CALL TO WORSHIP

(Tune: “‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”)

God is holy, just, and righteous

When He saves us by His love;

He is so based on the merits

Of Christ’s righteousness and blood.

Christ our Savior, Christ our Savior;

Look to Him and Him alone;

In His merits we find favor;

He our Lord is on the throne.

Christ has set us free from bondage;

We the debt no longer owe;

He has paid the fullest ransom,

Now the law must let us go.

Free in Jesus, free in Jesus;

Free to serve Him graciously;

He has bought our full salvation

Pardon, peace, and liberty.

Bible Study:  “The Burning Fields” – II Samuel 14:21-33

Television Broadcast: Our Reign of Grace Television program is being broadcast on WFXL Fox 31, Channel 4. The program will air every Sunday morning at 11 AM. Pray that God will use it for His glory.

Birthdays:  Wesley Young – April 6th. 

JEHOVAH TSIDKENU

     The Son of God is Jehovah Tsidkenu, "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." (Jeremiah 23:6) He is the Author, the Worker and the Provider of righteousness. The righteousness which a sinner must have to stand acceptably before God must be equal to divine righteousness. The only righteousness that will qualify is the righteousness of the God-Man. When was this righteousness wrought out? In His sinless life, our Savior proved His qualifications to establish righteousness in our stead, and when Christ died upon the cross, answering the demands of justice, the inspired prophet said He brought in "everlasting righteousness." (Dan 9:24) Christ has always been and will always be the righteousness of His people. He was "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS" when He stood as our legal Representative in the council of grace and God viewed us in Him. When He came into this world and died on the cross as our Substitute so that God might be just and Justifier, He remained"THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." He died under the curse of the law so that His people would be "made the righteousness of God in Him." (II Cor. 5:21) Though He bore our sins and suffered the wrath of God in our stead, yet He never became unrighteous in Himself, but remained "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." He can never be less than "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS" for He is "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever." (Heb. 13:8) It is by the grace of the Spirit that self-righteous sinners are awakened to see how detestable our righteousnesses are before a holy God (Isa. 64:6) and our need of the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Throughout our earthly pilgrimage we look to "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS" Who ever lives as our Advocate, "Jesus Christ the Righteous."  (I Jn. 2:1) In heaven's eternal glory, He will be that One in Whose righteousness we stand blameless before the throne of God. "And to her (the church) was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." (Rev. 19:8) "The righteousness of saints" is none other than the righteousness of Christ. In that great eternal day, the bride of Christ shall bear the same name as her Beloved, "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS."     

                                                                          --Pastor Jim Byrd 

There is a ransom all sinners’ need but none can pay

The price set and owed is beyond the capability or possibility of sinful humanity to pay. It is the ransom God found in Job 33:24 Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. It is a ransom of which all by nature are ignorant. It is a ransom all by nature think they seek to pay. It is of such value; God’s glory and the eternal salvation of His Elect depend on its administration. In the experience of Job and his three friends we see God’s testimony concerning the importance of a ransom for sinners.

After Job lost his possessions and health his three friends paid him a visit. The purpose of their visit was to comfort Job in his afflictions by offering their advice as to the cause and remedy for his suffering. To a man they accused him of unconfessed sin in his life. Job labeled them in Job 16:2, “miserable comforters” because they had no satisfactory answer to his question; “why do the righteous suffer.” Such miserable comforters are described in Isaiah 8:20: “To the law and the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”

Any sinner, being ignorant of how a holy God could punish the only perfect man who ever lived and remain just is surely ignorant of how God can be just and justify the ungodly. To be in this darkness is to be lost because this question and the correct answer to it is at the heart of the gospel. Job’s friends, to a man accused him of being unrighteous. Their charge was that Job had some unconfessed sin in his life keeping God from blessing him and that his confession and repentance would bring deliverance and blessing from God.  They were ignorant of the fact that God does not charge his Elect with their sins. Our sins were charged to Christ who put them away by satisfaction. They could not see how God could not punish Job because of his sin. They could not see that God punished Job’s sin in Christ. They could not see that God would be unjust to punish sin twice: once in the sinner’s Substitute and then the sinner. It is true, “for whom the lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgest every son he receiveth,”(Hebrews 12:6) but he does not punish his own for their sins; they were punished in Christ, who paid the ransom in full. They were miserable comforters because they had no answer to his suffering. They could not see that even in the state Job found himself physically, he was far better off spiritually than they. They could not see that his state before God didn’t change his standing with God.

                                                                      By Winston Pannell