Bulletin Edition July 2021

Christ takes the garbage!

Jewellers can only prepare and polish the choicest diamonds.

But Jesus Christ polishes a common pebble, and makes a jewel of it!

Jewellers make their precious treasures, out of precious materials.

Christ makes His precious things, out of dross!

He always begins with bad material. Christ takes . . .

  the despicable,

  the vilest,

  the scum,

  the off-scouring,

  the filth,

  the garbage of the world,

and out of such stuff and matter as that, He builds up a holy temple, and gathers to Himself trophies for His honour and praise!

1Cor. 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

1Cor. 6:10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

1Cor. 6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Something to ponder

Don Fortner: “All true doctrine entirely rests upon the Word of God–upon the plain statements of Holy Scripture; and not upon history, religious creeds, religious traditions; or human inferences, logic or reason of any kind.”

My own special treasure

(Octavius Winslow, “Pisgah Views” 1873)

Mal. 3:17 And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.

Not one of the sheep given by the Father to

the Son shall perish.

Not a sinner redeemed by His blood shall be lost.

Not a child adopted by His grace shall be absent.

Not a jewel excavated from nature’s mine by His

grace shall be missing in that day when the Shepherd

shall gather together His flock, and the Father shall

bring home His family, and the Saviour shall cluster

around Him His redeemed.

In that day when the King of Zion shall appear, His

diadem studded, and His breastplate blazing, with the

precious stones of His especial and particular treasure.

“The Lord has declared today that you are His people,

 His own special treasure, just as He promised.” Dt. 26:18

Song 4:10 How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices

The monopolizer!

(Charles Spurgeon, “Altogether Lovely”)

“Yes, He is altogether lovely! This is my

Beloved, and this is my Friend.” Song 5:16

Jesus is to the true saint, the only

altogether lovely one in the world.

There is no loveliness anywhere else.

Christ has engrossed all the beauty and

all the loveliness in the entire universe.

Jesus is the monopolizer of all loveliness,

and the engrosser of all that is admirable

in the entire universe!

As all the rivers meet in the sea, so

all beauties unite in the Redeemer.

Sought Out!

(Charles Spurgeon)

Is. 62:12 And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.

The surpassing grace of God is seen very clearly in seeking out His elect people. We were mingled with the mire—we were as when some precious jewel falls into the sewer, and men gather out and carefully inspect a mass of abominable filth, and continue to stir and rake and search among the heap until the treasure is found.

Or, to use another figure, we were lost in a labyrinth and we wandered hither and thither. When sovereign mercy came after us with the gospel, it did not find us at the first coming—it had to search for us and seek us out. For we as lost sheep were so desperately lost, and had wandered into such a strange country, that it did not seem possible that even the Good Shepherd could track our devious roamings.

Glory be to unconquerable grace—we were sought out! No gloom could hide us, no filthiness could conceal us—we were found and brought home! Glory be to infinite love—God the Holy Spirit sought us and saved us!

The lives of some of God’s people, if they could be written—would fill us with holy astonishment. Strange and marvellous are the ways which God used in their case, to find His own. Blessed be His name—He never relinquishes the search, until the chosen are sought out effectually.

They are not a people sought today and cast away tomorrow. Almightiness and wisdom combined, will make no failures—they shall be called, “Sought out!”

That any should be sought out is matchless grace, but that we should be sought out is grace beyond degree! We can find no reason for it—but God’s own sovereign love! We can only lift up our heart in amazement, and praise the Lord that we wear the name of “Sought Out!”

The time of love?

There is a day appointed by God for the salvation of his elect,

a day fixed from eternity when grace will come to the chosen

sinner, an hour determined before the world began when the

Good Shepherd will seek out and find his lost sheep.

There is a time fixed before time began, called “the time of love,”

when the predestined child, the elect sinner, redeemed by the

blood of Christ, must be saved. At that hour, salvation must

and shall come to the soul loved of God with an everlasting love.

Only one thing is really important in this matter, only one

question must be answered, only one issue must be settled.

“Do you believe on the Son of God?”

You will know that God has saved you, that you are chosen,

redeemed, and called by grace, when you find yourself believing

the gospel. Do you believe? If you do, the Lord has sought you

out and found you by his grace.

-Don Fortner

Is. 57:15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

J.C.Philpot

O what a mystery that God should have two dwelling-places! The “heaven of heavens” that “cannot contain him;” and the humble, broken, and contrite heart! But in order that the Lord of heaven might have a place in which he could live and lodge, God gives to his people gifts and graces; for he cannot come and dwell in the carnal mind, in our rebellious nature, in a heart full of enmity and wickedness; he therefore makes a lodging-place for himself, a pavilion in which the King of glory dwells, the curtains of which are like the curtains of Solomon. His abode is that holy, divine nature which is communicated at regeneration–“the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Thus Christ dwells in the heart by faith; and is “in his people, the hope of glory.” And this made Paul say, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives 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.”

This is the object of God’s dealings–that the Lord God might dwell in his people; that there might be a union between the Church and her covenant Head–“I in them, and they in me, that they might be perfect in one.” This is the unfolding of the grand enigma, the solution of the incomprehensible mystery, “God manifest in the flesh,”–that the Lord God might dwell in his people; “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people;” and thus glorify himself by filling their hearts with his grace and glory, as Solomon’s temple was of old, and that they might enjoy him, and be with him when time shall be no more. This is the grand key to all the Lord’s dealings with the soul, and all his mysterious leadings in providence–that the Lord God might dwell in the hearts of his people here, and be eternally glorified in them in a brighter and a better world.

CHRIST’S DEITY

John MacDuff

“This is the resting place, let the weary rest; and this is the place of repose”—

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

This is what gives to the palm-grove of heavenly promise all its glory. Let us seek to grasp and realize the full grandeur of the Truth of truths; to have it more frequently before us as a subject of devout contemplation—that the Christ of Nazareth, the Saviour of Calvary—He who bled for us as Man upon the cross, and pleads for us on the throne, is the Mighty Jehovah; that He was before all things; that He reared every arch and pillar in the Universe Temple. “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number; He calls them all by their names.” Before these stars were made; before these altar-fires were lighted in immensity; before man or angel or seraph, throne or dominion or principality or power existed, this all-glorious Being lived—one in essence and substance with the Eternal Father!

The supreme divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ is the Key-stone of the arch. Remove it, and the whole superstructure collapses. More than Luther ever said regarding justification, it is the doctrine of a standing or a falling Church. To eliminate it from the creed of Christendom would be like blotting out the sun from the visible heavens. Oh, if Jesus is but a creature, though the highest in rank in the heavenly peerage, I cannot confide to Him my eternal destinies. If He who bowed His head on that cross is a mere man and no more, I cannot look to Him as the Rock of Ages. A creature! as well pillow my head on the unstable wave. But blessed be God, I can plant my foot upon the living Rock of His deity. I can trust in Him, not as a prince, or as a mere man, in whom there would be no support: but invoking Him as JEHOVAH, I can, with devout confidence of a gracious answer, join in the prayer, “O GOD the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!”

Great indeed is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh: the Divine Being who created by His word—who sustains by His providence. Let the Unitarian take His Gospel without Godhead in it—let Infidelity attempt to reduce the Person and mission of the all-glorious Immanuel to that of the mere Founder of a new system of divine philosophy, a new Head of a religious school—it is ours to pay a nobler and truer homage to Him who is unveiled to us in sacred story as “the Word,” “the Life,” “the Light,” “the Truth,” “the Omnipresent,” “the Heart-searcher,” the “Beginning and the Ending,” the Creator of worlds—the Ransomer of souls—the Wonderful—the Adored of angels—the appointed Judge—the enthroned King—the I AM of eternal ages!

Be it ours to testify that the struggles and toils of 1800 years have not been made to defend and vindicate a monstrous delusion—that thousands of crowned martyrs now in heaven have not shed their blood to uphold a lie. Be it ours to see in Him the glory of illimitable Godhead enshrined in a human tabernacle—yes, and better still, be it ours to say, in reverential faith, as we fall at His feet, “This God shall be our God forever and ever!”

In the highest interpretation of the Psalmist’s language, well may we call upon all creation to rise and do homage to this its Incarnate Lord. Praise Him in the heavens! Praise Him in the heights! ‘O Sun of this great world, both eye and soul,’ reflect His glory! Moon! take your silver lyre—strike its chords in the praise of your Maker! Stars, gather your brilliant gems as a crown for His brow! Floods, rise and thunder forth His praise! Every flower that blooms, come and waft your fragrance around the Rose of Sharon! Lisping infancy, come with your Hosannahs! Penitence, come bathed in tears! Sorrow, come in the extremity of anguish to this living God, yet your Brother! Youth, come with your green ears of consecration! Manhood, come in your strength! Old age, come leaning on your staff. Come, saints and prophets of old! Come, noble army of martyrs! Come, you heavenly hosts! cherubim and seraphim, gather in to the universal homage! Let the Church triumphant echo back the strains of “the Church throughout all the world”—”YOU ARE THE KING OF GLORY, O CHRIST! YOU ARE THE EVERLASTING SON OF THE FATHER!”

“Strong Rock of Ages, swathed in clouds of light,

Whose heights unclimbed, never foot of angel trod:

Ancient of Days, Almighty—Infinite,

Older than Nature’s eldest born—Great God!

We praise, we bless, we magnify Your name!

Through everlasting eras You are still the same.”

“‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.'”

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