The Time is Short

May it be that we be reminded that the time is short. It is high time to seek our soul's salvation.

How can we say the time is short? How do we know?

We can speak with authority and say the time is short. Not that we know when the Lord will come. When it will be the last day for souls to seek their salvation.

But we can say the time is short because our lives are short. No matter who we are, if we are young or old, our lives are short. If we live to be one hundred years, it is still a short time in the light of eternity. It is high time we seek our soul's salvation.

Let's not be as Jeremiah the Prophet said in his day. He spoke some of the saddest words in all the Bible. He said, "the summer is over. The harvest is past. We are still not saved." (Jeremiah 8:20) Some of the saddest words in all the Bible.

Beloved ones, when we hear the Word of God, let us take it to heart. Brethren and friends, when we hear the Word of God, let's take it into our own heart. It applies to us. Then let us do today what needs to be done, because tomorrow might be too late.
--Sermon Excerpt: Bro. K.D.

He Giveth More Grace

"But He giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." -James 4:6

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added affliction He addeth His mercy;
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.

His love has no limit; His grace has no measure.
His pow'r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun.

His love has no limit; His grace has no measure.
His pow'r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!

Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.

His love has no limit; His grace has no measure.
His pow'r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!

--Annie Johnson Flint

Gospel Hymns

Grow Strong

Stand up in the place where the dear Lord has put you, and there do your best.

God gives us trial tests. He puts life before us as an antagonist face to face. Out of the buffeting of a serious conflict we are expected to grow strong. The tree that grows where tempests toss its boughs and bend its trunk often almost to breaking, is often more firmly rooted than the tree which grows in the sequestered valley where no storm ever brings stress or strain.

The same is true of life. The grandest character is grown in hardship. --Selected
--Excerpt: Streams in the Desert

Refuse To Be Discouraged

"Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and, let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Heb. 12:1).

There are weights which are not sins in themselves, but which become distractions and stumbling blocks in our Christian progress. One of the worst of these is despondency. The heavy heart is indeed a weight that will surely drag us down in our holiness and usefulness.

The failure of Israel to enter the land of promise began in murmuring, or, as the text in Numbers literally puts it, "as it were murmured." Just a faint desire to complain and be discontented. This led on until it blossomed and ripened into rebellion and ruin. Let us give ourselves no liberty ever to doubt God or His love and faithfulness to us in everything and forever.

We can set our will against doubt just as we do against any other sin; and as we stand firm and refuse to doubt, the Holy Spirit will come to our aid and give us the faith of God and crown us with victory.

It is very easy to fall into the habit of doubting, fretting, and wondering if God has forsaken us and if after all our hopes are to end in failure. Let us refuse to be discouraged. Let us refuse to be unhappy. Let us "count it all joy" when we cannot feel one emotion of happiness. Let us rejoice by faith, by resolution, by reckoning, and we shall surely find that God will make the reckoning real.

Excerpt: Streams in the Desert

The Checkpoint of Communion

Every once in a while, I think it's good that we stop and think ... that we stop and think of the great price that was paid -- of what Christ went through for us. He didn't look forward to that at all.

He had a desire to eat the passover with his disciples. But towards the end of the passage we read [that] He pleaded with God that maybe ... maybe ... if there could be some other way. But He added to His prayer, "Not my will, but Thine be done."

There was no other way.

Sometimes life is not filled with alternatives. Sometimes it has one path that's the right path.

We know the right path is first of all that we repent and be converted and then that we stay on the path. And God knew how weak we are and He knew that Satan would come at us in a variety of ways. Oh, he sometimes comes with a huge thing that's so obviously wrong that it's not even tough to overcome. But he also sometimes comes with something that just seems so little, just merely a part of a degree. And if he can get us to veer just a little bit... we're probably still OK.

And if you're driving a car (and I don't know how wide roads are, but i know they're a lot wider than a car is) and if we veer just a little bit, for quite a while we're OK. But if we veer just a little bit for too long, what happens? Pretty soon we find ourselves off the road and in trouble.

If there were no checkpoints in our life, if we repented, we were baptized, we're converted, we're serving God, and if there were no checkpoints from there on and we got just a little bit off the track, and we traveled the rest of our life just a little bit off the track, what would happen? When would we drop off the road?

But God provided for us a checkpoint - a special checkpoint - when we can stop and we can pause and we can really take a look at our life and make that little bit of adjustment and get back on the road.
--Sermon Excerpt: Elder Bro. A.S.

Trust Till I Can Understand

I do not ask that He must prove
His Word is true to me,
And that before I can believe
He first must let me see.

It is enough for me to know
'Tis true because He says 'tis so;
On His unchanging Word I'll stand
And trust till I can understand.
--E. M. Winter

In Trouble and Trials

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble" (Ps. 46:1).

The question often comes, "Why didn't He help me sooner?" It is not His order. He must first adjust you to the trouble and cause you to learn your lesson from it.

His promise is, "I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him." He must be with you in the trouble first all day and all night. Then He will take you out of it. This will not come till you have stopped being restless and fretful about it and become calm and quiet. Then He will say, "It is enough."

God uses trouble to teach His children precious lessons. They are intended to educate us. When their good work is done, a glorious recompense will come to us through them. There is a sweet joy and a real value in them. He does not regard them as difficulties but as opportunities. --Selected.

There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is to simply try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a larger measure of Divine grace. Thus even the adversary becomes an auxiliary, and the things that seem to be against us turn out to be for the furtherance of our way. Surely, this is to be more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
--A. B. Simpson
--Excerpt: Streams in the Desert

Humbly Weep

In humility, dear Saviour,
Thou for me, I know, hast died;
Though I was Thy foe, Redeemer,
Thou for me wast crucified.
Silence keep I, Humbly weep I!
Thus through Thee I'm justified!
--Zion's Harp #226 vs. 6

Salt of the Earth

We are the salt of the earth. The Bible does teach us that. The children of God are the salt of the earth. (Matt. 5:13)

What are the properties of salt? Salt has many properties. We can take a lesson from them.

One of them is, that when you taste salt, you immediately know what it is. You don't have to guess what you have tasted. You know it is salt. If it is good salt, you know it is salt.

That ought to be with us, beloved brethren. By our lifestyle, how we live, how we interact with people - if we are kind and compassionate, as the Lord was, as we work among our co-laborers and also even our families; children, brothers and sisters in faith. That we are kind and gentle, compassionate, love each other. The Bible says, by this shall all men know that ye are my people (John 13:35).

We ought to remember that, beloved ones. It is not only the words that we speak, but it is the life that we live. The example we show to others. That is the most important thing of all.
--Sermon Excerpt: Bro. K.D.

Wounded For Our Transgressions

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
--Isaiah 53