February 25^th , 2018

9:30 am ------------------------------------- Let God Be True, But Every Man A Liar – Romans 3:1-18

10:00 am ----------------------------------Words From The Cross To a Mother & Son – John 19:25-27

“Be Ye Kind One To Another, Tenderhearted, Forgiving One Another . . .” – Ephesians 4:32

“Kind – Tenderhearted – Forgiving.” These are not just words; they are characteristics, attributes, and the daily experience of redeemed people. Please don’t burden us with your doctrine, your piety, and your religious zeal if you are not a gentle and kind person in your attitude, words, and actions toward others. You, my friend, are a genuine hypocrite and Pharisee! The church of the Lord Jesus has been too long burdened with your kind of spirit and the whole world is quite weary of your lifeless, loveless words! Being right in doctrine and outward morality is of little value if one is not gracious in spirit and attitude. Has it ever occurred to you why you are alone, why you have little fellowship with believers, why you have such limited influence in the lives of your family and friends? The grace of God has never made you gracious. --Maurice Montgomery

Of His Own Will

“Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures” (James 1:18).

The believer’s salvation begins with the will of God, not his own will. The natural will is not to come to Christ. “And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (John.5:40). However, by the will of God and the Word of truth, the gospel is sown in the heart of God’s child and, in due time, when God gives the increase, a child of God is born. For the first time he is willing to come to Christ. Only God can do such a work. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power” (Ps. 110:3).

-John Chapman

FREE WILL OR FREE GRACE – By Todd Nibert

According to the free-will scheme, the Lord intends good, but He must wait on His own creature to know what His intention is. They say God willeth good, and would do it, but He cannot because He has an unwilling man who will not have God’s good thing carried into effect. What does this do, but drag the Eternal God from His throne and lift up into it the fallen creature man. For man, according to that theory, nods and his nod is destiny. You must have a destiny somewhere. It must either be as God wills or as man wills. If it be as God wills, then Jehovah sits sovereign upon His throne of glory, and all hosts obey Him, and the world is safe. If not God, then you put man there to say, “I will” or “I will not”. If I will it, I will enter heaven. If I will it, I will despise the grace of God. If I will it, I will conquer the Holy Spirit, for I am stronger than God, stronger than Omnipotence. If I will it, I will make the blood of the Son of God of no effect, for I am mightier than the blood, mightier than the blood of the Son of God Himself. Though God make His purpose, yet will I laugh at His purpose. It shall be my purpose that shall make His purpose stand or fall.

Why sirs, if this is not atheism, it is idolatry. It is putting man where God should be, and I shrink with solemn awe and horror from this doctrine which makes the grandest of God’s work – the salvation of man – to be dependent upon the will of His creature whether it shall be accomplished or not. Glory I can and must in this text in its fullest sense.

“IT IS NOT OF HIM THAT WILLETH, NOR OF HIM THAT RUNNETH, BUT OF GOD THAT SHOWETH MERCY”-- Romans 9:16

Trials

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it”—1 Cor.10:13

Though God's people be not exempt nor free from troubles, God has in His hand the remedies by which those troubles may be met and conquered. He will with each trial "make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."