October 1^st, 2017

9:30 am -------------------------------Christ Leaving, The Devil Coming – John 14:28-31

10:00 am -------------------------------------------Except Ye Abide In Christ – John 15:1-13

Watch And Pray Always

“Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting (excess, intemperance), and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day (Christ’s return) come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” – Luke 21:34-36

Watch therefore, and pray always. Watching and praying must go together (Neh. 4: 9). Those that would escape the wrath to come, and make sure of the joys to come, must watch and pray, and must do so always, must make it the constant business of their lives,

(1.) To keep a guard upon themselves. "Watch against sin, watch to every duty, and to the improvement of every opportunity of doing good. Be awake, and keep awake, in expectation of your Lord's coming, that you may be in a right frame to receive him, and bid him welcome."

(2.) To keep up their communion with God: "Pray always; be always in an habitual disposition to that duty; keep up stated times for it; abound in it; pray upon all occasions." Those shall be accounted worthy to live a life of praise in the other world that live a life of prayer in this world. – Matthew Henry

“If Ye Love Me, Keep My Commandments.”– John 14:22

It is true we are not under the law, but under grace; but yet we are under law to Christ, and if we love Him we are to keep His commandments. Let us never enter into the counsel of those who do not believe that there are any commandments for believers to keep. Those who do away with the duty do away with sin, and consequently with the Saviour. It is not written-–If ye love Me, do whatever you please. The Lord Jesus does not say--so long as you love Me in your hearts, I care nothing about your lives. There is no such doctrine as that between the covers of this holy book. He that loves Christ is the freest man out of heaven, but he is also the most under bonds. He is free, for Christ has loosed his bonds, but he is put under bonds to Christ by grateful love. The love of Christ constraineth him henceforth to live to the Lord who loved him, lived for him, died for him, and rose again. No, dear friends, we do not desire a lawless life. He that is not under the law as a power for condemnation, yet can say that with his heart he delights in the law of God; he longs after perfect holiness, and in his soul yields hearty homage to the precepts (commands) of the Lord Jesus. Love is law: the law of love is the strongest of all laws. Christ has become our Master and King, and His commandments are not grievous. – Charles Spurgeon

Sin Not – 1 John 2:1

David's sin in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah brought devastating consequences to David for the rest of his life. The believer cannot sin without there being consequences in this life. We should be afraid of sin, not only because it is against God, but the trouble it brings us in the commission of it. That is why John said, "These things write I unto you that ye sin not." But thank God, that sin that caused David so many consequences in this life was put away. "The Lord hath put away thy sin" (II Sam 12:13). Because Christ bare that sin in His own body on the tree and put it away, David stood before God having never committed that sin. What was true of David is true of every believer. Sin brings consequences in this life. But thank God there are no consequences in the world to come. The Bible calls it justification. - Todd Nibert

There But For The Grace of God, Goes John Bradford