ONE MEDIATOR

Believers rejoice because “there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5). A sinner wants only Christ to be our mediator with God. A sinner does not want Mary or any other dead saint to be our mediator because only Christ has a sacrifice for sin to plead; only Christ has pure blood to plead. Only Christ has a perfect righteousness to plead, and only Christ is seated on the throne at the right hand of the Father.

The heart of one regenerated by grace and made sensitive to the presence of sin in his flesh will be expressed by the words of David, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” The believer knows that there is no area of this life, even those areas most precious…hearing the Gospel preached, reading His blessed Scriptures, or seeking Him in prayer, that is exempt from the need of the merciful application of His blood for purifying of the defilement of sin.

Pastor Marvin Stalnaker

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Political correctness has a place in our society. We should not use demeaning or cruel terms when we talk about others. But the rampant political correctness of our day has ruined many pulpits. Men use political correctness as an excuse not to tell the truth. I wish so-called preachers were more worried about offending God than men. Nothing is more offensive than to not tell the truth about who God is, who man is, and how God saves sinners through the righteousness and sacrifice of Christ alone. Tell the truth in love and pity, but let us never take the offense of the cross out of our message because before God saves a sinner, the flesh will not only be offended, but all hope in the flesh must be killed.

A REASON TO PRAY FOR YOUR MINISTERS

Some years ago an old Christian man whom I never saw wrote to me thus: “My dear brother in the Lord Jesus, you have need of many prayers, for I am certain you are the object of fierce attack on the part of Satan, whose cause you have much injured.” Never was a truer word written! Every man who will speak the truth as it is in Jesus is sure to be fiercely opposed by the father of lies. The reason why preachers and professors in general spend such quiet and apparently happy lives is, they never oppose Satan. Poor deluded souls! They eat, and drink, and are merry with their fellows, never for a moment alluding to serious things, but speaking of the news of the day, and are “hail fellows, well met,” with the world at large! Why should such suffer persecution? They oppose nothing, therefore Satan leaves them unmolested. But it is not so with a truth-speaking minister. He must identify himself with God, and consequently he is shunned, and hated, and tempted.

William Parks (1810-67), minister in Openshaw, England

Since God is pleased by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe, should we not be continually urging our lost loved ones to come hear the Gospel? May God be pleased to open doors for us to go to this dying world and compel men and women to come in.