into a bargain with someone to purchase ten loaves of bread for a hundred dollars, the issue is not that a hundred dollars was worth a hundred loaves. The issue is, did I get the ten loaves I paid for! Was the agreement satisfied justly. Christ purchased the Church with His own blood and He got all the Church! He laid down His life for the sheep and He’ll have them all with none lost! He was stricken for the transgressions of God’s people and He shall enjoy His Bride and she enjoy Him for all eternity! A bargain’s a bargain and a covenant’s a covenant. Especially between the gloriously holy and righteous Persons of the Godhead!
--- Gary Shepard
SIGHT FOR THE BLIND
Our natural blindness and self-deception is revealed by our wrong estimate of ourselves. Pride and self-righteousness leads us like the Pharisees to "trust in ourselves that we are righteous and despise others." The Lord Jesus Christ issues this command in Revelation 3:18 "anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see." To this church in Laodicea, Christ charges them with not being able to see what they think they see. He says "anoint" that you might see! He charges them with this haughty self-righteousness because they say "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." We imagine ourselves rich and increased with knowledge, with faithfulness, with understanding, with good works and do not see our poverty and need. Our Lord who knows the heart makes the true evaluation of us. "Thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." But that is not all. He says "and knowest not!" Now we know that no one rightly sees or understands or obeys God apart from the anointing work of the Spirit of God. But here Christ lays the responsibility upon us and commands "you anoint." What is the "eyesalve" that He commands us to apply? What will enable us to see God as He really is, we as we really are and the remedy for our poverty and need? It is the Word of God! The Word of God, the Gospel, is the instrument by which the Spirit of God enlightens our understanding, causes us to see the impurity of our hearts and nature, the faultiness of our righteousness, and our inability to do good. It is by the gospel that we see our state so as to look to Christ as all our salvation and acceptance before God. And it is by the Word that we see our present condition as believers. Was it not the Word of the Gospel that showed us our lost state and then revealed Christ to us? The Word will always declare our unchanging state before God in Christ and it also will reveal our present condition and experience. Pride and self-sufficiency are always causing our hearts to deceive us. "Anoint your eyes with eyesalve!" Hear the preached Word, read the Word and obey the Word. Christ says, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear." Christ came for “the recovering of sight to the blind.”
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