UPCOMING SPECIAL DATES

Pastor Clay Curtis will preach for us on Thursday, Aug. 28^th. There will be no service on Wednesday, Aug. 27^th.

Most religious people are proud of their knowledge. They are proud of what they know and how much they know. That pride shows a lack of true knowledge. We never have reason to be proud of what we know or how much we know, for we only “know in part” (I Cor 13:9) and “see through a glass darkly” (I Cor 13:12). The more we learn, the more we find the one half of the greatness of God and the wisdom of God was not told me (II Chron 9:6). Saving knowledge is much more than knowing true Biblical facts. Saving knowledge is both knowing and loving Christ who is the truth. Too many show that their knowledge is not a saving knowledge of Christ by the absence of love and awe – love for God who would sovereignly choose to love me in Christ, love for other sinners who need Christ, and awe that God would have mercy on a sinner like me.

Men and women who think highly of themselves pray, “God, be just to me and give to me what I deserve.” We who know ourselves to be what we truly are pray, “God, be merciful to me and withhold from me what I deserve – Your everlasting wrath. And be gracious to me and give to me what I do not deserve – Jesus Christ as my All In All.”

Missionary Daniel Parks

Any religion, which claims that salvation depends upon man to make a decision to accept salvation, is preaching a god who cannot save and they are not preaching man as he is either. Scripture declares God to be sovereign, doing His good will without ever consulting man, saving whom He will, when He will (Daniel 4:35, Rom 9:15). Scripture also declares man to be incapable of deciding to do anything holy or right because all men died spiritually when Adam fell (Rom 4:12). Dead men cannot decide to do anything because they are dead. The only thing a dead man can do is stink. So if scripture is true, man is completely dependent on God to save us. Man is the one who is waiting on God not the other way around. “So then, it is not of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (Rom 8:16)

PREACHING AND HEARING THE WORD

One of the old preachers is reported to have said, “I preach as one who may never preach again, as a dying man to dying men.” How solemn a thought that is to those of us charged with preaching. Let us not tickle the ears of dying men with the trifles of earthly issues and vain religion.

But does this principle not apply in some way to the man who listens? Ought we not say every time we come to worship, “I listen as one who may never hear again, as a dying man among dying men”? God grant us the same seriousness in hearing as we expect in preaching!

Pastor Joe Terrell

If two people hold two different views as to how God saves sinners, but those views do not exclude the salvation of the differing view, there will be no conflict. I’m o.k. You’re o.k. But if the way I hold excludes other ways, this is where the trouble begins. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man cometh to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6)….He is not a way but the way, the way that excludes all other ways.