Hymn of the Day
Dark the stain that soiled man's nature,
Long the distance that he fell.
Far removed from hope and heaven,
Into deep despair and hell.
But there was a fountain opened,
And the blood of God's own Son,
Purifies the soul and reaches,
Deeper than the stain has gone.
Chorus
Praise the Lord for full salvation,
God still reigns up-on His throne.
And I know the blood still reaches,
Deeper than the stain has gone.
Conscious of the deep pollution,
Sinners wander in the night,
Tho' they hear the Shepherd calling,
They still fear to face the light.
This the blessed consolation,
That can melt the heart of stone,
That sweet Balm of Gilead reaches,
Deeper than the stain has gone!
All unworthy, we who've wandered,
And our eyes are wet with tears;
As we think of love that sought us,
Through the weary, wasted years.
Yet we walk the holy highway,
Walking by God’s grace alone
Knowing Calv'ry's fountain reaches,
Deeper than the stain has gone!
When with holy choirs we're standing,
In the presence of the King,
And our souls are lost in wonder,
While the white robed choirs sing;
Then we'll praise the name of Jesus,
With the millions round the throne;
Praise Him for the pow'r that reaches,
Deeper than the stain has gone.
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Today’s Hymns
How Can We Question Our Great God? – cb14
But Now - cb21
And Can It Be – cb7
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According to the Word of God, those preachers and churches are successful who are faithful to the work to which God has called them. Never in the Old Testament or in the New was a prophet, apostle, or preacher measured by the opinions of men. God’s servants never courted the favor of men, and were never favored by the majority of the people. The church of God has always been out of step with society. The servants of God have always been looked upon as peculiar, bigoted dogmatists, intolerant and incapable of compromise. But they were faithful—faithful to God, faithful to His truth, and faithful to the souls of men.
Do not be so foolish as to measure God’s work by man’s yardstick. Do not measure the success or failure of preachers and churches by men, by numbers, or by popular opinion. The only measure of success for churches and preachers is faithfulness. Those who faithfully seek and promote the glory of God, who faithfully proclaim the truth of God, and who faithfully serve the eternal interests of immortal souls are successful. Those who are not are failures. The one will stand the fire of judgment. The other will not.
The greatest blessing God can ever bestow upon any people in this world is to establish in their midst a faithful Gospel church with a faithful Gospel preacher as his messenger. “Tychicus...is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord” (Colossians 4:7). -Don Fortner
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Then the priest shall consider, and, behold,
If the leprosy have covered all his flesh,
he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague:
it is all turned white: he is clean
-Leviticus 13:13
Our Lord saves only complete sinners. No one can come to Christ with one little bit of his own supposed righteousness to claim. The plague of leprosy is a picture of the plague of sin, which infests every fiber of fallen man both inwardly and outwardly. “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment” (Isaiah 1:6). This truth God our Saviour reveals to all His chosen in His call in electing grace. When he reveals Christ in his perfection in sovereign regeneration God the Spirit reveals our complete sinfulness.
We cry unto Him as the leper of old “unclean, unclean!” By virtue of our sinful nativity, we are permeated (filled through and through) with the plague of which we cannot rid ourselves. We are perfect (complete) sinners. By virtue of Christ and His perfect (complete) sacrifice we are made perfectly righteous. A perfect salvation for perfect sinners! If our Priest pronounces us clean, we are completely free of sin before God, “…but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26), “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Colossians 2:13).
We may not be able to rest in the living experience of this wonderful and miraculous work of grace every moment of every day, however this is the way God sees it and this is how it really is! Those whom He has cleansed and revealed it to, believe it! There are two things, which every child of God will absolutely know: First, his own complete sinfulness and unworthiness, and second, Christ our Lord and His complete salvation (Colossians 2:10). -Tommy Robbins
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When I am weak, then am I strong.
-2 Corinthians 12:10
How faint the best praise! How wandering the best prayer! How selfish the best gift! When we feel that we are nearest to GOD, how far off we are! When we feel that we are most like GOD, how unlike GOD we are! What did the apostle say? “When I am weak then am I strong.” Our strength is always CHRIST, never in anything we are or do. -Henry Mahan
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We would never think of boasting that we have behaved so well that we are certainly among the children of God. Therefore, let us not think that we have behaved so poorly that we cannot possibly be the children of God. Grace eliminates both boasting in our righteousness and despairing over our sin. Let us do all we can to avoid sinning, but let us never think that our failure in that regard has brought us again into condemnation! -Joe