May 18, 2014

Hymn for the Day

His fingers formed the bough which grew

The thorns that crowned His blood-stained head.

The nails which pierced His hands were mined

In secret places He designed.

He made the forest whence there sprung

The tree on which His body hung.

Our Lord died on a cross of wood;

He made the hill on which it stood.

The sun which hid from Him its face

By His own hand was hung in space.

The sky which darkened o'er His head

By Him above the world was spread.

The spear that shed His precious blood

Was tempered in the fires of God.

The grave in which His form was laid

Was hewn in rocks His hand had made.

Tune: "Just As I Am", #249

No Condemnation No Justification

If a soul does not know anything about their sin and the darkness and deceitfulness of their own heart they will never know what it is to be forgiven and justified.

The most popular preachers won't preach on sin or the judgment of God upon sin, they say it is too negative, that men need to feel good about themselves. Man feels good about themselves without preachers encouraging them in it, "they are lovers of self more than lovers of God".

The Gospel declares that "all have sinned" and until the Holy Spirit convinces a man of his sin and he repents and turns to Christ who "put away sin by the sacrifice of himself".

He will feel good about himself up till the end of life. True gospel preaching is to convince men that God is against them, and they only have one way of being made righteous, only one way of acceptance before God. That Christ himself is that righteousness and sinners are only accepted in the beloved and until that happens, a man stands condemned. If he is ever justified it will be when he comes to Christ Gods Son. Then God will justly justify the sinner on the basis of what His Son accomplished.

There is only a Savior for sinners! Only righteousness and justification for those who were once condemned The Lord Jesus Christ. - Pastor

CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

Each true believer boasts, "In the Lord have I righteousness," and knocks at heaven's gate with the unanswerable plea. In Christ, my law-fulfilling surety, I bring the Righteousness of God. Great was the loss in Adam; but far greater is the gain in Christ. So too, as a common person, He hangs upon the cross. (Continued) In Him His people suffer unto death. In Him they exhaust the cup of wrath. In Him they taste the bitter pains which sin deserved. In Him they pay the uttermost farthing into the scales of justice. In Him they endure, until each attribute of God requires no more. Thus each child of faith exclaims, with adoring praise, "I am crucified with Christ." Who can lay anything to the charge of one who in Christ is discharged of all? In Adam we merit wrath. In Christ we undergo it.

- Henry Law (1797-1884)

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THE DOCTRINE OF PREDETERMINATION

When I consider the absolute independency of God, and the necessary total dependence of all created things on Him, their first cause, I cannot help standing astonished at the pride of impotent, degenerate man, who is so prone to consider himself as a being possessed of sovereign freedom, and invested with a power of self salvation, able, he imagines, to counteract the designs even of infinite wisdom, and to defeat the agency of Omnipotence itself. "Ye shall be as gods," said the tempter to Eve in paradise; and "ye are as gods" says the same tempter to her apostate sons. One would be apt to think that a suggestion so demonstrably false and flattering, a suggestion the very reverse of what we feel to be our state, a suggestion alike contrary to Scripture and reason, to fact and experience, could never meet with the smallest degree of credit. And yet, because it so exactly coincides with the natural haughtiness of the human heart, men not only admit, but even relish the deception, and fondly incline to believe that the father of lies does, in this instance at least, speak truth. The Scripture doctrine of predetermination lays the axe to the very root of this potent delusion. It assures us that all things are of God; that all our times and all events are in His hand.