December 31^st 2023

10:30 am ---- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- - First Love – Revelation 2:1-7

The Future At A Glance -- “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world.” – Acts 15:18

While hanging up a new yearly wall calendar, I noticed the name of it was, AT-A-GLANCE. It is a calendar of the whole year in which you can write down all your plans and appointments for each month and look at all those plans. . . at a glance. As I was doing that, the above scripture came to my mind, how that, our omniscient God, before the world began, purposed all things. He wrote down in His book of life every detail concerning all things, according to His will and pleasure, and is working all things after the counsel of His own will”(Eph.1:11). Nothing was left to chance. Everything was predetermined and pre-recorded by God. He could, before the world began, at a glance, look at that Book and see all that was and is and is to be. This is not fatalism, nor superstition, but Bible! Such is the wisdom and power of the true God! Aren’t you glad it is so. Aren’t you glad, believer, that God hath purposed all things and worketh all things for His glory and our good. We would live in fear were it not so. Though the future is somewhat unknown to us, yet not to God, for He hath determined all things. Believing this, we need not fear the future, for our God holds it, and us, in His Sovereign loving Hands.

Abiding in Christ – by Henry Mahan

It is true that once a man is saved by God’s grace through faith, he will remain saved forever; yet the Scriptures are full of warnings to believers against unbelief (Heb.3:12-14), against drawing back (Heb.10:38-39), and against neglecting the Word of God (Heb.2:1-3). Abiding in Christ is abiding in His Word, abiding in his Love, and abiding in His Spirit, and in Faith. This abiding in Christ is not a condition a man fulfills before receiving life, but abiding in Christ is the result of Christ’s gift of life and is true evidence that we have the life of Christ. Branches on a grapevine do not bear fruit of themselves, but from the vine. Neither can any man bear, produce, nor possess any spiritual knowledge, life, gift, grace, nor His holiness except through Christ’s abiding in him and his abiding in Christ.

Warn Them From Me -- “O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and WARN THEM FROM ME.” – Ezekiel 33:7-10

The Lord gives a word of warning to the preacher Ezekiel to give to the people. He first warns the preacher that if he does not warn the people . . . their ‘blood will I require at thine hand.” And so, a faithful watchman, who hears the Word of the Lord and is warned and convicted by it himself. He will heed the warning and warn the people from the Lord. Paul, the apostle was a faithful watchman, saying “I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears (for 3 years!) Acts 20:18.

Love always warns the loved one of danger. We warn our children, and God warns His. We do not reprove, rebuke, correct, warn other people’s children but we do warn our own. As a watchman it is my job to watch (pray, observe, keep vigil) seeing the approaching enemy, see the danger – and warn the people. I have been given a people to watch over (Hebrews 13:17) and I must give an account to my Lord if I do not watch and warn them.

By the grace of God, I preach the Word – all of it, as Paul said, ‘the whole counsel of God.’ And God’s word is full of warnings as well as promises. My pastor, who was a faithful watchman and preacher of the word, once said: “God’s word is full of warnings lest we presume, promises lest we despair.” We need both. Although I would rather preach promises and comforts . . . warn I must . . . at the risk of angering and offending some. Paul once lamented that he had become someone’s enemy ‘for telling them the truth.’

It is my constant prayer that the preached word will warn and turn someone and save someone, yea all of us, from this present evil world, from the evil man within, from sin, self, Satan and the world. These are very real and constant dangers to us all. Sometimes I see someone flirting with danger, caught up in the traps, snares, temptations and allurements of the god of this world and it frightens me for them. How I know his traps so well, is I have been caught up in nearly all of them. And so I pray and preach and warn the people, God’s people (my people), hoping the Lord will speak to them, warn them and turn them. And sometimes – if someone persists – continues in flirting with danger – I speak or write to them personally (If someone is not in attendance then I must warn them personally). I must, if I love them. And O’ how I hope they receive it (as from the Lord – not me). - Hope they are convicted, convinced, and turned. But sadly as my pastor also once said: “There are few people to whom you can confront as Nathan did David, saying: ‘Thou art the man’, and they take it humbly as David.”