July 26, 2020
Hymn of the Day
(tune: Sweet Hour of Prayer, p.361)
From age to age exalt His name; God and His grace are still the same;
He fills the hungry soul with food, And feeds the poor with every good.
Chorus:
So, let us lift our hearts with joy,
And every mouth and tongue employ,
To sing the wonders of His Name,
And spread abroad His glorious fame.
When to the Lord men raise their cries;
He makes the dawning light arise,
And scatters all that dismal shade
That hung so heavy round their head.
He cuts the bars of iron in two, And lets the smiling prisoners through;
Takes off the load of guilt and grief, And gives the laboring soul relief.
O may the sons of men record, The wondrous goodness of the Lord!
How great His works! how kind His ways!
Let every tongue pronounce His praise.
Today's Hymns: Lord, With Glowing Heart I'd Praise Thee - #cb6,
All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name - #42, When I See the Blood - 232
Special Dates: ~ Katie Koedam - 31
James and Maria – 31 ~ Garen and Jean Rozeboom – 1
We welcome Nathan Terrell to our pulpit today. Pray for him as He brings the gospel of Christ to us this morning.
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"He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till He have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for His law." ~Isaiah 42:4
In Isaiah 42:4 we read of a most glorious truth about our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, "He shall not fail nor be discouraged." As God's Servant and Christ, He came into this world to do the will of God. He said, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work (John 4:24)." Of this we can be certain, that everything the Father sent the Son to accomplish, He fulfilled it to the exact will, purpose, and delight of God Almighty. It is recorded in verse 21 of this same chapter, "The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness' sake; He will magnify the law and make it honorable." The Lord Jesus was the delight of the Father in eternity (Proverbs 8: 22-30). And when He was manifested in the flesh in time, Jesus Christ pleased the Father, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).
The exact opposite is true of man, from the beginning he has been a failure. Adam, even in his perfect environment that God had placed him in failed. All of Adam's race has inherited from the first man, a fallen and depraved nature that cannot produce anything before God but failure and sin (Romans 5:12). God has said of us, "Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity," (Psalm 39:5); "For there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good, and sinneth not," (Ecclesiastes 7:20).
This should give every sinner great incentive and inspiration to look to the Christ of God that cannot fail and to trust Him for all things in salvation. The sinner needs righteousness; Jesus Christ did not fail to produce righteousness for us (Romans 10:4). We need redemption from all our sin; Jesus Christ with His own blood redeemed us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13; Hebrews 9:12). We need salvation; He saved His people with an everlasting salvation (Isaiah 45:17). We need to be justified; Jesus Christ justified us through His blood (Romans 5:9). In every aspect of our salvation, Jesus Christ as our Mediator and Substitute did not fail to honor God's holy justice in securing our salvation.
Therefore, we can rightly conclude that those for whom Jesus Christ lived and died as Representative and Advocate cannot perish (John 6:37-40). Because He lives, we live (John 14:19). Because He did not fail as our Substitute to please and satisfy God (Psalm 85: 10), we did not fail being in Him (Galatians 2:20). This causes the believer to bow in humble adoration and say, Lord, how great Thou art. We give thanks unto God that did not leave us to our own miserable failures, but revealed unto us, the Lord Jesus Christ who did not and will not ever fail. He performed all things in salvation for us (Psalm 57:2). -Donnie Bell
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There is not a word in all of Scripture to indicate that the earthly life of a faithful child of God will be always or even predominately pleasant. We are assured that all of it is good for we have the declaration, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to His purpose," (Romans 8.28) But the good to which that Scripture refers is the end – our eternal condition as the redeemed of the Lord. It is not a promise that for every unpleasant experience on earth we can expect to see some earthly good arise from it.
Like the believers of old, we "desire a better country, that is, a heavenly, … for here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come," (Hebrews 11.16, 13.14). Our ultimate hopes and joys are not found here in this life; their realization awaits our departure from this life to be with Christ. So, we must never allow the enemy to put a question mark on our eternal welfare by pointing to our present condition. Nor must we allow ourselves to be deceived into thinking all is well with us in the sight of God because things seem to be going well for us in this life. Present joys or sorrows, successes or failures, advancements or retreats say absolutely nothing about God's attitude toward us or His eternal purpose for us.
Our only reliable testimony of God's attitude toward us is His Word of Grace, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And armed with this testimony, we may look our sorrows, failures, sins, and even death straight in the eye and claim the victory given us through Jesus Christ. All of these things shall be a part of our experience, but none of them shall overcome us.
No matter how it is with our natural lives, we may say with hymn-writer, "It is well with my soul! -Joe