July 15^th 2018

9:30 am ------------------------------------------A Short Work Left on Earth – Romans 9:27-33

10:00 am ----------------------------------------------------------Escape For Thy Life – Genesis 19

*** NO WEDNESDAY SERVICE THIS WEEK ***

Reading, Applying and Praying – By Thomas Brooks, England, 1608-1680

Read and apply God’s Word. Reading is but the drawing of the bow, application is the hitting of the mark. The choicest truths will no further profit you than they are applied by you; you were as good not to read, as not to apply what you read. The true reason why many read so much and profit so little is, because they do not apply and bring home what they read to their own souls.

Read and pray. He that makes not conscience of praying over what he reads, will find little sweetness or profit in his reading. No man makes such earnings of his reading, as he that prays over what he reads. Luther professeth that he profited more in the knowledge of Scriptures by prayer, in a short space, than by study in a longer. As John, the apostle, by weeping got the sealed Book open, so certainly men would gain much more than they do if they would pray over what they read. Ah, Christians! Pray before you read, and pray after you read, that all may be blessed and sanctified to you; and when you have done reading, usually close up with this: . . . So let me live, so let me die,

That I may live eternally.

"Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." -- Matthew 26:41

The entering into temptation is a different thing from temptation itself. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." A temptation presents itself, draws near to us, or we draw near to it. If conscience sound an alarm, and we keep, so to speak, to the windward of temptation, we are for the present safe. Temptation is a lee shore on which the wind fiercely blows; it is a coast strewed with a thousand wrecks, and with the bleached bones of innumerable drowned mariners. Keep the ship's head to windward, and she may weather the point; neglect sail and helm, and she will go ashore. David and Joseph were exposed to a similar temptation. David entered into it, and fell; Joseph was kept from entering into it, and stood. In the country you often see a footpath across a field; if we keep in it we are safe. But we may be tempted by various objects to diverge a little, to gather a flower, or saunter upon the banks of the river, or make a short cut across the fields. Whilst we are in the footpath, temptation may be very near, but we have not yet entered into it; we are upon the borders of it, but we have not yet entered into its territory.