I`ve Fallen - Sword of the Lord

Transcription

An Independent Christian Publication, Standing for the Verbal Inspiration of the Bible, the Deity of Christ,
His Blood Atonement, Salvation by
Faith, New Testament Soul Winning
and the Premillennial Return of
Christ; Opposing Modernism (Liberalism), Worldliness and Formalism.
Dr. Shelton Smith, Editor
Vol. LXXXII, No. 5
When Enough Is
Enough!
By DR. SHELTON SMITH
Before we read the text, I want
you to meet the players: Elijah,
the man of God; Ahab, the wicked
king; and Jezebel, the tragically
evil wife of the wicked king. These
three individuals are the major
characters of the drama that unfolds in I Kings 17–19.
Elijah was a preacher. He was a
man of God that had fearlessness
about his character. He was a man
of God who was faithful to his task.
He was serving in a time when
there was wicked leadership at
the helm of the nation.
The king was a man named
Ahab. In describing him, I quote
an old preacher from several
generations ago,
Ahab was the vile human toad
who squatted upon the throne
of his nation—the worst of Israel’s kings. King Ahab had
command of a nation’s wealth
Selling
Out Too
Cheap
By LOUIS W. ARNOLD
“And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast
thou found me, O mine enemy? And
he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work
evil in the sight of the LORD.”
“But there was none like unto
Ahab, which did sell himself to work
wickedness in the sight of the LORD,
whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.”—
I Kings 21:20, 25.
“Thou hast sold thyself.” Hark
the words of God’s prophet.
Continued on p 23
and a nation’s army, but he had
no command of his lusts and
appetites.
Ahab wore rich robes, but he
had a sinning and wicked and
troubled heart beneath them.
He ate the finest food the world
could supply, and this food was
served to him in dishes splendid by servants obedient to his
every beck and nod; but he had
a starved soul.
He lived in palaces sumptuous within and without, yet he
tormented himself for one more
bit of land. Ahab was a king with
a throne and a crown and a
scepter, yet he lived nearly all
of his life under the thumb of a
woman—a tool in her hands.
Ahab pilloried himself in the
contempt of all God-fearing
men as a mean and selfish rascal who was the curse of his
country. (R. G. Lee)
February 26, 2016
Our Churches Have Been Invaded!
By DR. JACK TRIEBER
“O God, the heathen are come into
thine inheritance; thy holy temple
have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.
“The dead bodies of thy servants
have they given to be meat unto the
fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy
saints unto the beasts of the earth.
“Their blood have they shed like
water round about Jerusalem; and
there was none to bury them.
“We are become a reproach to our
neighbours, a scorn and derision to
them that are round about us.
“How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry
for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like
fire?
“Pour out thy wrath upon the hea-
then that have not known thee, and
upon the kingdoms that have not
called upon thy name.
“For they have devoured Jacob, and
laid waste his dwelling place.
“O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies
speedily prevent us: for we are brought
very low.
“Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of thy name: and deliver
us, and purge away our sins, for thy
name’s sake.
“Wherefore should the heathen
say, Where is their God? let him be
known among the heathen in our
sight by the revenging of the blood of
thy servants which is shed.
I’ve Fallen
“Let the sighing of the prisoner
come before thee; according to the
greatness of thy power preserve thou
those that are appointed to die;
“And render unto our neighbours
sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.
“So we thy people and sheep of thy
pasture will give thee thanks for
“Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah
ever: we will shew forth thy praise to
had done, and withal how he had
Recently I ran across a humorA subjective person came along all generations.”—Ps. 79:1–13.
slain all the prophets with the ous yet thought-provoking piece and said, “I feel for you down
I remember the day when I was
sword.”—I Kings 19:1.
(Christian Voices, March 2015) that there.”
in junior high that Mr. Krushchev
An objective person walked by announced, “We will overtake
Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah went something like this:
and
said, “It’s logical that somehad done and how he had slain
It seems that a man fell into a
America without firing a single
one
would
fall down there.”
pit and couldn’t get himself out.
shot.” I’m sure many of you, if
A Pharisee said, “Only bad peo- you’re my age or older, rememple fall into pits.”
ber that statement.
A mathematician calculated how
We were upset that such a statedeep the pit was.
ment would be made against the
A news reporter wanted the ex- great America. We knew it would
clusive story on the pit.
not be possible. We knew that if
An IRS agent asked if he was communism were going to invade
us, it would be a fight.
paying taxes on the pit.
By DR. WALTER L. WILSON
I believe today, decades later, we
A self-pitying person said, “You
(1881–1969)
When our Lord said in I John us, but He is speaking of making
2:15, “Love not the world, neither those things the aim and the obthe things that are in the world,” ject of the life so that we love them
He gave us a principle which is instead of loving God and His
profitable for this life and for the Word.
next.
One of the world’s greatest scientists operating in the vegetable
Understanding This Concept kingdom was an atheist.
of “the World”
Another of our great scientists
He is not telling us that we who discovered some very useful
should not delight in the flowers, and wonderful things for our livbeautiful mountains, glorious val- ing was a Unitarian who did not
leys, attractive birds, and remarkbelieve in the things that Chrisable animals. He is not referring to
tians love.
physical things at all, for He has
Another one with a great brain
given us all these things to enjoy.
that grasped in a wonderful way
At 1:30 a.m. [February 5], the mayor and city council of Palm Bay
He made gold for us to use and
human values lived and died an voted 4-1 to reject a proposed ordinance that would have added
enjoy. He made flowers to bring
unbeliever.
“sexual orientation,”“gender identity” and “gender expression” to its
happiness in a peculiar way to our
nondiscrimination policy that applies to employment and public acThese
men
were
men
of
this
hearts. Travel is both enjoyable and
commodations, including churches, religious organizations and busiworld.
They
were
men
“of
the
instructive. The study of minerals
nesses.…The hearing lasted for six and one-half hours and had more
earth.”
Their
whole
love
and
deor of physical geography or medthan 80 speakers, including pastors representing a wide variety of
votion
were
for
the
things
of
this
icine, electricity or chemistry is
world, and the things of the next churches, individuals and community leaders, along with about 1,000
both profitable and useful.
Our Lord is not speaking of this life had no place in their affections. people in the chamber, in the hall, and in an overflow room. There
line of things in the passage before
And They Won’t Let Me Up!
When the World
Gets Its Way
Palm Bay, Florida Protects
Religious Freedom, Rejects
GLBT Ordinance
2
SWORD OF THE LORD
There is a famous quotation
from William Booth (1829–1912)
in which he registered his concerns
about the arrival of the twentieth
century. He said, “The chief danger
that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy
Ghost, Christianity without Christ,
forgiveness without repentance,
salvation without regeneration,
politics without God, Heaven without Hell.”
His concerns were obviously
well founded. Here we are more
than 100 years later, and it appears that the situation that confronts us is all the more grave.
As I look at our current circumstance and cast my gaze on the
horizon of the new, unfolding
twenty-first century, the dangers
for us are many.
1. Ministries without moorings!
Churches, colleges, missionary
organizations, etc., that started
right, then turned from their
founding principles to appease and
to accommodate. Enamored with
demographics and emboldened by
trends, they shift and they drift.
In a few short years, they are not
even a shadow of their former
selves.
2. Pulpits without preaching!
Not so long ago a firebrand with
the touch of God upon him stood
there. Today it is too often a puppet controlled by a committee
with no calling, no anointing, no
fervor, no authority, and no fruit.
Teaching that is so generic and
nonspecific has little resemblance
to the biblical standard.
When preaching disappears,
the pulpit soon ceases to be the
focal point of that ministry. Thus
the stage is set for worldliness to
take root, for false doctrine to
get a hearing, and for the oncoming destruction of that ministry.
3. Salvation without conversion!
A lot of people claim to be
Christians, but they are not sure
of Heaven. Others join a church,
get baptized, and observe other
religious ceremonies; but they are
not born again (saved, regenerated, justified, converted).
If a person claims to be a Christian yet is not saved, the fact is that
he is not a Christian at all! Yet it is
the situation of millions of people today.
4. Families without foundations!
More and more people are
choosing to live together without
marriage. They shack up, bring
babies into the world, and then
leave one another on a moment’s
notice.
Seventy-two percent of black
babies are born in a home where
there is no resident father.
Now men are marrying men,
women are marrying women—the
foundations of the family are
grievously eroded. These developments are ominous, and the
consequences are sure to be catastrophic.
5. Politics without God!
Whether the city council or the
Congress, the mayor or the president, the structure of the political leadership anywhere and
everywhere is of major importance.
Our country had its first 200
years during which the influence
of Christianity was paramount.
Christians were at the forefront.
Judeo-Christian values were the
treasured values of the nation.
In 1960 that all began to change.
Fifty years later, Christians were
being sent to “the back of the bus.”
The clamor for a secular government that gave no place to Christians was being proclaimed loudly
across the nation.
We have already lost much
ground. Unless there is a full Uturn and soon, our nation will be
devoid of all Christian influence
long before this century ends.
6. Education without edification!
The educational system all
across our nation is so badly broken that it seems unfixable. The
expectation of students has been
reduced repeatedly. A huge variety of issues that are driven by
the liberals’ secular, amoral, antiGod agenda are at the forefront.
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If a child goes through twelve
to fourteen years of such garbage
and then four or more years in
college and graduate school, he
will, in most cases, come out of
that with an anti-Christian and
anti-American mind-set.
This tragic scenario has been
working itself into place for more
than sixty years now.
7. Citizens without morals!
Cheating, stealing, lying,
killing, etc., are already the norm
in our society.
When Christianity was disenfranchised; the Bible was booted
off the scene; preachers were replaced with psychologists and
psychiatrists; movie stars became
bigger than parents; the media
became the mouthpiece of every
liberal, left-wing, looney idea; the
citizenry took a huge hit.
Crooked deals, drive-by shootings and other immoral events are
commonplace in the dog-eat-dog
environment that is left in the
wake of the purge and the exclusion of Christian influence.
Surely much more could be
documented on this timely subject, but the appeal of my concern here is for more than just
knowing about it.
I’m urging you to join with me.
Let’s not be dissuaded, let’s not
faint, let’s not give up, let’s rise
up, let’s get fired up, let’s take up
the Lord’s cause, and let’s give our
all to get back what we have lost.
If thousands of our churches,
large and small, would reclaim the
heritage of fundamental, Biblebelieving Christianity—
If thousands of our pastors
would take the lead and replant
the flag of faith on New Testament standards—
If thousands of families would
determine to reject every vestige
of the trendy agenda—
Yes, if—then we would be on
our way to seeing the tide turn.
Berean Baptist Church,
White House, Tennessee
I told several people that I was
preaching at “the White House”
on Sunday. Of course, I quickly
explained that it was White House,
Tennessee.
White House is a north Nashville suburb (population 11,000)
that is the home of Berean Baptist Church.
Pastor Joe Lang went to Berean
Baptist Church 8 years ago after
working with us at the Sword of
the Lord the previous three years.
This was my third time to
preach for him, and each time it
is obvious that progress continues to be made. From his first
Sunday with 13 people, they have
grown to the point that their auditorium is now very close to full.
The warmth of a caring fellowship is apparent from the moment you arrive.
They are knocking on doors,
finding folks, winning them to
Christ, and bringing them to
church.
Betty and I felt right at home.
When I stood to preach, I had full
liberty, and the Lord gave us His
blessing in the services.
Brother Lang and his people are
taking a stand and staying true
without wavering.
If you are here in Tennessee in
the area of “the White House,”
you’ll want to stop by Berean Baptist Church and visit with Pastor
Lang and his dear people.
February 26, 2016
Noteworthy News Notes
Continued from p 1
was overwhelming opposition to the ordinance.…
The proposed ordinance would have directly infringed on the religious freedom of churches, religious organizations, businesses, and
individuals. The ordinance would have banned churches from following biblical teaching in employment or use of facilities and would
have given a right to men to invade the private restrooms for women
if the men “identified” as women. The ordinance could have forced
churches providing food for their weddings, or any church with regular community meetings in its fellowship hall, to host wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples. The ordinance required…nurseries
and day cares supported even in part by public funds to allow crossdressing in front of children. Such ordinances make no sense and
provide opportunities for great harm.
—LIBERTY COUNSEL
Congress Fails to Override President’s Veto
of Defunding Planned Parenthood
The House of Representatives has failed to override President
Obama’s veto of a bill to defund Planned Parenthood. The final vote
was 241-186.
Although the bill received a majority of votes, overturning a veto
requires the bill to pass by a two-thirds margin.
The “Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation
Act” (H.R. 3762) would have denied Planned Parenthood, the nation’s
leading abortion provider, funding from Medicaid. Planned Parenthood performed 323,999 abortions and received $553.7 million from
taxpayers in 2014 alone, according to its most recent annual report.
—Lifesitenews.com
It’s Official: Monkey See, Monkey Do
A new Duke University study confirms that teens who see others
drinking alcohol or using drugs are much more likely to use booze
and drugs on the same day than if they had not witnessed their use.
Many parents might have verified that without the university’s having to study it, pointing out that it’s a principle straight out of the
Book of Proverbs—bad company corrupts.
“Past research has shown that children who grow up in families,
schools and neighborhoods where alcohol and drugs are frequently
used are at risk for behavioral problems later in life,” said Candice
Odgers, Duke associate professor.
“But,” Odgers added, “our findings demonstrate that these effects
are immediate.”
—afajournal.org
Irish Pastor Found Not Guilty of Crime for
Saying “Islam Is Satanic” in Sermon
An Irish pastor who was criminally charged for saying in a sermon
that “Islam is satanic” has been found not guilty of making grossly offensive remarks by a Belfast judge.…
Pastor James McConnell, the 78-year-old retired pastor of the
Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle in Belfast, was accused of spewing offensive hate speech during a May 2014 sermon when he stated,
“Islam is heathen. Islam is satanic. Islam is a doctrine spawned in
Hell.”
McConnell also claimed in his sermon that cells of Muslims have
spread all over the U.K. and explained that “people say there are
good Muslims in Britain—that may be so, but I don’t trust them.”
McConnell was charged with improper use of [a] public electronic
communications network and using the communications network to
say grossly offensive remarks. He was prosecuted under Ireland’s
2003 Communications Act.
McConnell denied both charges and told the court that he never
meant to offend anybody personally.
“I was attacking the theology of Islam. I was not attacking any individual Muslim. I didn’t realize that good Muslim people would be
hurt,” McConnell said. “I didn’t go into the church to provoke anyone. I went into church to present the truth.”
While Judge Liam McNally believed that the remarks from McConnell’s sermon were offensive, he did not believe his remarks
qualified as “grossly offensive.”
—Samuel Smith for ChristianPost.com
EDITOR’S COMMENTS: Although this was in the United Kingdom, it has all the earmarks of trouble that is brewing here in
America.
The pastor was found not guilty, but why on earth was he hauled
into court in the first place? A pastor should never be muzzled
when preaching against sin, false doctrine, etc.
Favorite Verses in Eleven Countries
YouVersion Bible app highlights annual user activity, discovering
what has been the most popular Bible verse throughout the year. In
2015, YouVersion tracked the verses most bookmarked, highlighted,
shared, and listened to in the 11 countries where the YouVersion app
has been downloaded the greatest number of times.
The…favorite verses across the globe: China, I Corinthians 10:13;
Redemption Baptist Church, United Kingdom, Romans 12:2; Canada, Romans 12:2; United States,
Winter Haven, Florida
Romans 12:2; Mexico, Joshua 1:9; Columbia, Joshua 1:9; Brazil,
The second weekend of Febru- Joshua 1:9; Nigeria, Jeremiah 29:11; South Africa, Jeremiah 29:11;
February 26, 2016
The Marks of
True Ministry
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the
power may be of God, and not of
us.”—II Cor. 4:7.
It has always been true that
people have to choose which
prophets to believe. There are
true prophets, and there are false
prophets. It is not always an easy
thing to tell the difference between the true and the false.
And it is possible to be a true
man of God in one era of your life
and then betray your calling and
become a false prophet. Don’t forget the prophet who prophesied
to Jeroboam in I Kings 13 and then
was deceived by the old prophet.
God forsook the prophet himself
because he was so easily deceived.
It was true in Jeremiah’s day.
The false prophets chose the easy
way, the easy message, the popular message. Judgment on Judah
was impending, and the kings had
to choose whether they would
believe the prophets of prosperity or the weeping prophet, Jeremiah.
—Dr. Dan Reed
• • •
SWORD OF THE LORD
call upon the name of the LORD.”—
Vs. 13.
The King’s Highway
It is all we can do. Gratitude
should move every one of us to
get right with God. Prudence
should move us to get right with
God. Reason alone tells us—and
with this the Bible is in harmony,
as it is everywhere and in everything with the highest reason—
tofore little known in an Ameri- that there can be no enduring
can army, is growing into fashion. happiness in a life which is out of
I hope that the officers will, by harmony with God. —C. I. Scofield
example, endeavor to check it and
that both they and their men will
† † †
reflect that we have but little hope
of the blessing of Heaven in our My soul, ask what thou wilt;
Thou canst not be too bold.
arms if we insult Him by our impiety and folly. Added to this, it is a Since His own blood for thee was
spilt,
vice so mean and low, without any
What else can He withhold?
temptation, that every man of
sense and character detests and Beyond thine utmost wants,
His love and power can bless;
despises it.
“The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more
unto the perfect day.”—Prov. 4:18.
—George Washington, August 3, 1776
The General’s
Indictment
of Swearing
To praying souls He always grants
More than they can express.
—John Newton
† † †
I was a little better than
speechless all day.
O my God, I am speedily
coming to Thee!
Hasten the day, O Lord, if it
be Thy blessed will.
Oh, come, Lord Jesus; come
quickly.
◆ ❚ ◆
“Shall we continue in sin, that
grace may abound?”—Rom. 6:1.
You need not, because sin’s dominion has been broken by grace
(vss. 12–14).
You must not, because it would
—David Brainerd
bring sin in again as master (vss.
15–19).
† † †
You had better not, for it would
Think of gratitude. We rightly
end in disaster (vss. 20–23).
call ingratitude the basest act of
man. There is something about the
man who can receive kindnesses
I have been astonished
and favors without being moved
at myself to see how many
to gratitude in return that marks
times I have labored long
a kind of incurable baseness of
earnestly to secure
and
nature. You and I have lived on
God’s bounty all our lives, and
the accomplishment of reperhaps we have never said with
sults which I believed to be
David,
right and which I still be“What shall I render unto the LORD
lieve to have been right,
for all his benefits toward me?”—Ps.
without any definite com116:12.
mittal of the affairs in
And remember the answer:
question to God.
“I will take the cup of salvation, and
—Charles Blanchard
I am wondering what would
have happened to me if…some
fluent talker had converted me
to the theory of the eight-hour
day and convinced me that it was
not fair to my fellow workers to
put forth my best efforts in my
work. I am glad that the eighthour day had not been invented
when I was a young man. If my
life had been made up of eighthour days, I do not believe I could
Editor’s Notes
have accomplished a great deal.
This country would not amount
to as much as it does…if the young
men had been afraid that they ary, Betty and I flew to Tampa and
might earn more than they were drove one hour to the east to
paid.
Winter Haven.
—Thomas A. Edison
Pastor Michael Setser and his
people welcomed us for Sunday
and then their 18th annual bus
conference. His dad, Pastor Ron
Setser, had served as the church’s
Luke 18:1
pastor for 7 years prior to Brother
Michael Setser’s coming a year
To neglect prayer is to burden
ago.
ourselves with care, to shut ourOn Sunday, we started with Sunselves out of blessings, to enfeeble our faith, to dim the eyes of day school. Pastor Bill Reeves from
our hope, to dampen the fires of North Platte, Nebraska preached
our zeal, to relax the grip of our at that hour and again at the contenacity, to weaken the heart of ference on Monday night.
I preached Sunday morning and
our love, and to rob our service
evening, as well as Monday night,
of its strength.
—Hyman Appelman Tuesday morning and evening.
At the Sunday meetings, we had
• • •
good times of fellowship with the
A visiting speaker to a Sunday Setsers and the Reeveses.
school was called upon to adOn Monday and Tuesday, the
dress the children. Thinking to be church folks provided great meals
facetious, he asked this question: for everybody before the evening
“What would you do before so services as well as lunch on Tuesmany bright boys and girls who day. This afforded great times of
expected a speech from you if fellowship for the speakers and
you had nothing to say?”
others in attendance.
“I’d keep quiet,” replied a small
After lunch on Tuesday, I had a
boy.
question-and-answer session. Pastor Mike Watkins preached once.
Pastor Tom Sexton and Evangelist
Chuck Harding each spoke twice.
Pastor Mickey Carter preached
with me on Tuesday night.
Special music was provided by
I am sorry to be informed that the groups from Dr. Carter’s Landthe foolish and wicked practice mark Baptist College at nearby
of profane swearing, a vice here- Haines City.
Pray Without
Ceasing
3
There are two ways we may
travel—a broad way and a narrow way. Jesus said, “Broad is the
way, that leadeth to destruction…
narrow is the way, which leadeth
unto life, and few there be that
find it” (Matt. 7:13, 14).
The broad, downward way is a
dark, slippery way, leading to despair and destruction: “Their way
shall be unto them as slippery ways
in the darkness” (Jer. 23:12); “There
is a way which seemeth right unto
a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12).
The narrow way is an illumined
way which grows brighter and
brighter. Jesus is with us in the
narrow way. He is the Light of the
World: “I am the light of the
world: he that followeth me shall
not walk in darkness, but shall
have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Only the redeemed travel the
narrow, heavenward way: “the unclean shall not pass over it…the
redeemed shall walk there” (Isa.
35:8, 9).
As God’s children walk along the
narrow way, they become more
conformed to the likeness of Christ:
“But we all, with open face beholding…the glory of the Lord, are
changed into the same image from
glory to glory” (II Cor. 3:18). Christ
becomes increasingly precious to
them.
Those traveling on the narrow,
heavenly way become increasingly detached from the perishing
things of the world. Their affections are set on things above. Enduring riches await them in the
heavenly repository.
February 28–March 1
(Sunday–Tuesday)
Boeke Road Baptist Church
2601 South Boeke Road
Evansville, Indiana
Stephen Russ, pastor
812-479-5342
March 6–9
(Sunday–Wednesday)
Calvary Baptist Church
6026 U.S. Highway 641 North
Gilbertsville, Kentucky
Dale Greenwell, pastor
270-362-9016
March 13
(Sunday a.m. and p.m.)
Cooks Prairie Baptist Church
6020 23 Mile Road
Homer, Michigan
Jerry Noseworthy, pastor
517-568-3160
March 14–15
(Monday–Tuesday)
Shalom Baptist Church
3400 Morgan Road
Orion, Michigan
David Carr, pastor
248-391-0443
March 18–19
(Friday–Saturday)
Men’s Conference
Community Baptist Temple
1370 Canton Road
Akron, Ohio
Mark O’Donnell, pastor
330-733-3662
—Walter Knight
March 20
The preachers across central
Florida really turned out. Pastors,
preachers and missionaries totalled
57 for the two days.
This was a really delightful and
blessed conference for all of us.
lies ahead over the upcoming appointment will have a major impact on everybody.
We need to pray, and we need
to urge the people who represent
us to represent us truly.
National Sword Conference
July
25–28
The death of Supreme Court
The Scalia Death
Justice Antonin Scalia was a shocker. Whether or not you were aware
of it, he had served you well on the
nation’s highest court.
Religiously he was a Catholic,
but as a citizen he was a patriot
and a constitutionalist. He read
the Constitution the way all of us
ought to read the Bible. He read
it for what it said and didn’t try to
make it say things it did not say.
He was seventy-nine years old,
but his sudden death has left me
wondering. They were quick to
say natural causes and that there
would be no autopsy. I don’t know
the details, but I’ve heard enough
that I’m suspicious. Hopefully, his
family or some responsible public official will investigate.
If the president gets his way, he
will no doubt appoint a liberal like
himself. To do so will shift the already shaky balance on the Court
and give the liberal jurists full sway.
I hope that at the next presidential election and all future elections, we will all remember this
scenario.
Whomever we elect for president is likely to get to appoint
members to the Court. The status
of many things, like marriage (5-4
decision, June 2015), is often decided by one vote. The battle that
Central Baptist Church
1714 Southeast 36th Avenue
Ocala, Florida
Andy Bloom, pastor
352-694-2212
March 23–24
(Wednesday–Thursday)
Sycamore Baptist Church
We are pretty excited about our
upcoming National Sword of the
142 Sycamore Street
Lord Conference (July 25–28) in
Jackson, Michigan
Walkertown, North Carolina. In
Terry Boyd, pastor
this issue, we are starting to an517-358-1154
nounce the program. More details will be announced in March.
March 27
The preaching and the music are
always exceptional. In addition, we
have the morning and afternoon
Maranatha Baptist Church
workshops that are geared to give
205 State Line Road
lots of practical help.
Oak Grove, Kentucky
“It can be done!” Yes, the truly
Dave Noffsinger, pastor
fundamental, independent Bap270-439-6055
tist churches can thrive in the
twenty-first century doing what
we do—and we don’t have to
It looks as good as new, and
compromise to do it.
Betty is very happy about it.
And remember: there are no fees
† † †
charged to anyone for attending.
All sessions are free to everyone.
These are exciting days for us,
but they are also very challenging
This and That
ones.
Several months ago Betty messed
We are thankful for the labors
up the bumper on her car in a of the ministry and for the priviminor mishap. Because I’m busy lege we have to stand up and be
and because the car was still counted in such days.
driveable, I had not hurried to
You will be a blessing to us if
get it fixed.
you will pray for us and stand
She lovingly advised me that she with us.
had one request for Christmas.
God bless you, and do stay in
Either she gets a new bumper or touch.
a new car. I pondered the matter
briefly…and promptly took the
car to the body shop.
4
SWORD OF THE LORD
† Nothing will take the place
of tears. Tears touch the heart
of God. He said to Hezekiah, “I
have heard thy prayer, I have
seen thy tears: behold, I will add
unto thy days fifteen years” (Isa.
38:5). If tears touch the heart of
God, they somehow make a
way into the hardest hearts.
A stoning, a shipwreck, a lifeand-death fight with lions in
the coliseum, a Philippian jail
Part I
at midnight, a bleeding back,
You may have noticed that some
and shackled feet could not
quench Paul’s tears for lost men few people get stirred up about
nor distract his compassionate soul winning and they stay excited about it all the time. Many
heart until they were saved.
—John R. Rice others in the same church are busily engaged in a variety of good
† Many Christians are willing activities, but they are not soul
to serve God; but they say, “If winners.
Perhaps you have wondered why
we had some great occasion, if
we had lived in the time of this is the case. We will assume
Luther, if we had been Paul’s that both the one who wins souls
traveling companion, if we could and the one who doesn’t are saved,
serve God on a large scale, we so what is the difference? I want
would serve Him; but we can’t to suggest to you that it very well
may be a matter of convictions.
in everyday life.”
Do not think that any work
God gives you to do in the world
is on too small a scale for you
to do it.
Convictions for
Soul Winners
—Vance Havner
† If I were to read, much less
answer, all the attacks made on
me, this shop might as well be
closed for any other business. I
do the very best I know—the very
best I can; and I mean to keep
doing so until the end. If the
end brings me out all right, what
is said against me won’t amount
to anything. If the end brings
me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won’t make any
difference.
—Abraham Lincoln
† Ministry that costs nothing
accomplishes nothing.
helpless to “save” themselves. Salvation is not of works (Eph. 2:8, 9);
therefore, all that we do is an exercise in futility if we expect to
miss Hell and go to Heaven.
No amount of wealth can bail a
man out of this dilemma (Luke
16:19–31).
When a soul winner sees the
helplessness of his fellowman, he
is motivated to help him.
That leads us to the next necessary conviction.
4. A conviction about the Saviour!
What the “lost” person needs is
a Saviour. That Saviour cannot be
some other mere man who will
also live and die without hope.
Therefore, no philosopher, no great
teacher, no guru, no witchdoctor,
no shaman, no preacher, no religion—not even a Christian denomination—can be the Saviour.
Furthermore, no ritual, no ceremony, no rite of passage, no initiation, and no observance of rules
or commandments can bring salvation.
The soul winner knows that
even in a Christian environment
salvation does not come because
we are baptized, join a church, take
communion, or any other such
thing.
The Saviour is the Lord Jesus
Christ.
“For the Son of man is come to seek
and to save that which was lost.”—
Luke 19:10.
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way,
the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”—
John 14:6.
“Neither is there salvation in any
other: for there is none other name
under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved.”—Acts
4:12.
Yes, indeed, as a soul winner
we know whom we represent. We
know that it is the Lord Jesus Christ
to whom we must introduce our
“lost” family and friends.
¤ ¤ ¤
So we have these four things
that we hold dear and about which
we are fully energized. But there
are several other “convictions”
which I will note in the next soulwinning column.
¤ ¤ ¤
Let’s get ourselves committed
on the convictions of soul winners and then let’s go after the
folks who need to know what we
know. Amen! Let’s get started
today.
✟
The Bible, Our Greatest National Asset
—T. DeWitt Talmage
† Too many saints go up like
rockets and come down like
rocks. They prefer to be flashy
comets instead of faithful stars.
The busy, excited soul winner
has very deep, solid, scriptural convictions which keep him motivated. Let me name a few of them.
1. A conviction about “lostness.”
The soul winner understands
that everybody is either “saved”
or “lost.” He knows that everybody is “lost” until he is “saved.”
He also knows that if the “lost”
person does not get “saved,” he
will be “lost” in Hell forever.
2. A conviction about “Heaven” and “Hell.”
The soul winner understands
that when the human body dies,
the person who had lived inside
that body goes either to “Heaven” or to “Hell.” He knows that
“Hell” is a place of horror, suffering, agony; a place from which
there is no escape; an eternal pit
of fire; an abyss of judgment for sin.
He also knows that “Heaven” is
a wonderful, beautiful place that
is the abode of God. There we
will have the privilege of the company of Jesus forever and ever.
Because a soul winner knows
about “Heaven” and “Hell,” he
understands the plight of his family and friends who are unsaved.
3. A conviction about the helplessness of men.
Men are “lost,” and they are
February 26, 2016
The Bible is our greatest national asset, the
masterpiece of God. It comes to us drenched in
the tears of millions of contritions, worn with
the fingers of the saints of the ages, expounded
by the greatest intellects, and stained with the
blood of the martyrs.
It is the fountain in which dying believers
cooled their hot faces, the pillow on which saints
of all ages have rested their heads. It breaks the
fetters of the slave and takes the heat out of life’s
fierce fever, the pain out of parting, the sting out
of death, and the gloom out of the grave.
The Bible is the old-time Book, the new-time
Book, the all-time Book. It will demonstrate its
own character and its own power. This is the impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture, the grand and
glorious eternal Word of God. The name of
Jesus, the Supreme Personality, the center of the
world’s desire, is on every page in one form or
another.
Pierce the Book anywhere, and it bleeds with
His priceless blood, shed for our redemption. The
divine Book has all the answers to man’s every
need. To find them is our greatest privilege and
opportunity.
The Word teaches, gives understanding, directs, cleanses, establishes, turns us and quickens us (Ps. 119:33–40).
The importance of this Book outweighs that of
all others!
Praise God for the Bible, Revealer of Light;
This Sword of the Spirit puts error to flight.
And still through life’s journey until the last sigh,
We’ll travel together, my Bible and I.
—Anon.
—John Henry Jowett
† I am Thy servant to do Thy
will, and that will is sweeter to
me than position or riches or
fame, and I choose it above all
things on Earth or in Heaven.
—A. W. Tozer
Someone said: “Unsolicited advice is
† Nothing provokes the Devil
seldom heeded and often scorned,” but
like the cross.
the Bible says, “A wise man will hear, and
—Charles Spurgeon
† Human nature never
changes. Anything that Jesus
said about His generation is
true of my generation. The Son
of God takes divine X-rays of
human nature and interprets
to us the tragic realities.
—Tom Malone
† The Devil never says, “Goodbye.” After you think he is dead,
he turns up in your heart.
—D. L. Moody
† Too many people are ready
to carry the stool when there is
a piano to be moved.
—Indianapolis Star
will increase learning” (Prov. 1:5).
I can still remember the fear
that gripped my soul as I lay
sprawled on my back sliding toward the edge of a rock quarry. It
was a sheer drop of more than
one hundred feet to a certain
death on the rocks below. The
ground was wet, and I slipped on
the mud as we walked along the
edge of the old abandoned quarry.
I was walking home from elementary school with my brother
who was two years older than I
and my sister who was two years
younger than I. One of us (I was
probably that one) had this brilliant idea of walking the edge of
the quarry. It is amazing that so
many children actually grow to
adulthood, considering the num-
ber of dumb things they do.
I lay there afraid to move for
fear that it would hasten my slide
into the pit. My sister, probably
eight years old, saw my dilemma
and hollered for me to grab her
hand. She pulled me to safety and
probably saved my life.
Perhaps as a result of this encounter, I have today a very healthy
respect for getting too close to the
edge of a steep drop. I have been
to the rim of the Grand Canyon
on several occasions and always
keep my distance from the edge.
Fear is mentioned more than
five hundred times in the Bible
and is seen in the lives of some of
Scripture’s greatest heroes. Even
the great King David who seemingly had no fear of the giant Goliath later feared King Saul and
King Achish (I Sam. 21).
Abraham feared for his life
when he went into Egypt and had
his wife, Sarai, lie for him to protect him (Gen. 12).
Jacob feared retribution from
his brother, Esau, because of the
way that he had wronged Esau
on at least two occasions.
Moses killed a man and fled
from Pharaoh in fear for his own
life (Exod. 2).
Almost the entire nation of Israel was fearful of going into the
Promised Land even though God
had already given them the victory (Num.14).
Fear is a part of everyone’s life,
and it is most often thought of in
a bad sense. But certain types of
fear can be very good. Fear of danger can save your life. Parents will
spend years trying to teach their
children of the many dangers of
life.
Fear of darkness is a common
occurrence among children and
perhaps rightly so. Many evil things
lurk in the darkness, and girls in
particular need to be made aware
of potential danger in dark places.
Proverbs 1:7 tells us that “the
fear of the LORD is the beginning
of knowledge.” If this is true, and
it is, then we have an awful lot of
stupid people in this world. Anyone who tries to force himself to
believe in evolution is a complete
fool because “the fool hath said
in his heart, There is no God” (Ps.
14:1). When “the heavens declare
the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1), how
can anyone but a fool not fear
the God that made him?
Romans 3:18 says of the unregenerate sinner that “there is no
fear of God before their eyes.”
While Christians need not fear the
wrath of God in judgment after
death, we, His children, still need
to fear the chastening hand of
God, our Father. The fear of getting a spanking from my dad kept
me from doing many things that I
otherwise might have done.
There is good fear, and there is
bad fear. Are you able to discern
the difference and know when to
fear and when not to fear? Life
can be full of fears, but a knowledge of Scripture and knowing
Christ as your Saviour can dispel
most of your fears. Have you trusted Christ to remove your fears?
Why not come to Him today and
ask Him to calm your soul?
✟
February 26, 2016
SWORD OF THE LORD
5
voice failed; and her brother commended her soul into the Redeemer’s hand.”
We Heard From Your Grandchildren Again
Frances Havergal
“Thanks very much,” said the minister, as little Tommy handed up his offering for the harvest festival; “I must call round
this afternoon and thank your mother for these eight beautiful
apples.”
“P-please, Sir,” stammered Tommy, “would you m-mind
thanking her for t-twelve apples?”
Frances Ridley Havergal, the British musician and devotional
❄ ❅ ❆
writer, left us such classic hymns as “Like a River Glorious”;
Sunday school teacher: “Robert, who were the Pharisees?”
“Who Is on the Lord’s Side?”; “I Am Trusting Thee, Lord Jesus”;
Bobby: “The Pharisees were people who fasted in public and
and “Take My Life and Let It Be.”
in secret devoured widows’ houses.”
One day in January 1858, while visiting the art museum in
Düsseldorf, Germany, she sat down wearily opposite Domeni❄ ❅ ❆
co Fetti’s picture of Christ under which was this caption: “I Did
“When Lot’s wife looked back,” asked the Sunday school
This for Thee! What Hast Thou Done for Me?”
teacher, “what happened to her?”
Deeply moved, Frances scribbled some lines that flashed
“She was transmuted into chloride of sodium,” answered the
into her mind, writing in pencil on a scrap of paper. Reading boy with the goggles.
them over, they did not satisfy her, so she tossed them into the
fire; but they fell out untouched.
Keep a-Goin’
Some months later she showed them to her father who encouraged her to preserve them. Being a musician himself, he
If you strike a thorn or rose,
even wrote a melody to accompany them. The resulting hymn,
Keep a-goin’!
“I Gave My Life for Thee,” was first published in 1860 and
If it hails or if it snows,
launched Frances Ridley Havergal as a serious composer of
Keep a-goin’!
hymns.
’Tain’t no use to sit an’ whine
When the fish ain’t on your line;
Bait your hook and keep a-tryin’.
Keep a-goin’!
I gave My life for thee;
My precious blood I shed
That thou might’st ransomed be
And quickened from the dead.
I gave, I gave My life for thee;
What hast thou given for Me?
In 1879, despite recurring bouts of illness, she toured, sang,
wrote, and traveled. She visited local schools all across England, offering free Bibles to all the children who would memorize Isaiah 53.
She was planning another missionary tour of Ireland; and she
became very involved in the Total Abstinence campaign, encouraging people to sign pledge cards against personal use of
alcohol.
As part of that campaign, Frances set a goal of personally
talking to every young person in her village about the Lord and
about total abstinence; and on May 21 she went to meet some
boys. As heavy clouds blew in from the English Channel, the
day grew cold and wet. Frances returned home chilled. She
became ill and was confined to bed.
Her fever grew worse, and friends and family members grew
alarmed. It gradually became apparent that at age forty-two
Frances Ridley Havergal was dying. On Sunday as one of her
doctors left her room he told her, “Good-bye. I shall not see
you again.”
She said, “Then you really think I am going?”
He replied, “Yes.”
“Today?”
“Probably.”
“Beautiful,” she said, “too good to be true.”
Soon afterward she looked up smiling and said, “Splendid to
be so near the gates of Heaven!” She asked her brother to sing
some hymns to her; then he said to her, “You have talked and
written a great deal about the King, and you will soon see Him
in His beauty.”
“It’s splendid!” she replied.
A little later she whispered, “Come, Lord Jesus; come and
fetch me.” Then she said to her sisters, “Do you think I shall be
disappointed?” (meaning, “Do you think I may recover?”) They
said, “No, dearest, we are quite sure you are going to Him now.”
She continued to decline; but when someone near her bed
repeated Isaiah 41:10 incorrectly, she roused enough to correct that one. She dozed for a few minutes and then suddenly
awakened, saying, “I am lost in amazement.”
She began singing faintly but clearly a song to one of her
own tunes, “Hermas.”
Jesus, I will trust Thee,
Trust Thee with my soul;
Guilty, lost and helpless,
Thou hast made me whole.
There is none in Heaven
Or on earth like Thee.
Thou hast died for sinners;
Therefore, Lord, for me.
Frances’ sister later wrote, “Then she looked up steadfastly as
if she saw the Lord. Surely nothing less heavenly could have reflected such a glorious radiance upon her face. For ten minutes
we watched that almost visible moving with her King; and her
countenance was so glad, as if she were already talking to Him!
Then she tried to sing. But after one sweet, high note, ‘He,’ her
Continued next column
When the weather kills your crop,
Keep a-goin’!
Though ’tis work to reach the top,
Keep a-goin’!
S’pose you’re out o’ ev’ry dime;
Gittin’ broke ain’t any crime.
Tell the world you’re feelin’ prime—
Keep a-goin’!
When it looks like all is up,
Keep a-goin’!
Drain the sweetness from the cup;
Keep a-goin’!
See the wild birds on the wing;
Hear the bells that sweetly ring;
When you feel like sighin’, sing—
Keep a-goin’!
—Ossian Gunn
“Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully
and wonderfully made: marvellous are
thy works; and that my soul knoweth
right well.”
—Psalm 139:13, 14.
An Independent Christian Publication, Standing for the Verbal Inspiration of the Bible, the Deity of
Christ, His Blood Atonement, Salvation by Faith, New Testament Soul Winning and the Premillennial Return of Christ; Opposing Modernism (Liberalism), Worldliness and Formalism.
Dr. Shelton Smith, Editor
Vol. LXXXII, No. 2
January 15, 2016
If Only I Had Known!
By DR. MIKE ALLISON
Pastor, Madison Baptist Church, Madison, Alabama
When Jesus gave us the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15),
He painted a graphic, detailed
picture for us that we will do well
to read often and study well.
The young man now called the
Prodigal bolted from the safe, secure confines of home to chase
off into the “far country.” His stay
there was a high-priced affair that
robbed him of everything he
possessed. Eventually he admitted
his blundering stupidity, acknowledged himself a sinner, disavowed
the far country, and made his way
back home.
Unfortunately, his story could
be the story of any one of us, and
it may also be the biographical
reality of our beloved nation.
With its miraculous founding
and its illustrious history, our na-
The
Greatest
Book
tion has been blessed in so many
incredible ways. For more than
two hundred years, this land has
been such a great place. Frankly,
it is still an amazing place, but in
recent years it has stumbled badly.
So much has changed that at this
time in our history, it looks very
much like America has become a
prodigal nation.
I. Our Nation, Like the
Prodigal Boy, Has Made
Unwise Choices!
The prodigal boy made several
very unsound decisions.
1. He demanded his inheritance
before he was entitled to receive
it (vs. 12).
2. He “took his journey into a
far country” (vs. 13).
3. He “wasted his substance with
riotous living” (vs. 13).
4. He disgraced himself in the
pig sty (vs. 15).
In a similar manner, our prodigal nation has elected for itself
Continued on p 11
“And I, brethren, when I came to
you, came not with excellency of
speech or of wisdom, declaring unto
you the testimony of God.
“For I determined not to know any
thing among you, save Jesus Christ,
and him crucified.
“And I was with you in weakness,
and in fear, and in much trembling.
“And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man’s
wisdom, but in demonstration of the
An Editorial
Abortions Have Killed More
Americans Than Lived in
the United States in 1880
In the mind free from prejudice and open to facts, there can
be no doubt that the greatest
Book in the world is the Bible.
Its Circulation
Continued on p 14
One day when I was reading
this portion of Scripture, verse 8
jumped out at me. “None of the
princes of this world knew: for
had they known it, they would not
have crucified the Lord of glory.”
I wondered, Had they known
what? Then I went back to verse
7 and understood that had they
known “the wisdom of God” they
would not have “crucified the Lord
of glory.” They had the wisdom of
man, but often man’s wisdom is
totally ignorant of the wisdom of
God.
The wisdom of man saw Jesus
was born in a stable, but it couldn’t
see that He was the King of the
palaces of Heaven.
Continued on p 16
Continued on p 21
Credit Card Debt
at Dangerous Levels!
In a New York Post article (December 6, 2015) entitled “We’re
‘Debt’ [Dead] in the Water,” Gregory Bresiger says that “Americans are running up their creditcard balances to levels that are
nearing unsustainability.”
The average credit-card bal-
Something Doesn’t
Smell Right!
By DR. JON JENKINS
Pastor, Grace Baptist Church, Gaylord, Michigan
The millions of abortions that have taken place since the Supreme
“Dead flies cause the ointment of
Court ushered in an era of unlimited abortions via Roe v. Wade have the apothecary to send forth a stinkkilled more Americans than were alive in the entire country in 1880. ing savour: so doth a little folly him
This is according to numbers published by the U.S. Census Bureau that is in reputation for wisdom and
and the Guttmacher Institute, according to the analysis from CNS honour.”—Eccles. 10:1.
News.
“In 1880, according to the Census Bureau, there were 50,189,209
people in the United States. These included, the Census Bureau
notes, Mark Twain, who had not yet written The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Thomas Edison, who would start his electrical company
two years later; and Booker T. Washington, who would open the
Tuskegee Institute the next year.…”
…The number of abortions in the United States since Roe…is…
closer to 58 million abortions.…
The United States mark[s] [43] years of legalized abortion in all fifty
states at any time for any reason throughout pregnancy on January
22, the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Since
that time, there have been [approximately 58 million] abortions that
have destroyed the lives of unborn children.
—LifeNews.com, May 2015, adapted and updated
Continued on p 2
“Which none of the princes of this
world knew: for had they known it,
they would not have crucified the
Lord of glory.”—I Cor. 2:1–8.
ance in the USA now stands at
$16,140 per household. With the
average interest rate on credit
cards being around twenty percent, that puts many people into
a hole from which they may never
dig out.
So with a desire hopefully to
provide some guidance, let me
address this with a few points of
helpfulness.
By OSWALD J. SMITH
In the first place, the Bible is the
greatest Book in the world from a
numerical standpoint. Its present
circulation exceeds that of any
other book. If you visit the leading bookstores toward the end of
the week, they will name such and
such a book as the “bestseller.”
Next week, in all probability,
Spirit and of power:
“That your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power
of God.
“Howbeit we speak wisdom among
them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes
of this world, that come to nought:
“But we speak the wisdom of God
in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the
world unto our glory:
Solomon starts this chapter by
saying that one person can destroy an awful lot of good. In other
words, just “a little folly” can destroy the great value of a good
life. We hear about some of the
tragedies that happen among the
leaders in the fundamental Baptist movement, but it’s not unique
to fundamental Baptists.
Last fall I was preaching in a
church in Arkansas. The pastor and
his family are connected to a wellknown leader that fell out of the
race in fundamentalism. The pastor’s wife said to me that she was
so discouraged and devastated by
what had happened. She said that
it seems as if we can’t trust our
preachers anymore.
I reminded her that there was a
football coach in their state that
Continued on p 17
Mrs. Dolores Riker, 73, of
Linton, Indiana, graduated to
Heaven on Friday, October 30,
2015.
Dolores was the wife of H. Eugene Riker, pastor of Calvary
Baptist Church of Linton. They
were married for 56 years.
She served as a secretary and a
faithful teacher to all ages. She
was an excellent hostess and friend
to all. The “first lady” of Calvary
Baptist Church will forever be remembered as a truly virtuous
woman (Prov. 31).
She is survived by her husband,
one daughter, one son, eight
grandchildren, and two greatgrandchildren.
We extend our Christian sympathies to the Riker family.
Pilate saith unto them, What shall
I do then with Jesus which is called
Christ? They all say unto him, Let
him be crucified. And the governor
said, Why, what evil hath he done?
But they cried out the more, saying,
Let him be crucified.
Matthew 27:22, 23
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6
SWORD OF THE LORD
February 26, 2016
Revival Like
a Harvest
by Evangelist A. B. Earle
“The harvest is past, the summer
is ended, and we are not saved.”—
Jer. 8:20.
The Farmer in Dell
County
“Draw nigh [near] to God, and he
will draw nigh [near] to you.”—
James 4:8.
Mr. Philips’ class joked about
his announcement that they
were going to visit the farmer in
Dell County. On the way to the
farm, they were singing the nursery rhyme they had learned as
children. Little did they realize
they were about to learn a lesson
they would one day teach to
their own children.
The happy old farmer led them
down a well-worn, single-file path
ers, and under his wings shalt thou
trust: his truth shall be thy shield
it, your life will be so much easier. Not saying that you won’t and buckler.”—Psalm 91:4.
have problems and difficulties,
Don’t spend your time braying
but they’ll not seem so big or like a donkey, baaing like a lost
troublesome or insurmountable sheep, quacking like a duck, or
if you remember Pappy’s words.” waddling about from morning to
night. Instead, find some quiet time
A Lesson From the Barnyard for prayer and read and meditate
Critters
on God’s Word.
Don’t be like the cows that take
“His delight is in the law of the
their ease and lie around chewL
ORD; and in his law doth he mediing their cud most of the day. Instead, be up and working, singing tate.”—Psalm 1:2.
while moving about, and giving
Don’t be like an old billy goat
out your testimony as well as gos- that’s always looking for something
pel tracts.
against which to butt his head.
“Serve the LORD with gladness: Instead, be searching for ways to
come before his presence with help others, especially your parents and neighbors and friends.
singing.”—Psalm 100:2.
“Trust in the LORD, and do good.”—
Don’t be like the ducks splash37:3.
Psalm
ing around in a tub of water and
enjoying the sun. Instead, be
drinking from the trough of nour- + + + + +
ishment from God’s Word.
“I want to be like Old Red, the
“I will give unto him that is athirst
of the fountain of the water of life
freely.”—Revelation 21:6.
Don’t be like the hogs that spend
their days wallowing in the mud.
Instead, be mindful to keep yourself clean from all grubbiness.
“Dearly beloved, let us cleanse
ourselves from all filthiness of the
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness.”—
II Corinthians 7:1.
Don’t be acting like a silly goose
that thinks it can lay golden eggs.
Instead, be like the old gander
goose that sticks out his neck to
its full length, hisses, and chases
danger away from his loved ones.
through high weeds until they
came to a barnyard. The farmer
waited until the children were
sitting on the concrete-block
wall where they could see the
animals inside the enclosure.
“Gonna give you what my
pappy gave me when I was no
older than you,” he said. “If you
take it, remember it, and live by
“Be strong and of a good courage.”—Deuteronomy 31:6.
Don’t be cackling like a hen
coming off the nest and bragging
to the world that she is the proud
owner of an egg. Instead, be like
an old mama hen protecting her
brood by hiding them beneath
her wings when danger is near.
“He shall cover thee with his feath-
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rooster,” the farmer said. “I go to
bed at a decent hour with Psalm
4:8 on my lips: ‘I will both lay me
down in peace, and sleep: for
thou, LORD, only makest me
dwell in safety.’ With a good
night’s sleep I can greet each
morning with a cock-a-doodledo and a howdy-do and repeat
my morning verse, Psalm 118:24:
‘This is the day which the LORD
hath made; [I] will rejoice and be
glad in it.’ When I do that, I am
drawing close to the Lord; and
He’s drawing close to me just
like James 4:8 says it should be.”
On the way back to school,
the children began writing new
verses about the farmer in Dell
County. They got only two lines
complete before the bus pulled
READ
WORD-FOR-WORD
SERMONS BY
DR. R. L. HYMERS, JR.
WWW.HISTORICALREVIVAL.COM
ripens the tares by its side.
I should like to ask you farmers, Have you been out reaping
wheat or grain since I have been
here? When did you reap? You did
it in the time of harvest. The grain
that wasn’t gathered in then was
left to perish under the winter
snow. The grain that is not brought
in during the time of harvest is
generally lost.
There is a great deal of grain
that is cut down by the sickle and
the scythe that never comes into
the barn. The sickle has done its
work, the scythe has reached it, it
has fallen, but it is not gathered.
Unless some Ruth goes across that
field and picks up those heads,
they will perish in the field.
And many a person convicted of
sin is never brought in. In other
days you felt your need of Christ;
you went so far as to ask others
to pray for you; but you are not
converted yet—convicted but
not converted.
The plow and the spade follow
the scythe and the sickle. Christ
won’t keep the death angel back
much longer. The plow is coming,
and the fallen and the standing
heads will go under the sod.
“The harvest is past, the summer
is ended, and we are not saved.”
All I must say to you about the
text is this: The harvest is passing,
the summer is wearing away, and
you are not yet converted.
Now I could go away feeling so
happy if I knew that every man,
every woman and every child
would meet me in Glory! Will you
seek Christ and meet me there,
all of you? Will you rise up now,
every one, if by the grace of God
you will endeavor to be ready to
meet me in Heaven?
What a lament this will be if it
drops from our lips in death: “I
expected to die a happy Christian
but was never quite ready; now it
is too late. The summer is ended,
the door is shut, and I am not
saved.”
A revival is like a harvest in that
before you can have any grain to
reap, any sheaves to bring in,
somebody must do some heavy
work. The plowing and the sowing must precede the harvest.
Little reaping would have been
done by these meetings had not
the plowing and the sowing been
faithfully done beforehand. There
is a great deal of hard work necessary to bring these souls in after
the plowing and the sowing have
been done, but it isn’t all done in
the pulpit.
Vegetation matures and ripens
very rapidly under the more direct
rays of the sun. How often you
hear the farmer say, “I must go out
after more hands; there is that
field over there—a week ago it
was all green, but now it is yellow
and ripe, and we must have more
hands.”
How rapidly that field of grain
ripened under the more direct
rays of the sun! But there is a sad
point in this. That same hot sun
that ripens the wheat ripens the
tares.
These sermons, these songs,
these meetings are a savor of life
unto life or of death unto death.
The same sermon, the same song
and the same meeting that bring
one man to Jesus Christ will leave
Absalom Backus Earle (1812–1895)
another man doomed for perdiwas born in Charlton, New York. He
tion.
It is a dreadful thought that the was converted at the age of sixteen
same hot sun that ripens the wheat and began to preach two years later.
onto the school parking lot.
Don’t want to be a cow
chewing its cud
Or spend my days wallowing
in the mud.
Why don’t you finish what they
started?
Write to me!
Grandma Ruth
Sword of the Lord Publishers
PO Box 1099
Have a great day, and don’t forget to thank the One who gave it
to you!
✟
The next three years were spent in
study and preaching, until at the
age of twenty-one, he was ordained. After he was a pastor for
five years, Earle felt led of the Lord
to enter evangelism. Fifty-eight
years of his life were spent in holding meetings in every state of the
Union and Canada.
He compiled the following statistics:
Number of series of meetings: 960
Number of services: 39,330
Miles traveled: 370,000
Total amount received for 64 years
of ministry: $65,520.00
Conversions to Christ: 160,000
Men entering the ministry: 400
He also authored seven books. ✟
February 26, 2016
Grow or Die
A truth I heard in a Bible sermon some twenty years ago has
stuck with me to influence my
work and leadership as a pastor.
Every ministry within our church
is either growing or dying. I have
to make the decision of direction
every day.
Certainly rest is a part of life—
but if we are not recruiting workers, winning new converts, starting
new routes, and working to grow,
death quickly sets in.
Now with all of the time, love,
finances, and work that we put
into our bus ministries, it is so important that we not let them die
during the “off seasons.” Here are
six things that will help us maintain our routes and even grow
them in the off seasons of winter
and summer.
1. Stay strong spiritually.
The off seasons can be easy
times to backslide. When school is
out, holiday activities, family vacation time, and different programs
and activities going on in church
change our schedule; and we get
out of our normal routines.
Bus captains, we are the leaders; and we must stay strong spiritually in order to keep our bus
routes strong. Dr. Lee Roberson
often said that everything rises
and falls on leadership, and that
is just as true in the bus ministry
as it is in other areas of ministry.
When King David fell into sin
with Bathsheba, it was because he
was not where he was supposed
to be. As leaders, we must keep
ourselves in the right places and
with the right people.
2. Take a vacation from work
but not from responsibility.
In any area of leadership it is
important to take time off to rest
and spend time with family. However, as leaders we also know
that responsibilities must be cared
for. It is important to take vacation times with family, just as
Jesus recommended that His
own disciples come apart and rest
awhile. There were times when
Jesus Himself separated from the
great crowds and went somewhere to be alone so He could
pray and rest.
As we make plans for vacation,
let’s also make plans for our bus
routes to be cared for. Be sure
that the visitation is cared for. Be
sure that the bus route is cared
for in every other detail.
The Devil never takes any time
off! Our bus riders need someone
to care for them spiritually each
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SWORD OF THE LORD
and every week. Satan is constantly trying to destroy our lives and
the lives of the children with whom
we work.
In the summertime there are
even more temptations to sin, so
that makes it even more important to work with your children
then. To keep a good thing from
dying, let’s be sure that our bus
route is cared for when we are
planning to be on vacation this
summer or away for a holiday or
special family event.
3. Use some time in the off
seasons to spend more time
with your faithful riders.
Jesus not only taught and
preached to the multitudes; there
were also many times when He
spoke with only His disciples.
While we must certainly work to
reach out to new riders, we need
also to invest extra time in faithful riders that have a desire to be
closer to the Lord and to serve
Him with their own lives.
Plan to spend extra time to take
small groups out to eat or on a
picnic, or even to study the Word
of God with them in their homes
with their families.
4. Come up with some offseason promotional ideas.
It is good to have some promotions even in the winter and summer. Some promotional ideas are
promotions that you can do over
and over again because of how
inexpensive and popular they are.
These may be a little different
than attendance campaign promotions and may also work better
with smaller groups. Our winter
goes through about the second
week of March. We cannot begin
an attendance campaign until after
that, but we must maintain the bus
routes during these off-season
weeks.
5. Don’t cut back on weekly
visitation.
You may not be able to go all
day on Saturday every week, but
don’t let a week go by when you
don’t visit your children. It is so
important to have a weekly visitation time! We must be faithful if
we want the children to be faithful.
We live in a society where any
excuse at all makes it okay not to
go to church. Some “churches” will
even cancel church services for
holidays or sporting events!
When you miss church for any
reason, you are showing your children that attending church is an
optional thing that we do as long
as it doesn’t conflict with anything
else that is important.
6. Take bus kids to winter/
summer retreats/camps.
Whether you take your kids to
camp with your church kids or to
a camp specially designed for bus
kids, a time away from their surroundings could be the life-changing experience they need! Just a
few days away from many of the
temptations of the world can be
the life-changing event we desire
to have take place.
Winter retreats and conferences
are popular and are great opportunities for life-changing decisions
by our young people. Our National Youth Conference is in March
every year. Many public school students request permission to attend
the three-day event.
The key is to keep things going
in every ministry. While there are
times for rest, there is never time
to leave our responsibilities of
leadership.
Have a great week—and let’s
keep those classes growing and
the buses rolling! pastorfugate@
msn.com
✟
7
Australia, Proverbs 3:5, 6; South Korea, Philippians 4:13.
—christianitytoday.com
Sexual Assault Victims Speak Out Against
Washington’s Transgender
Bathroom Policies
A group of women who say they are former victims of sexual assault are making an emotional plea to Washington state legislators to
reverse a bathroom policy that they say leaves them and their young
children vulnerable, exposed and unsafe.…
The policies, which went into effect December 26, grant individuals full access to bathrooms, locker rooms and other gender-specific
facilities in accordance with their chosen gender identity instead of
their anatomical sex.
But already…the…victims feel their stories have fallen on deaf
ears, and they’re being portrayed in the public as “fearmongers.”
—Kelsey Harkness for dailysignal.com
Tennessee State Representatives File
Legislation to Stop Islamic
Indoctrination in Schools
[Three] representatives…announced [February 3] that they have
filed legislation to stop Islamic religious indoctrination in Tennessee
schools.
According to a news release received from Representative
Matthew Hill’s office, the decision to file legislation came after public
outcry from parents, students and school administrators.
In 2015, middle school parents in Maury County were up in arms
after learning their children were being instructed to recite and write
“Allah is the only god” as part of a world history project. In another
section of their work, students were assigned a five pillars of Islam
project that included the translation of the pillar of “shahada” as
being, “There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is his prophet.” Similar
situations have been reported across the state, including multiple instances in the tri-cities area.
—TENNESSEE CHRISTIAN NEWS
EDITOR’S COMMENTS: The invasion of America is being waged
on several fronts. With all that has been done to sanitize the public
schools of even the slightest reference to anything Christian, and
now they want to teach the details of Islam! Something is very
wrong, and we must not ignore it.
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STARTING EACH DAY AT 10:00 A.M.
• HITHERTO HATH THE LORD HELPED US. I SAMUEL 7:12
8
SWORD OF THE LORD
My Faith Looks Up to Thee
My faith looks up to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary, Saviour
divine!
Now hear me while I pray; take all
my guilt away;
Oh, let me from this day be
wholly Thine!
May Thy rich grace impart
Strength to my fainting heart,
my zeal inspire!
As Thou hast died for me, oh, may
my love to Thee
Pure, warm and changeless be,
a living fire!
While life’s dark maze I tread
And griefs around me spread,
be Thou my Guide.
Bid darkness turn to day, wipe
sorrow’s tears away,
Nor let me ever stray from
Thee aside.
When ends life’s transient dream,
When death’s cold, sullen
stream shall o’er me roll,
Blest Saviour, then in love fear
and distrust remove.
Oh, bear me safe above, a
ransomed soul!
The year was 1831. The setting
was a bedroom. The city was New
York. Written in the first person,
this was the prayer of a soul who
had entered into and was enjoying the presence of Jesus Christ.
The man was Ray Palmer. Overwhelmed by the greatness of salvation in Christ Jesus, Palmer recounts,
The words for these stanzas
were born out of my own soul
with very little effort. I recall that
I wrote the verses with tender
emotion. There was not the
slightest thought of writing for
another eye, least of all writing
a hymn for Christian worship.
It is well remembered that when
writing the last line, “Oh, bear
me safe above, a ransomed
soul!” the thought of the whole
work of redemption and salvation was involved in those
words and suggested the theme
of eternal praises; and this
brought me to a degree of emotion that brought abundant
tears.
land. By the nineteenth century,
America had purchased her independence with blood. The flag
of freedom flew proudly on the
flagpole of Americans’ hearts. But
as the spirit of national independence flourished, a spirit of
independence from God plagued
the countryside. Yale University,
for instance, suffered the same
fate of irreligion.
According to “A Brief History of
Yale” from the Yale University library,
Yale University had its beginnings with the founding of
the New Haven Colony in 1638
by a band of 500 Puritans who
fled from persecution in Anglican England. It was the dream
of the Reverend John Davenport, the religious leader of the
colony, to establish a theocracy and a college to educate its
leaders. Purchases and plans for
a college library date back to
1656 but were suspended when
King Charles II forced the colony
to unite with Connecticut in
1665.
According to the early histories of Yale, a group of ten ministers led by the Reverend James
Pierpont of New Haven met in
nearby Branford in 1700 to
found a college. Each minister
presented a donation of books,
stating, “I give these books for
the founding [of] a College in
this Colony.”
By the end of the eighteenth
century, the university that was
founded as a school for American
preachers had become the national center of secular thought.
However, as the storms of skepticism and disbelief gathered, the
winds of the Second Great Awakening blew them out to sea! Yale
was only a few years old when
Jonathan Edwards, the father of the
First Great Awakening, entered
the college at the age of thirteen.
In 1720 he graduated from Yale
with the highest honors at the age
God was at work in our home- of seventeen.
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1865 the Civil War was an ominous cloud; spiritual decline was
the rain.
Within thirty years, however,
Palmer’s private poetry became
the heartbeat of many who were
struggling in the land. Writing to
Ira Sankey, Palmer revealed the
influence of his hymn in his own
time. He wrote,
During the Civil War and on
the evening preceding a terrible
battle, six or eight Christian
young men who were looking
forward to deadly strife got together in one of their tents for
prayer. After spending some
time in committing themselves
to God and in Christian conversation and freely speaking
together of the probability that
they would not all survive the
morrow, it was suggested by
one of the number that they
should draw up a paper expressive of the feelings with which
they went to stand face to face
with death and all sign it and
that this should be left as a testimony to the friends of such
of them as might fall. This was
unanimously agreed to.
After consultation, it was decided that a copy of “My Faith
Looks Up to Thee” should be
written out and that each man
would subscribe his name to it
so that father, mother, sister, or
brother might know in what
spirit they laid down their lives.
Of course, they did not all meet
again. The incident was related
afterward by one who survived
battle.
Their collective heartbeat was
this, “Oh, bear me safe above, a
ransomed soul!”
Palmer said near the end of his
life that his hymn “embodied in
appropriate and simple language
that which is most central in all
true Christian experience—the act
of faith in the divine Redeemer,
the entrusting of the individual
soul to Him entirely and forever.”
We stand today in desperate
need of a Third Great Awakening.
Such revival fires would be started if the average American home
would once again sing,
Our First
President
“Remember the sabbath day, to
keep it holy.”—Exod. 20:8.
George Washington, the father
of our country, was born February 22, 1732, and died on December 14, 1799. He was just sixtyseven years old.
I recently read a book published
in 1842 by the American Sunday
School Union. The book about our
country’s great general and first
president was written by Anna
Reed, a niece of a signer of the
Declaration of Independence.
The passing of our nation’s first
president brought sadness like a
pall over our country. His noble
nature, unstinted patriotism, sacrificial life of service, and indomitable character were examples to all citizens.
I don’t know with assurance if
Washington was a child of God;
but in reading of this great man
and many of his sayings, I believe
he may have been. However, when
Bushrod inherited Mt. Vernon
from his uncle and was nominated as head of the Sunday School
Union, he said, “I have made…due
observance of the Sabbath day,
upon this spot, where I am persuaded it was never violated, during the life [of]…its former, venerable and truly Christian owner.”
That’s a pretty good testimony
from a loved one—what’s yours?
—Evangelist Tim Green,
from Baptist Bread
• How many morning services
would we have if everyone would stay
home when I do?
• How often would the evening
service be canceled if no one would
go except when I do?
• How often would the Sunday
school meet if others would attend
only when I do?
My faith looks up to Thee,
• How many neighbors would be
Thou Lamb of Calvary, Saviour
invited to services and welcomed if
divine!
Now hear me while I pray; take all others would invite and welcome only
as many people as I do?
my guilt away;
• How many prayers would be ofOh, let me from this day be
fered for my pastor, my neighbors and
wholly Thine!
my church if others would pray only
Selah!
✟ as much as I do?
• How many words of testimony
would be given for Christ if others
would speak out for Christ only as
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At graduation Edwards was
“filled with an inward, secret delight in God.” In 1795, Timothy
Dwight, the grandson of Jonathan
Edwards, became the president
of the university. The spirit of Edwards was borne in the heart of
his grandson!
Arriving to a campus steeped
in unbelief, Dwight preached for
four years a series of weekly sermons on Christian belief. When
he finished the series, he would
start over again. After several years
of preaching, revival came to Yale
in 1801. Half the student body was
converted! This was the essence
of the Second Great Awakening.
One college tutor, Benjamin
Silliman, wrote home to his mom,
saying, “Yale College is a little temple; prayer and praise seem to be
the delight of the greater part of
the students while those who are
still unfeeling are awed with respectful silence.”
Ray Palmer greatly benefited
from the movings of God at Yale.
Palmer was thoroughly American.
Born in Little Compton, Rhode
Island, he was a descendant of
William Palmer who had arrived
at Plymouth in 1621. Palmer graduated from Yale in 1830. Serving
as a pastor for fifteen years each in
both Bath, Maine and Albany, New
York, he gave the entirety of his
remaining earthly years to the
gospel ministry.
Never really believing that his
poem “My Faith Looks Up to
Thee” had any greater profit than
his private devotion to Christ, he
carried the poem in his briefcase
for two years. However, a Godordained meeting in Boston with
the great hymnist Dr. Lowell Mason
awaited Palmer. Mason enquired
about Palmer’s health and then
enquired, “Mr. Palmer, Dr. Hastings
and I are getting out a new hymnbook. Do you have something to
contribute?”
Reaching into his “little morocco book,” Palmer let another
human’s eyes behold what only
he himself and the Lord Jesus had
previously seen. A few days later
Palmer and Mason met again, leading Mason to utter his famous
quotation, “You may live many
years and do many good things,
but I think you will be best known
to posterity as the author of ‘My
Faith Looks Up to Thee.’ ”
God smiled on this era of musical men and women. Crosby,
Havergal, Sankey, and, yes, Palmer
intersected beautifully in the full
bloom of national revival.
However, the country was destined for another period of spiritual conflict. Between 1861 and
February 26, 2016
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February 26, 2016
I’ve Fallen…Me Up!
haven’t seen anything until you’ve
seen my pit.”
A psychologist noted, “Your
mother and father are to blame
for your being in that pit.”
A self-esteem therapist said,
“Believe in yourself, and you can
get out of that pit.”
An optimist said, “Things could
be worse.”
A pessimist claimed, “Things will
get worse.”
Now we may chuckle at the cleverness of whoever assembled that
satirical analysis, but at the same
time it strikes a chord which resonates with every Christian with
a Bible-believing, compassionate
heart. From the Scriptures we learn
that how we treat other people is
a huge reflection of what kind of
Christian we are.
Treating Everyone as
a Real Person!
“Blessed is he that considereth the
poor: the LORD will deliver him in time
of trouble.”—Ps. 41:1.
What this passage advocates is
neither the entitlement society
nor the redistribution of wealth.
It does not mean that we should
pay everybody’s rent.
What it does say is that we
should ‘consider’ the poor. “Considereth” here means “to regard
with respect.” If you consider
someone in the sense of this verse,
you treat him as a person of worth.
You do not dismiss him as useless
simply because of the small net
worth of his estate.
When you ‘consider’ people
like this, you give them respect as
people for whom Christ died just
as much as you would respect
them if they had great wealth.
If they are in a pit, they are
worth saving. They are worth the
care of all of us and whatever it
may cost to rescue them.
Go the Second Mile!
SWORD OF THE LORD
Do What You Can
When and Where
You Can!
So someone hurt you. He said
unkind things. He tarnished your
name. He even hurt your ministry. But then he was convicted
of what he did. He admitted his
wrongdoing; he asked for forgiveness and to be restored to
fellowship.
Wow! What are you going to
do now? Are you a big enough
Christian to forgive and receive
his fellowship? Or are you like the
older brother in the parable of
the Prodigal Son? If you can’t forgive, who now is backslidden and
not right with God?
Good Christians must be great
forgivers. Great ministries must be
fountains of mercy by which all
who want to come and drink are
readily received. Whatever ugly
things happened, it is now over
and done. Forgiveness has let it
die. By the mercy of God, it is
buried. You may not forget it, but
by the grace of God you can forgive it.
So don’t put it off. Forgive! Get
over it! And press on! Amen!
“I’ve fallen and they won’t let me
up!” You and I should not be a
party to that situation.
“And whosoever shall give to drink Go After Anybody and
unto one of these little ones a cup of Everybody!
cold water only in the name of a dis“So that servant came, and shewed
ciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in
no wise lose his reward.”—Matt. 10:42. his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to
“A cup of cold water” may not his servant, Go out quickly into the
seem like much, but it may be ex- streets and lanes of the city, and bring
actly what is needed and truly in hither the poor, and the maimed,
could be all that is needed.
and the halt, and the blind.”—Luke
It may be that “a cup of cold 14:21.
water” is all you can afford. You
Instead of targeting just one
may have a short supply yourself,
group of people (millennials, inbut a drink of water is almost altellectuals, etc.), it seems quite
ways a gift any of us could give.
clear to me that the sense of
You may not have a million dol- Scripture is that we should target
lars to give; but showing respect, anybody and everybody. Immagoing the extra mile and giving turity often stumbles here, as does
forgiveness are three things we all inexperience.
can do and will do when we are
Sadder still is it when seasoned
right with God.
Christians take the bait and bite
So when we see the need of the hook that has been dangled
others, we do what we can, as we before them and go after just a
can, where we can, while we can. preferred group.
In ministry, we ought to pursue
Don’t Be the Cause
the folks on Main Street as well as
of Offense!
those in the back alley. If we do
“Woe unto the world because of of- as we should, the demographic
fences! for it must needs be that of- look of our ministry will be as difences come; but woe to that man by verse as the demographics of the
whom the offence cometh!”—Matt. five-mile radius around our church.
18:7.
Anybody and everybody! We
go after them all!
Trouble! Conflict! Offenses! Such
trauma proliferates in our world.
Even in Christian circles there are
So the point to be made is this.
issues, and there are offenses. But
People do fall into the pit. At all
let’s take a lesson from the wishours of the day, in all kinds of
dom of Matthew 18.
ways, the young and the old get
If there has to be an offense, let ensnared; and they fall into traps
someone else create it. As Chris- from which they cannot extricate
tians, you and I should be very themselves.
careful that we do not blunder
Let’s don’t try to be psychiaour way into next week creating trists or social workers! Let’s step
offenses which wound others or up and do the Lord’s bidding.
cause them to stumble.
The man who fell into the pit
needs
the Lord! The Bible is true!
Take Your Cue From the
The
Gospel
works! You and I are
Good Samaritan!
not entertainers! We are ambasYou know the story (Luke 10:30– sadors of the Lord! We know where
37). A man from Jerusalem was to point them! We have the mesrobbed and beaten as he traveled sage that provides a roadmap for
to Jericho. Others just passed him getting out of the pit!
by; but the Good Samaritan minAmen! Amen! Amen!
✟
istered to him, took him to safety,
got him medical attention, and
“And whosoever shall compel thee
paid the bill for all of it.
to go a mile, go with him twain.”—
As a result, Jesus said to us, “Go,
Matt. 5:41.
and do thou likewise” (vs. 37).
Do more than is expected. Show Others may turn away coldly and
yourself to be generous. Be a selfishly, but Jesus would have us
giver without thought of taking. step up to the plate and render
to others as He would do.
Be a Great Forgiver!
Tragically, there are times when
“Brethren, if a man be overtaken the man in the pit will cry out,
in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of
meekness; considering thyself, lest
thou also be tempted.”—Gal. 6:1.
9
by Dr. John R. Rice
“Don’t you think that a
feeling (as well as a fact)
comes with the new birth?”
I constantly come up against the
problem of “feeling” in dealing
with people who want to know
they are saved. It seems that it is
one of the Devil’s greatest weapons in keeping people from coming to a place of confidence and
assurance in their Christian experience. The Devil causes people
to seek a feeling, and this throws
them off the track.
Salvation is not by feeling; it is
by faith. It is not by seeking an
experience but by accepting a
Person.
As long as the Devil can keep
the inquiring mind and the seeking heart struggling to arrive at a
certain emotional experience
rather than trusting and receiving the Person of Christ as the
Saviour, he can keep that soul in
darkness.
Let me say quickly that I do believe in what we sometimes refer
to as “heartfelt religion” or “experiential salvation.” We believe in
emotions, and we know that every
human being is an emotional being.
God has given us the capacity to
weep, to laugh and to rejoice. But
everyone is somewhat different
A lawyer who was converted at
one of Moody’s meetings said, “I
went to hear Moody, expecting that
it would be easy to pick flaws in him.
But he stood on the platform and
hid behind the Bible and pounded
me with text after text until they
got under my skin.”
Moody did one thing: he preached
the Word and not himself.
emotionally. Some rave at a ball
game, while others sit quietly. No
two people are exactly alike emotionally.
But the feeling or the joy which
one may have in differing degrees
after salvation comes from knowing that he has the Person of
Christ in his heart and that he has
been born again by His Spirit and
by His Word. It is the result of
being saved.
The word “feeling” is never used
in the New Testament to describe
a religious experience, and it always has (as far as human beings
are concerned) a bad sense rather
than a good one.
For instance, in Ephesians 4:19
Paul speaks of people who are
“past feeling.” We need to believe
what God has said in His Word
and take God’s Word at face value.
It would be well for us to read
the experience that blind Isaac
had with his twin sons, Jacob and
Esau. Isaac went by feeling rather
than by the Word and was deceived. When Jacob came to blind
Isaac trying to make him think
that he was Esau, he came with
the skins of goats upon his arms
to make himself a hairy man like
his brother.
Genesis 27:22 shows us that
Isaac ‘felt of Jacob’ and said, “The
voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands
are the hands of Esau.” He disregarded the voice and went by the
feeling. He was deceived and
wronged. We must not go by feeling alone; rather, we must go by
the voice of God in His Word.
In one wonderful verse (John
5:24) Jesus makes it plain and
clear that he who hears the Word
and believes God hath (a present
possession) everlasting life, and
shall not come into judgment.
This is the deed or title to my
salvation. I have the word of the
Son of God that I now am saved
eternally and will not come into
judgment. I am going by the
voice—not by the feeling.
✟
10
SWORD OF THE LORD
When the World…
Worldliness Does Have
an Impact
Let us consider the effect of
worldliness. Of course, we who are
saved do not expect the unsaved
to do anything else but love this
present evil world. They have nothing else to occupy their hearts.
Only those with eternal life will be
weaned from this world and joined
in heart to the other world.
Paul wrote about the Christians
and the Saviour who “gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world,
according to the will of God and
our Father” (Gal. 1:4).
The unsaved are part of this
world. They live for and are only
interested in this world. We shall
therefore expect that the results
we note are found in the lives of
those who do not permit the Lord
Jesus to be the Lord of their lives
and do not allow the Holy Spirit
to direct their living.
“Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world”
(II Tim. 4:10). This we note is one
of the first effects of worldliness
on those who profess to know
Christ Jesus.
DR. WALTER WILSON (1881–1969)
Tentmaker, Medical Doctor,
Pastor, Author
They wish to leave the company of God’s people for other attractions. They no longer care for
the conversations of the Christians and the meditation on the
Word of God which characterize
the gatherings of Christians. They
feel uncomfortable around those
who want to live for God and who
enjoy Christian practices.
Because they fear the reproof
of Christians for their worldly ways,
they stay away from us.
Those who fall in love with the
ways of the world fall out with
the ways of Christ, for these are
opposite ways.
Those who seek the blessings
which the world can give are no
longer interested in that which
God can give.
Those who find their pleasure
in the ways of the ungodly no
longer enjoy the fellowship of God
and His people.
Worldliness and godliness are
incompatible. They cannot operate together.
Christ prayed that the Father
would keep the Christians from
evil because they have been given
to God out of the world (John 17:6).
Although the saved person continues in the world as a human
being, he is “not of the world” (vs.
16) but is of God. He becomes a
citizen of Heaven and is therefore
occupied with Heaven’s interests.
For one who belongs to Heaven to live in the love of the world
is a paradox. How can one who
loves the Lord feel happy in the
company of those who hate Him?
How can one who believes that
the unsaved are lost and on their
way to the lake of fire ever rejoice
in the carelessness, the sports, the
February 26, 2016
The Progress of
Spiritual Growth
ungodliness of those doomed
men?
The love of the world is not the
love of the Father. We must ever
by Dr. Dan Reed
remember that it was the world
which crucified Jesus Christ. The
“We…are changed into the same
religious world hated Him and image from glory to glory.”—II Cor.
rejected Him. And it was the best 3:18.
religion on earth that did it. The
political world wanted Him killed.
The social world had no place
for Him in their programs. The
world of sports never found Him
sitting in the arena to watch the
lions in their fierce attacks. He was
not there at the races of the chariots but was on the mountaintop
praying or at the funeral procession giving life to the dead.
The Scripture says, “The world
hath hated them, because they are
not of the world, even as I am not
of the world” (John 17:14).
The World’s Way and God’s
Way Are Incompatible
Godliness and ungodliness do
not mix. Christianity and worldliness are incompatible. Holiness
and wickedness are enemies. The
world hates the Christian. The
world welcomes charitable institutions if Christ is omitted. Individuals love kind ministries if Christ
is not mentioned. When Christ
This verse describes the growth
from one stage of glory to another stage of glory. I remember the
early days of my salvation with a
lot of nostalgia and great fondness—a lot of good, godly men
provoked me to love and good
works; and in those first stages of
glory, I was helped along.
But if I could go back, I would
not. The glory of the latter has been
so much greater than the glory of
the former. I am not what I ought
to be, I am not what I am going
to be, but I am not what I used to
be!
The glory of my Christian experience has gone way beyond
those early days. I’m enjoying my
Christian life now more than thirty years ago. My Bible is richer
and fuller, and my Jesus grows
sweeter and closer every day. The
song says truly,
Sweeter gets the journey every day;
Serving Jesus really pays.
I get so happy in this heavenly way,
’Cause sweeter gets the journey
every day.
If you get your eyes on people,
you’ll get bitter. If you get your
eyes on trouble and heartache,
you will become depressed. If you
get your eyes on yourself and your
failures, you will give up. But if
you keep your eyes on Jesus, the
journey gets sweeter, and others
will see the glow and the changes
in you as you become more like
the Saviour!
If you keep looking to Christ,
you grow. The Lord does not automatically change us to be just
like Him; we could not stand it.
He said, “I have yet many things to
say unto you, but ye cannot bear
them now” (John 16:12).
God has to wean us away from
the world unto Himself. Listen, it
is not the blessings we are looking for so much as the relationship. It is a sweet relationship with
your spouse that makes marriage
wonderful, and it is a sweet relationship with your Lord that makes
growth wonderful!
Once it was the blessing;
Now it is the Lord.
Once it was the feeling;
Now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted;
Now the Giver own.
Once I sought for healing;
Now Himself alone.
—A. B. Simpson
This change He is making is
gradual. As I look for Him in the
valley and I look for Him on the
mountain and I search for Him
when I am low and overwhelmed,
He changes me from glory to
glory! He speaks to me from His
Word in all these circumstances,
and His voice changes me!
✟
February 26, 2016
SWORD OF THE LORD
George Müller of Bristol
A. T.
T. Pierson
A. T. Pierson provides a detailed
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o
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and also shows how Müller ’s story can
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Autobiography,
carefully
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t
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dŚĞ ŝďůĞ͛Ɛ ƉƌĞƐĞŶƚĂƟŽŶ ŽĨ 'ŽĚ͛Ɛ
^ŽŶ ĂŶĚ ŽƵƌ ^ĂǀŝŽƵƌ ŝƐ ĐŽǀĞƌĞĚ ĨƌŽŵ
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rieber
AirZooka
ĞŝŶŐ Ă ŐŽŽĚ ŚƌŝƐƟĂŶ͕ ĂƐ ƐŝŵƉůĞ ĂƐ ŝƚ
ŵĂǇ ƐĞĞŵ͕ ĐĂŶ ďĞ ĚŝĸĐƵůƚͶĞƐƉĞĐŝĂůůǇ
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rieber
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t
ƋƵĂůŝƟĞƐ ŽĨ Ă ŐŽŽĚ ŚƌŝƐƟĂŶ͘ ůŽǀĞ ĨŽƌ
God’s house, a love for submission, a love for holiness—
these are just a few marks that will challenge every child of
God to take inventory of his own life and daily personify the
ĐŚĂƌĂĐƚĞƌŝƐƟĐƐŽĨĂƚƌƵĞ͕ŐŽŽĚŚƌŝƐƟĂŶ͘
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EĂŵĞƐĂŶĚƟƚůĞƐŐŝǀĞŶƚŽ:ĞƐƵƐŚƌŝƐƚ͖dŝƚůĞƐĂŶĚĚĞƐĐƌŝƉƟŽŶ
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Jim To
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tŝƚŚŝŶ ƚŚĞ ƐƚƌƵĐƚƵƌĞ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ŚƌŝƐƟĂŶ
home leadership is formed, character
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SWORD OF THE LORD
February 26, 2016
February 26, 2016
SWORD OF THE LORD
13
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,ĞƌĞ ŝƐ ƚŚĞ ŝĚĞĂů ŝďůĞ ĨŽƌ ďŽƚŚ ĚĞǀŽƟŽŶĂů ĂŶĚ ƐĞƌŝŽƵƐ
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ĞŶĐŽƵƌĂŐĞƐƌĞĂĚĞƌƐƚŽĚĞůǀĞĚĞĞƉĞƌŝŶƚŽƚŚĞƚĞǆƚ͘
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Bible Facts About Hea
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Dr. John R. Rice
The Bible Promise Book
dŚĞƐĞĞŝŐŚƚďƌŝĞĨĐŚĂƉƚĞƌƐŽīĞƌŚĞůƉĨŽƌ
ƚŚĞ ŚƵƌƟŶŐ ŚĞĂƌƚ͘ dŚŝƐ ďŽŽŬ ŚĂƐ ƚƌƵůǇ
been a source of comfort and blessingg
to pe
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eople all over the world.
orld As we gain
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ĐŽŵĨŽƌƚĞĚ ĂŌĞƌ ƚŚĞ ůŽƐƐ ŽĨ ůŽǀĞĚ ŽŶĞƐ͘
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there iss a God who desires to provide
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He desir
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ĂŶĚƐŽƵůƚŽƚŚĞƌŽĐŬŽĨ,ŝƐtŽƌĚ͘Z͘͘KƵĞůůĞƩĞŝŶƐƚƌƵĐƚƐƚŚĞ
reader in discovering and de
d veloping a steadfast faith that
ƚƌŝƵŵƉŚƐĞǀĞŶŝŶƚŚĞŵŽƐƚƚƌŽƵďůŝŶŐƟŵĞƐ͘
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Healing
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ǁŝŐŚƚdŽŵůŝŶƐŽŶ
ƌĂǁŝŶŐ ĨƌŽŵ ƚŚĞ ŝďůĞ ĂŶĚ ŚŝƐ ŽǁŶ
ĞǆƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞƐ͕ ǁŝŐŚƚ dŽŵůŝŶƐŽŶ ŐŝǀĞƐ
ƐĞĂƐŽŶĞĚ͕ ^ĐƌŝƉƚƵƌĂů ĂĚǀŝĐĞ ŽŶ ŚŽǁ ƚŽ
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ĚŝǀŝƐŝǀĞ ĐŽŶŇŝĐƚƐ͘ &Žƌ ĂŶǇŽŶĞ ŝŶǀŽůǀĞĚ
in restoring a church, this iss a valuable resource that could
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dŚŝƐ ŝďůĞ ,ŝͲ'ůŝĚĞƌ ŚĂƐ Ă ƉƌĞĐŝƐĞ ƟƉ ƐŝǌĞ ĨŽƌ ŵŽƌĞ ĂĐĐƵƌĂƚĞ
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14
SWORD OF THE LORD
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
The Majesty of the Psalmss
John Foxe
ŝƐĐŽǀĞƌ ǁŝƚŚŝŶ ƚŚĞƐĞ ƉĂŐĞƐ ƚŚĞ ŚĞƌŽŝĐ
ƐƚŽƌŝĞƐ ŽĨ ŚƌŝƐƟĂŶƐ ǁŚŽ ƐĂǁ ƚŚĞŝƌ
ĨĂŵŝůŝĞƐ ďĞĂƚĞŶ͕ ĞŶĚƵƌĞĚ ƐƚĂƌǀĂƟŽŶ͕
underwent unbelievable torture, and
ƐƵīĞƌĞĚ ŝŶĐƌĞĚŝďůǇ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ŶĂŵĞ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ
KŶĞ ǁŚŽ ŐĂǀĞ ƚŚĞ ƵůƟŵĂƚĞ ƐĂĐƌŝĮĐĞ͘
ŚĂůůĞŶŐĞ ǇŽƵƌƐĞůĨ ǁŝƚŚ ĐŽŶǀŝĐƟŶŐ
ĞǆĂŵƉůĞƐ ƐƵĐŚ ĂƐ :ŽŚŶ ,ƵƐƐ͕ DĂƌƟŶ
>ƵƚŚĞƌ͕ tŝůůŝĂŵ dǇŶĚĂůĞ ĂŶĚ ƐŽ ŵĂŶǇ
ŽƚŚĞƌƐ ǁŚŽ͛ǀĞ ŐŝǀĞŶ ƵƐ ŽƵƌ ƌŝĐŚ ŚƌŝƐƟĂŶ ŚĞƌŝƚĂŐĞ͊ ;EŽƚĞ͗
This book has been abrridged from Foxe’s complete work of
7 volumes.)
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4ͮϰϬϵƉŐƐͮWĂƉĞƌďĂĐŬͮt,ϴϬϵϱ
February 26, 2016
David Sorenson
In The Majesty of the Psalms, ĂǀŝĚ
^ŽƌĞŶƐŽŶ ƉƌĞƐĞŶƚƐ Ă ĨƵůů ĐŽŵŵĞŶƚĂƌǇ
ŽĨƚŚĞŽŽŬŽĨWƐĂůŵƐƚŚĂƚŝƐĚĞǀŽƟŽŶĂů
ĂƐ ǁĞůů ĂƐ ĞǆƉŽƐŝƟŽŶĂů͘ dŚĞ ƐĞƫŶŐ ĂŶĚ
background of most of the individual
Psalms are set forth, giving insight into
the context from which the sacred
writer
e wrote. Many of the individual
Psalm
ms also contain a brief outline of
ƚŚĞĐŚĂƉƚĞƌ͘dŚŝƐŝƐĂŶĂĚĂƉƚĂƟŽŶŽĨ^ŽƌĞŶƐŽŶ͛ƐĐŽŵŵĞŶƚĂƌǇ
ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ĞŶƟƌĞ ŝďůĞ͘ /Ŷ ƚŚŝƐ ǀŽůƵŵĞ ĨƵƌƚŚĞƌ ĚĞƚĂŝůƐ ĂŶĚ
ĐŽŵŵĞŶƚƐ ĂƌĞ ĂĚĚĞĚ͘ tƌŝƩĞŶ ŽŶ Ă ůĞǀĞů ƚŚĂƚ ŝƐ ĞĂƐǇ ƚŽ
digest, this work will be a blessing and a useful tool for both
pastors and laymen.
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͞DĂŶŶĞƌƐ͟ ŝƐ ĚĞĮŶĞĚ ĂƐ ŽƵƌ ǁĂǇ ŽĨ
ĂĐƟŶŐ͕ ŽƵƌ ƐŽĐŝĂů ĐŽŶĚƵĐƚ͘ ƟƋƵĞƩĞ
is the use of good manners. Having
good manners and observing the rules
ŽĨ ĞƟƋƵĞƩĞ ŶĞĞĚ ŶŽƚ ďĞ Ă ďƵƌĚĞŶ͘ /ƚ
is simp
ply caring about one another ’s
feelingss and comfort. It stems from
ĐŽŵŵŽŶƐĞŶƐĞĂŶĚƚŚŽƵŐŚƞƵůŶĞƐƐ͘dŚĞƌĞĂƐŽŶĨŽƌƚŚŝƐďŽŽŬ
is that it might become a quick
q
reference for those many
ŽĐĐĂƐŝŽŶƐŝŶǁŚŝĐŚǇŽƵŵŝŐŚƚŚĂǀĞĂƋƵĞƐƟŽŶĂƐƚŽƚŚĞƌŝŐŚƚ
thing to do or say or wearr.
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ƌ͘ DŝŬĞ ůůŝƐŽŶ ƚŚŽƵŐŚƞƵůůǇ ĞǆĂŵŝŶĞƐ
ďŝďůŝĐĂůĂĚŵŽŶŝƟŽŶƐ͕ůĞŐĂůŝƐŵ͕ŚƌŝƐƟĂŶ
ůŝďĞƌƚǇ͕ƉĞƌƐŽŶĂů ĐŽŶǀŝĐƟŽŶ ďǇƚŚĞ ,ŽůǇ
^Ɖŝƌŝƚ͕ ƚŚƌĞĞ ƚǇƉĞƐ ŽĨ KůĚ dĞƐƚĂŵĞŶƚ
laws, modesty and the blessings found
ŝŶŽďĞĚŝĞŶĐĞ͘EŽƉƌŝǀĂƚĞŝŶƚĞƌƉƌĞƚĂƟŽŶ
ŽĨ ^ĐƌŝƉƚƵƌĞ ŝƐ ŐŝǀĞŶ͕ ďƵƚ ŝŶƐƚĞĂĚ͕ ĐŽŵƉĂƐƐŝŽŶĂƚĞ ƚĞĂĐŚŝŶŐ
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tŽƌĚ ŚĂƐ ŶĞǀĞƌ ďĞĞŶ ŵŽƌĞ ĂīŽƌĚĂďůĞ͊
dŚŝƐ ĂƩƌĂĐƟǀĞ͕ ƉĂƉĞƌďĂĐŬ ĞĚŝƟŽŶ ŽĨ
the Holy
H
Bible includes the Old and
New Teestaments—the complete text
ŽĨ ^ĐƌŝƉƚƵƌĞͶƉůƵƐ Ă ƐƉĞĐŝĂů ƉĂŐĞ
that clearly explains God’s plan of
ƐĂůǀĂƟŽŶ ƚŚƌŽƵŐŚ ĨĂŝƚŚ ŝŶ ŚƌŝƐƚ͘ dŚŝƐ
ĞĚŝƟŽŶ ŝƐ ŝĚĞĂů ĨŽƌ ƋƵĂŶƟƚǇ ƉƵƌĐŚĂƐĞƐ
for chur
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ŽƵƚ ŽŶ ďƵƐ ǀŝƐŝƚĂƟŽŶ͘ zŽƵ ĐĂŶ ůĞĂǀĞ
this in the hands of your riders or
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ƟŵĞ͘ /ŶĐůƵĚĞĚ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ƚĞǆƚ ŝƐ ƚŚĞ ƉůĂŶ
ŽĨ ƐĂůǀĂƟŽŶ ǁŝƚŚ ƐŝŵƉůĞ ƉƌĂǇĞƌ ŽŶ ƚŚĞ
ďĂĐŬ͘DĞĂƐƵƌĞƐϮв͟ǆϰЬ͘͟
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ƵŶĚĞƌĞƐƟŵĂƚĞĚ͊ /ƚ ĐĂŶ ŝŶŇƵĞŶĐĞ ƚŚĞ
mood of a crowd with a simple chord!
dŚŝƐŶŽƚĞĚ͕ƚŚĞƌŽůĞŽĨƚŚĞŚƵƌĐŚDƵƐŝĐ
ŝƌĞĐƚŽƌŝƐǀŝƚĂů͘dŚĞĂƚŵŽƐƉŚĞƌĞŽĨƚŚĞ
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ĚŝƌĞĐƟŽŶ ĨŽƌ ƚŚŝƐ ŬĞǇ ŵŝŶŝƐƚƌǇ͘ /ƚ ǁŝůů ďĞ ƵƐĞĨƵů ƚŽ ƚŚĞ ǇŽƵŶŐ
directorr, the veteran asssistant, and the church accompanist.
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ŶŐůŝƐŚWϬϭϵϴͮ^ƉĂŶŝƐŚϭϵϬϵZĞŝŶĂsĂůĞƌĂWϬϵϳϯ
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8ͮϭϬϵƉŐƐͮWĂƉĞƌďĂĐŬͮWϴϬϯϯ
^ƚĞƉŚĞŶ>ĂǁǁĞůů
In ǀŽůƵƟŽŶ͗ dŚĞ ĂŶŐĞƌŽƵƐ ĞĐĞƉƟŽŶ,
^ƚĞƉŚĞŶ>ĂǁǁĞůůƌĞǀĞĂůƐŚŽǁĂŶĂƚŚĞŝƐƟĐ
ŵŝŶĚƐĞƚ͕ ŐƌŽƵŶĚĞĚ ŝŶ ŐĞŶĞƌĂƟŽŶƐ ŽĨ
ĞǀŽůƵƟŽŶĂƌǇ ƚŚŽƵŐŚƚ͕ ŚĂƐ ďĞĞŶ ƵƐĞĚ ƚŽ
ũƵƐƟĨǇ ĂďŽƌƟŽŶ͕ ĞƵƚŚĂŶĂƐŝĂ͕ ƌĂĐŝƐŵ͕ ĂŶĚ
genocide and how its impact can be felt
in the cclassrooms and church pews today.
Th
he Joy of the
Sec
e ond Coming
,ƵŐŚWǇůĞ
ŽƵůĚŚƌŝƐƚ ͛ƐƌĞƚƵƌŶďĞǀĞƌǇŶĞĂƌ͍tŚĂƚ
is Armageddon, and when will it tak
a e
ƉůĂĐĞ͍ tŝůů ŚƌŝƐƟĂŶƐ ďĞ ĐĂƵŐŚƚ ĂǁĂǇ
ĨƌŽŵƚŚŝƐĞĂƌƚŚŝŶĂƐĞĐƌĞƚƌĂƉƚƵƌĞ͍ƌĞ
ƚŚĞĞǀĞŶƚƐĚĞƐĐƌŝďĞĚŝŶZĞǀĞůĂƟŽŶƚŽďĞ
ƚĂŬĞŶ ůŝƚĞƌĂůůǇ͍ ,Žǁ ĚŽ ǇŽƵ ƌĞĐŽŶĐŝůĞ
seemingly contradictory verses abo
out
ƚŚĞ ƌĞƚƵƌŶ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ >ŽƌĚ͍ tŚĂƚ ŝƐ ƚŚĞ ƐĞĐƌĞƚ ŽĨ ďĞŝŶŐ ũŽǇĨƵů
ĂŶĚŽƉƟŵŝƐƟĐŝŶƟŵĞƐůŝŬĞƚŚĞƐĞ͍dŚĞĂŶƐǁĞƌƐǁŝůůďĞĨŽƵŶĚ
in this book. Read it and share its message with others.
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b k | PB8807
Kids
Birthday
Chart
OSEOUT
CLO
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This colorful chart is a grea
e t
ĂĚĚŝƟŽŶ ƚŽ ĂŶǇ ^ƵŶĚĂǇ ƐĐŚŽŽů
ĐůĂƐƐƌŽŽŵ͕ ŶƵƌƐĞƌǇ Žƌ ŚƌŝƐƟĂŶ
school classroom. It featurres
cute graphics,
aphics plenty of spaace
for children’s names and Psalm
129:8. ΀>ŝŵŝƚĞĚYƵĂŶƟƚǇ΁
&ŽƵƌ ĚŝīĞƌĞŶƚ ƚŽŽůƐ ŝŶ ŽŶĞ ĂŵĂǌŝŶŐ
ĨŽƌŵ͊ zŽƵ ĐĂŶ ƌĞĐŽƌĚ ŵƵůƟƉůĞ ƌŝĚĞƌƐ
from o
one address, give the parents a
WƵƌƉŽƐĞ ŽĨ DŝŶŝƐƚƌǇ ŽƵƚůŝŶĞ ;ƐĂůǀĂƟŽŶ
plan), and get signed permission for
them to ride your bus or van. There is
ĂůƐŽ Ă ƐƉĞĐŝĂů ƐĞĐƟŽŶ ǁŚĞƌĞ ƉĂƌĞŶƚƐ
can easily sign to give permission for
ƚŚĞŝƌ ĐŚŝůĚƌĞŶ ƚŽ ŐĞƚ ďĂƉƟǌĞĚ͘ ĂĐŚ
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EĂƚŚĂŶDĐŽŶŶĞůů
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book tthat addresses the issues of
ŐĞŶĚĞƌ ƚŚĂƚ ĂƌĞ ĨƌĞƋƵĞŶƚůǇ ĂƩĂĐŬĞĚ ŝŶ
ŽƵƌĐƵůƚƵƌĞƚŽĚĂǇ͘/ĚĞŶƟƚǇŝƐƋƵĞƐƟŽŶĞĚ
by the transgender and homosexual
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dŚĞ ǀŝƐŝďůĞ ĚŝƐƉůĂǇ ŽĨ ĚŝƐƟŶĐƟŽŶ ďĞƚǁĞĞŶ ŵĞŶ ĂŶĚ ǁŽŵĞŶ
has been debated for decad
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ƚŽ ƚŚĞƐĞ ƋƵĞƐƟŽŶƐ ǁŚĞŶ ƚŚĞ ŚƵƌĐŚ ĐůĞĂƌůǇ ĚĞŵŽŶƐƚƌĂƚĞƐ
God’s principles. This book seeks to make those principles
plain.
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'ĞŽƌŐĞůƋƵŝƐƚ
dŚĞ ŚƌŝƐƟĂŶ ŐĞŶƚůĞŵĂŶ ŝƐ ŬĞĞŶůǇ
ĂǁĂƌĞŽĨƚŚĞŝŶŇƵĞŶĐĞŽĨŚŝƐůŝĨĞĂŶĚƚŚĞ
exam
mple of his person in the furtherance
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February 26, 2016
SWORD OF THE LORD
15
and the just wrath of the Father of They are incompatible. We will
our Lord Jesus Christ who loves most certainly love the one and
His Son dearly. If you love the Lord, despise the other, as the Saviour
whoever you may be, you will cer- said.
comes in, peace goes out.
tainly not be happy in the comIt is also a fact that worldly peoThe Saviour Himself said, “Sup- pany and the fellowship of those ple who get in trouble seek the
pose ye that I am come to give who hate the Lord.
help of separated people who live
peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but
godly, holy lives. The world can
Worldliness Impacts Your
rather division” (Luke 12:51).
tell very quickly whether or not a
person is spiritual. Folks in soul
He also said in Matthew 10:34, Inner Man
Worldliness has a very unhap- trouble seek the counsel and the
“I came not to send peace, but a
py effect upon the heart and the help of those who know God the
sword.”
The world will permit all kinds of mind. Those who are occupied and best and live for Him the most.
“Love not the world” was not
human righteousness and human in love with this world find it difreligions but rejects with vigor and ficult to dismiss the world when said carelessly or thoughtlessly. Our
hatred the entrance of the Lord in prayer.
Lord knew that the love of the
Jesus Christ into their plans.
Somehow or other, as one ap- world would submerge the love
The statement is often made that proaches the presence of God in of the Father and wreck the spirtoday one cannot be honest and prayer, these worldly things in- itual life of the Christian.
stay in business. The world’s ways trude.
Let us set our affections on things
of doing business are often very
One godly man told me that he above where Christ sitteth. That is
cruel and heedless of the rights always had a fierce battle on his God’s way of peace and success.
of others.
knees to keep out of his heart and
If we examine the lives of the
The small business is crushed out mind the problems of his busi- men who have influenced the
by the larger. Clerks and work- ness. He told me that some of his world for God as Knox or Calvin
men are oftentimes ground down best inventions were worked out or Spurgeon or Moody or Billy
in a most unjust manner. Relatives while trying to pray.
Sunday or Ironside did, we shall
cheat one another out of their
The crises in the game—whether find that none of these men
lawful and moral rights. “The end it be football, baseball or any other played with the world or worldly
justifies the means” is the rule pleasure—attract the attention of amusements. They gave their
that governs many human inter- the soul and bring a denseness in lives and their hearts to God.
actions today.
the spirit when trying to pray. OpSoldiers of Christ are not to be
Christianity saves from this un- portunities for travel or for suc- entangled with the affairs of this
just program. The Christian is not cessful financial experiments press life (II Tim. 2:4).
supposed to be occupied with the upon the heart during the prayer
If a fly enters the spider web, it
ways of the world in the realm of time.
becomes entangled. If a sparrow
business or religion.
Now if one loves those things, enters the spider web, it is not
“If any man love the world, the he will not make much effort to hindered or caught.
love of the Father is not in him” get to God nor be filled with God’s
The Lord expects His people to
(I John 2:15). You will notice that thoughts but will be delighted with
live in this world and to use the
it does not say “the love of God.” the things of the world that presassets of this world for His glory
The Lord is speaking in this pas- ent themselves and will be satisand not be caught or tied down
sage of a particular kind of love— fied with a transient visit with the
or infatuated with it.
the love which the Father has for Lord.
After we are saved, our business
the Lord Jesus Christ. How can the
is
to promote the welfare of our
Worldliness
Hinders
Our
believer love as the Father loved
absent Lord. We are His ambasand still love the enemies of the Testimony
sadors in a battle of right against
Son?
Worldliness also hinders a spir- wrong, of good against bad, of
If one of our own country itual life and testimony. Somehow
should be found consorting with the spirit cannot be enthusiastic light against darkness, of godlithe enemy, he would be treated as about God’s things while being ness against sinfulness.
a traitor—and rightly so. Yet God’s thrilled with the world’s things.
people feel that they may consort with the enemies of Jesus
Christ and still remain good Chris- Beautiful, Conservative, King James Bulletins
tians and not offend the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Those who mistreat the Son,
hate Him, reject Him, refuse Him,
and repudiate Him have no favor
with God the Father. God treats
them as His enemies and will send
them to the lake of fire as they
well deserve. He does not expect
that any child of God will love and
make companions of and follow
the ways of those who hate Jesus
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If they do so, they incur the anger
When the World…
Texas High Court Says Public School Right
to Put Bible Verses on Banners Must
Be Protected
Public school cheerleaders’ right to include Bible verses on the
run-through banners at football games must be protected, according
to a unanimous ruling by the Texas Supreme Court.
In a decision [February 5], the Lone Star State’s highest court ruled
in favor of the cheerleaders of Kountze Independent School District,
sending the litigation to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth District in
Beaumont.…
Regarding [this] decision, Liberty Institute president and CEO Kelly
Shackelford said in a statement that it was “an 8-0 victory for the free
speech and religious liberty rights of all Texas students.”…
“In light of today’s supreme court ruling, we hope the court of appeals will resolve this case permanently in the cheerleaders’ favor.”
—Michael Gryboski for ChristianPost.com
Christians in Kansas Fight Back When
Atheists Remove “God Bless America” Sign
Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) targeted a small midwestern post office in Pittsburg, Kansas; but it couldn’t imagine that
the removal of one “God Bless America” poster would incite the
posting of some 1,500 similar signs.
Local newspaper, the Morning Sun, first reported the incident…
and just days later Jake’s Fireworks, a retail store located in the area,
responded by printing 1,200 “God Bless America” yard signs and 300
similar banners, 1,500 in total. Within 45 minutes, residents snatched
up all 1,500 signs.…
The original “God Bless America” poster was removed from the
post office when FFRF, on behalf of a Pittsburg resident, forced it to
be taken down by legal means, claiming the banner “violated the
separation between church and state.”
The original banner was put up at the post office after September
11 by postal employees, many of whom were reportedly veterans.
—Jeannie Law for ChristianPost.com
Student Failed Class for Not Reciting
Islamic Prayer and Creed
A Maryland high school punished a student for refusing to profess
faith in Islam, gave her failing grades for a series of assignments that
violated her Christian beliefs, then threatened her father with arrest
for complaining, a federal lawsuit charges.
Plaintiffs are Marine Corps veteran John Kevin Wood and his wife,
Melissa, who “refuse to allow their teenage daughter to be subjected
to Islamic indoctrination and propaganda in her high school world
history class.”
The lawsuit charges that the defendants’ “curriculum, practices,
policies, actions, procedures, and customs promote the Islamic faith
by requiring students to profess the five pillars of Islam.”
The students, the complaint says, were required to “write out and
confess the shahada, the Islamic profession of faith.”
The lawsuit charges that school officials concealed the curriculum
by using two separate history textbooks, one of which contained the
Islamic teachings and which students were required to leave at
school. The other, which did not contain the teachings, was allowed
to be taken home, the complaint explains. The school also excised
the Islamic teachings from the course syllabus.
The legal team notes the shahada states, “There is no god but Allah,
and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
“For non-Muslims, reciting the statement is sufficient to convert
one to Islam,” the complaint says. “Moreover, the second part of the
statement, ‘Muhammad is the messenger of Allah,’ signifies the person has accepted Muhammad as [his or her] spiritual leader. The
teenager was also required to memorize and recite the five pillars of
Islam.”
Not only did the district refuse permission for C. W. to opt out of
the religious assignments, it imposed grades of zero. Further, the
complaint says, the district disparaged Christianity in multiple ways,
including the statement, “Most Muslims’ faith is stronger than the average Christian.” The district taught that the West engages in “imperialistic pursuits” and insists “men are the managers of women.”
2
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EDITOR’S COMMENTS: The double standard is showing up in
more and more places. Islam is given a full hearing, and Christianity is muzzled and thrown under the bus. Thankfully, this family is
standing up and making a fight!
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16
SWORD OF THE LORD
When the World…
How can we keep ourselves
unspotted from the world if we
let the world absorb our time
and our affection? If the Christian
attends places of worldly amusement, how can he warn about
God’s wrath and the punishment
waiting for the sinner? He cannot
do it.
The sinner simply says, “You
need these pleasures to satisfy you
just as they do me. If what you
profess to have does not satisfy
you, why do you think it would
be a blessing to me? If you live as
I do, what difference would there
be if I live as you do, for we do
the same things?”
The testimony of that one who
loves the world is nullified. It has
no value. The man in the quicksand can hardly pull out another
who is in the quicksand. That one
who is himself spotted with dirt is
certainly in no position to criticize
or offer help to another who is in
the dirt.
The Lord asks His people to be
samples of the believers, models of
those in whom God has wrought
a good work. Worldliness in a
Christian is certainly no inducement for anyone else to become
a Christian.
Worldliness Hinders Your
Own Spiritual Growth
Worldliness hinders growth in
grace. The time that should be
spent in Bible study and in spiriThy testimonies have I taken as
an heritage for ever: for they are
the rejoicing of my heart. I have
inclined mine heart to perform
thy statutes alway, even
unto the end.
—Psalm 119:111, 112
tual upbuilding is spent in things
that have no value for time or eternity.
The mental effort that should
be put into learning the ways of
God is rather spent in watching
the achievements of men.
The energy that should be put
into becoming a useful, profitable
servant of God is expended on
human affairs that attract and hold
the soul in bondage.
Most of us have a one-track
mind. Our train of thought directs
our feelings. If our ambitions are
for the best of earth, then the
things of God take second place
or no place. If our desires are for
the gratification of the heart and
mind in earthly things, then there
will be little desire or appetite for
heavenly things.
Great men of God have onetrack minds, operating only for the
glory of God, the blessing of the
people of God, and the spread of
the Gospel of God. This same principle pertains to worldly things.
It is said that when Edison was
wrestling with the problem of the
incandescent lamp, he shut himself out from all other contacts so
that his mind might be wholly
devoted to that one problem.
Great musicians have shut themselves out from the world so their
minds might be able to work out
the intricate problems of the music
without distraction.
Great surgeons permit almost
no conversation or noise in the
operating room, so that the mind
might be centered upon the vital
problems involved without distraction.
So the man of God must not
permit himself to fall in love with
the things of this world; rather, he
should hold all such matters in
subjection so his heart and mind
may be devoted to the business
of the King.
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When Enough Is…!
all the prophets with the sword.
These 850 pseudoprophets were
tethered on Jezebel’s payroll; they
were at her beck and call to do
whatever she mandated, and Elijah took them out.
“Then Jezebel sent a messenger
unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do
to me, and more also, if I make not
thy life as the life of one of them by to
morrow about this time.”—Vs. 2.
She told Elijah, “You’ve got
twenty-four hours or less to live,
and I’m seeing to it!” She was ordering Elijah’s assassination.
“And when he saw that, he arose,
and went for his life, and came to
Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah,
and left his servant there.
“But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came
and sat down under a juniper tree:
and he requested for himself that he
might die; and said, It is enough; now,
O LORD, take away my life; for I am
not better than my fathers.
“And as he lay and slept under a
juniper tree, behold, then an angel
touched him, and said unto him,
Arise and eat.
“And he looked, and, behold, there
was a cake baken on the coals, and a
cruse of water at his head. And he did
eat and drink, and laid him down
again.
“And the angel of the LORD came
again the second time, and touched
him, and said, Arise and eat; because
the journey is too great for thee.
“And he arose, and did eat and
drink, and went in the strength of
that meat forty days and forty nights
unto Horeb the mount of God.”—
Vss. 3–8.
The previous chapter is well
known because it tells about Elijah
on Mount Carmel where he
called down the fire from Heaven
that consumed the sacrifice, the
altar and the water on the altar.
Mount Carmel is to the north
about forty or fifty miles and just
a tad to the west of Jerusalem. That
whole range goes all the way up
to Haifa, and on that range is
February 26, 2016
Mount Carmel. Elijah went down
to Beersheba, and that is way south
in the desert toward the Sinai—
not at the Sinai but near it. So Elijah traveled dozens of miles.
Elijah was a godly man. Chapter
17 tells us that he was a man who
called on God and that he heard
from God. Verse 1 of chapter 18
tells us that he spoke for God. He
was a man who carried out an assignment and responsibility given
to him by the Lord. He was mightily and wonderfully blessed of
God, even in the midst of a famine
caused by drought.
While other people were starving, Elijah, the man of God, was
fed by ravens. Birds came out of
the air and brought food to him!
Sometimes I eat in places that
are but little cracks in the walls,
and I’m not always impressed by
what I see. In fact, I usually look
for a health certificate. But if we
were starving, we would not be
too concerned about that. When
the birds came without the fineries of sterilization and sanitation,
they brought nurture and nourishment from God to feed the
prophet in the midst of all this.
Elijah was blessed of God to be
fed by ravens and by the widow
of Zarephath (17:9). This man of
God sat down at the table of a little lady who knew how to cook
turnip greens, cornbread and other
good food. Amen! She took care
of him while others were having
a difficult time finding food.
He was not only blessed with
provisions, but he also had the
power of God upon his life.
Chapter 17 tells us that he saved
the life of the widow’s son. Chapter 18 tells how he stood up to
royalty.
“…when Ahab saw Elijah, that
Ahab said unto him, Art thou he
that troubleth Israel?” (vs. 17). Just
like a crooked politician—the
crooked, dirty dog that he was—
to make accusations against the
man of God as he looked for a
scapegoat! He needed an excuse
to blame somebody else for his
own wicked deeds.
Elijah spoke up and confronted
the dirty, satanically driven king
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and said, “I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s
house, in that ye have forsaken the
commandments of the LORD, and
thou hast followed Baalim” (vs. 18).
He was not intimidated by royalty, a political scene or the seat
of government. Not only that, with
the power of God upon him, he
called out the people and asked,
“How long halt ye between two
opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow
him. And the people answered him
not a word” (vs. 21). In the presence of truth, there is nothing else
to be said.
Elijah had the power of God
upon him; and shortly thereafter,
he confronted those false prophets and struck them down. When
all of the hubbub, to-do, pressure,
and stress of the day were done,
the score was tallied up. It was 850
to 1, but the one won nonetheless!
“And Elijah said unto all the
people, Come near unto me. And
all the people came near unto him.
And he repaired the altar of the
LORD that was broken down” (vs.
30). This is resetting the stage where
that idolatry had been practiced.
He told the people, “We’re going
to set up the altar of God, and
we’re going to let God be shown
as God and let the fire of God
come down.” The fire of God did
come down when He answered
Elijah’s prayer; and that fire consumed the sacrifice, the altar and
the water that was upon the altar.
Ahab, the wicked king, and his
idolatrous people saw all of that;
but then Ahab went home and told
Mama! Ahab and Jezebel became
angry. Their wicked conniving and
evil genius were then set against
the man of God.
After all that Elijah had done
for Israel, he was now going to be
hunted like an animal, like prey,
because of that wicked, conniving
viper named Jezebel. She said,
“Within twenty-four hours I’ll have
your life. You’ll be as dead as that
bunch that I had on my payroll!”
“What did Elijah do?” you ask.
He ran! “But he is a prophet!”
He ran! “He has the power of God!”
Yes, but he ran—and rightly so.
He used his God-given common
sense not to leave himself open to
the danger Jezebel threatened.
Sometimes you use all the abilities that God gives you. In teaching soul winning, I know at least
half a dozen times someone has
asked me, “When you knock on
somebody’s door and he yells at
you to get off the porch, what do
you do?”
I tell him, “I get off the porch.”
Elijah ran, and it was appropriate at this time for him to run.
However, in the midst of running,
he went all the way down to Beersheba, left his servant, and went
way out into the desert by himself and hid.
In spite of Elijah’s presence, his
preaching and his powerful ministry, the nation that he loved
turned itself away from God. It
Answers to Puzzle
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February 26, 2016
SWORD OF THE LORD
When Enough Is…!
became engaged in idolatry. The
nation was influenced more by
the wicked king and the ungodly
queen than by the man of God. It
was a sad day, a difficult day, for
the nation and for the preacher.
I want to give you three things
that you should not do, no matter how difficult the trials.
Don’t Turn In on Yourself
After being blessed of God, after
having seen miracles done, after
having had such a ministry as he
had had up to now, Elijah turned
in on himself discouraged and
depressed. In the throes of despair,
he went running off to the desert,
hid himself and said, “O God,
enough is enough! I can’t take it
anymore!”
His philosophy at this point was
a man-talking-to-man philosophy.
He was breaking apart inside and
saying, “I’ve tried. I’ve done everything I know to do, but nothing
seems to be working. Our nation
is going down the tubes. These two
devils are in charge! I’m just one,
so what can I do? O God, enough
is enough; just let me die.”
He would rather have God take
him out than to have that evil
woman take him out.
He said, “My forefathers died
this way; and I’m no better than
they were, so just let me die! Death
would be better than living like
this.”
In verses 10 and 14, he said, “I,
even I only, am left; and they seek
my life, to take it away.” He was
saying, “Nobody but me is doing
anything. I’m the only one!”
Have you ever had that little syndrome take over your thoughts?
If you are the pastor of a church
that is not doing very well and
there is not another good, solid
church within forty or fifty miles
of your city or town, it is easy to
say, “Nobody but me is doing
anything! Nobody is living for God
or standing up for Him like I am!
Nobody is doing as I am doing!
I’m the only one left!”
Elijah was having a pity party for
himself. This man had been called
of God, mightily used of God,
provided for and blessed by God;
but all at once his chin is down to
his shoelaces. He is down, discouraged, depressed, and in despair
even though he is such a man of
God.
Let me say right here that even
good Christians have bad days.
Even good, godly men have rough
Tri-City Baptist Church
941-625-7412
24058 Heritage Place
Port Charlotte, FL 33980
Web: Tri-CityBaptistChurch.com / Email: [email protected]
“Serving Charlotte County for Fifty Years”
6000 West Colonial Dr. • Orlando, Florida 32808
407-295-3086 • Web site: www.tbc6000.com
Home of Heritage Schools
Dr. Steve Ware
1714 SE 36th Avenue ❈ Ocala, Florida 34471
Sunday School
9:45 am Sunday Evening 6:00 pm
Sunday Morning 11:00 am Wed. Prayer
7:30 pm
times. There are more than a few
who have had a day when they
looked in the mirror and said, “I’ve
done everything right. I’ve been
walking with God. I’ve been serving faithfully, and now others are
turning on me and doing me
wrong. They are damaging me and
doing awful things to me.”
Maybe you looked at your town
right after you were lambasted by
a newspaper reporter writing some
goofy article about you. He described you as the only weird duck
in town; and you said, “I’m tired
of people looking down on me.
I’m tired of people mocking me
and thinking I’m strange and weird.
I’m tired of people saying that I
don’t fit in.” Elijah was right at that
point.
17
touched him, and said unto him,
Arise and eat.
“And he looked, and, behold, there
was a cake baken on the coals, and a
cruse of water at his head. And he did
eat and drink, and laid him down
again.
“And the angel of the LORD came
again the second time, and touched
him, and said, Arise and eat; because
the journey is too great for thee.”—
Vss. 5–7.
“And he said, Go forth, and stand
upon the mount before the LORD.
And, behold, the LORD passed by, and
a great and strong wind rent the
mountains, and brake in pieces the
rocks before the LORD; but the LORD
was not in the wind: and after the
wind an earthquake; but the LORD
was not in the earthquake:
“And after the earthquake a fire;
but the LORD was not in the fire: and
There is not a preacher any- after the fire a still small voice.”—
where that at some time in his life Vss. 11, 12.
hasn’t walked into a restaurant
What was God doing when He
with barely enough money in his sent a wind, a quake and then a
pocket to buy a couple of ham- fire? He was shaking up things!
burgers for himself and his wife Everything can be breezing along;
without having somebody walk up but when the wind blows through,
to him and say, “You order what- it can change a lot of things.
ever you want, and I’m going to
In 2009, Dr. Lou Rossi and I were
pay
for it.”
Don’t Look for a
eating lunch on a spring day in
Not long ago, I was in a restau- Murfreesboro. We knew a storm
Juniper Tree
rant
with a pastor in a city where was brewing; but when we walked
There are times when a preachI
knew
few people. The pastor out of the restaurant, we saw a
er thinks that he doesn’t have any
spoke
to
several people, and then large tornado about a mile away.
friends and that nobody cares
whether he lives or dies. It basi- we ate. When he asked for the bill, I rushed back to the Sword of the
cally boils down to this: all the the server said, “Oh, it’s already Lord office, grabbed a phone in
pressure and hurt and stress have been paid.” Someone had paid for the foyer, and called my wife to
totally exhausted him; he’s spent, it, walked out, and hadn’t even tell her it was headed right at our
angry and desperate; and he goes told us what he had done. He was home.
just an angel providing for us.
Then I got on the all-call and
looking for a juniper tree.
Think
about
how
God
has
suptold
our employees to get into the
The juniper tree is not the place
to go, because when you have ex- plied your needs when you didn’t safe places that had been estabhausted yourself, God is not ex- know how it was going to work lished in each of our three buildings and to stay there until it was
hausted at all! Whenever you are out.
safe to come out. Within minutes,
There
was
no
fast-food
restautired to the point of being totally
rant out there in the desert where that tornado came tearing across
spent, God is not spent at all!
the northern end of our city. It
Elijah learned that in chapter 19. Elijah could get a baked potato, damaged 840 homes and busibut God stepped in and helped
“And as he lay and slept under a by sending an angel to feed him nesses; 440 of them were totally
juniper tree, behold, then an angel where there was nothing. How- obliterated.
It usually takes me twelve minutes to drive from the Sword to
our home, which God had graciously spared; but that afternoon
it took me four hours because de3966 Brownsville Road / Powder Springs,
Georgia 30127 / 770-943-1711
bris was all over the place, I
couldn’t get through many of the
Visit our Website @ www.biblewaybaptistga.com
roads, and I had to keep taking
detour after detour.
When a wind blows through, it
can change a lot of things. After the
wind, God sent a quake and then
a fire. I think He was saying, “Are
you listening now? Are you listen1974 Walt Stephens Road
ing now?”
Jonesboro, GA 30236 • 770-471-8201
When God begins to speak, we
Sunday School .....................................10:00 a.m.
need to listen to Him. By the way,
Sunday Morning...................................11:00 a.m.
we don’t get messages from God
Sunday Evening .....................................6:00 p.m.
in the clouds or by somebody
Wednesday Evening...............................7:00 p.m.
Dr. Joe Arthur
damaging our car bumper at the
Pastor
supermarket. That is not where
God’s messages come from. Messages from God come from His
Book. If you stick to what He has
said in His Book, you won’t go off
doing a lot of crazy things.
When you get exhausted, you
do not need to go to the juniper
tree. It is not the place of refuge.
•
Rome Baptist Temple
www.centralbaptistocala.org
Dr. Andy Bloom
Pastor
Master Clubs ❈ Teen Ministries
Ocala Christian Academy • Grades K-3—12
3003 New Calhoun Hwy.
Rome, GA 30162
706-232-8969
Sun. School–10:00 Sun. Eve.–7:00
Sun. Morn.–11:00 Wed. Eve.–7:30
When in Fort Myers, Florida Visit...
Dr. Billy Goolesby
Pastor
Winkler Road Baptist Church
1375 Fernwood Circle, NE
Atlanta, Georgia 30319
404-237-6735
◆ Sunday School ◆ Soul Winning ◆ Bus Ministry ◆
◆ King’s Kids ◆ Youth Ministry ◆
www.winklerbaptist.org
Pastor
“ Where the Bible Comes Alive!”
“Rome’s Friendliest Church”
University Baptist Church
5770 Winkler Rd. ◆ Ft. Myers, FL 33919
Phone: 239-481-2848
Don Strange
ever, God wasn’t done.
www.ubc-atl.com
SOUTH METRO ATLANTA (I-75 S. Exit 218)
Robert Sutton
“A Church in the heart of Atlanta
with the heart for the World.”
Gary
Ledford,
Pastor
Associate Pastor
45 Minutes N. of Atlanta
Rejoice in the L ord
d
Independent Baptist
B
“A local church
u
planted in a college comm
munity ”
9:10 a.m. Sun. Evening Service
Bible Study
Sun. Morning Servic
v e 10:15 a.m. Wed. Midweek Service
6:00 p.m.
7:00 p.m.
Rejoiccee in the Lord telecast—RejoiceT V..org
View
w church ser vices via streaming video.
Pastor Denis McBride
(850) 479-6575
CampussChurch.c
ch com
250 Brent Lane, Pensacola, FL
“Growing Godly Generations”
1099 Hwy. 81 W., McDonough, GA 30253
770-957-9889 • www.fibcministries.com
Pastor Myron McIntyre
*Bible-based *Soul-conscious
*Missions-loving *Not “Camp-meeting”
Baptist Church
Christian School
K5-12
2861 Ballground Hwy.
Canton, GA 30114
Charles Ray
770-479-7638
www.crossroadsoflifebaptist.org Pastor
Spanish Ministry • Bus Ministry • Master Clubs
Blooming Where We Are Planted!
When in the North Atlanta area, visit...
Harvest Baptist Church
3460 Kellogg Creek Road
Acworth, GA 30102
770-974-9091
Christian School • Bus Ministry
Spanish Ministry • Deaf Ministry
A Place for Faith, Family & Friends
www.harvestbaptistacworth.org
Dr. Dan Reed
Pastor
18
SWORD OF THE LORD
When Enough Is…!
I call my wife when I’m away, and
sometimes I’ll tell her that I’m in
Motel 3. The juniper tree is not that.
If you listen to God and trust
Him in your time of trouble, pray,
and stay true like you ought to and
not be intimidated by evil, He will
use His inexhaustible resources to
enable and supply you even when
Ahab and Jezebel are strutting,
strategizing and doing everything
they know how to do to get to you!
Your tank may be empty; but
God’s reservoirs are abundant, authoritative and available! This is not
the time for the preacher to run
and hide. This is not the time for
our churches to crawl back into a
hole somewhere. This is not the
time to quit, admit defeat, or fall
into the pit of despair. This is not
the time for us to say, “There is
nothing we can do these days!”
This is not the time, folks!
Don’t go under that juniper tree.
God is still God, and He’s not done.
He’s still calling men to the ministry. We’re still getting churches
planted across this nation every
week of the world. We still have
folks getting their torches lit and
starting bus routes, going soul winning, and getting things cranked
up and moving.
When you’ve exhausted yourself,
don’t camp out under that juniper
tree. Don’t hide out in the desert
somewhere. God is not exhausted, spent or done!
Elijah had been greatly blessed
of God and used so mightily, and
God fed him and took care of
him, but these devils came at him
and started breaking him down
and destroying his will and energy. He became so depressed that
he ran and hid and cried out to
God, “Just let me die! Let me die!”
When you think you have failed,
when you think you are finished,
there is more yet to be done. God
will allow you to have some victories if you’ll listen to Him like
He wants you to do.
Don’t Stand Still and
Whine; “Go”
In verses 11 and 15, there is that
little word “go.” It is the instruction of God, and it bids Elijah to
“go” in two different directions.
First, he is told to “go forth, and
stand upon the mount before the
LORD” (vs. 11).
God is telling him to get out
from the cave. He’s giving him the
way out of the wilderness. He’s
telling him, “Come up here on the
mountain!”
Every once in a while when you
think that God is done with you,
go to a mountain somewhere,
someplace where you can hear the
voice of God again. You can see a
lot further from the mountaintop.
Everybody needs a little river to
walk beside or a little hill where
there is a vantage point where he
can go and look out over his town.
Get alone with God and cry out to
Him where nobody will hear you
except God. You need such a place.
The Lord said, “Come up to the
mountain.” The Lord lets him know,
“I know where you are. I know the
mess you are in, but this is the way
out for you.”
Then, in verse 15, He tells him
to go again; but this time it is different. “Go, return on thy way to
the wilderness of Damascus: and
when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria.”
This greatly blessed man of God
has been so low in a pit of despair.
He is literally out of service, off
duty and wasting himself; but God,
with abundant mercy, matchless
grace and incredible patience,
looks at this sorry specimen of
humanity and says, “Get up off the
mat, Elijah! Get up! Get up to the
mountain and get your tank filled
again. Get the resources you need;
and when you get what you need
from God, you’re going to anoint
a king for the Syrians.” You get what
you need from God; then you can
go do what you should do for God.
Amen!
I imagine that Elijah started
thinking back to what had happened. He thought that nobody
was ever going to hear him again.
He figured his ministry was not
going to amount to anything. He
reasoned that none of his dreams
would be realized. Then God intervened.
God fed him by the Ravens Express and by a widow. After this
pit of despair, God said to him,
“You are going to anoint a new
king.” Not only that, God said,
“I’ve been listening to you whine
about being the only one left, but
I want you to know that I have
seven thousand others who have
not bowed the knee to Baal.”
We have men all over this country that few know about. They
are pastors of churches in little
towns, villages and suburbs; some
are in the ghettos in the big cities.
None of them have yet made the
pages of the SWORD OF THE
LORD, but they may someday. The
fundamental crowd may not even
know they exist, but God knows
that they exist, and they are doing
His business.
When we start feeling sorry for
ourselves, we need to remember
the lesson of Elijah. He didn’t have
a clue that in Israel and in tiny little Judea the Lord had seven thousand preachers.
When we cannot see or imagine
our way out of the wilderness,
when we cannot find even a string
to pull ourselves out of the pit, God
knows the answer! God knows the
way! God has the solution! One
day He may do it with ravens or
figure out another way to do it,
but He is able to help us!
God laid out one more little
piece of Elijah’s future ministry. In
verse 19, God told him to cast his
mantle upon the next generation.
There are young men all over our
country who will be preaching in
our pulpits in very short order.
Elijah was instructed to cast his
mantle—that is, take off his cloak
and cast it—upon the next generation. I’m reading between the
lines, but I don’t think that all of
those boys in his little school of
the prophets were A students. In
fact, the best I can tell, there is only
one young man in the class that
got an A; and his name is Elisha.
None of the others said that they
wanted twice what Elijah had or
that they wanted a double portion
or that they’d go where he went.
When Elijah told Elisha to stay
at one place, he said, “No sir. I’m
going with you.”
The man who got the mantle
was the one who wouldn’t quit.
He was the driver for the man of
God. He opened the door, shined
his shoes, and did what he could
for the man who was teaching and
tutoring him.
Maybe you are a youth pastor
or an assistant pastor, and you’re
February 26, 2016
not making much of a salary. You
be careful! You watch yourself, or
sometime you may camp under
that juniper tree. If you’ll stay true,
be faithful and walk with God; if
you’ll cover the details and say,
“Whatever needs to be done, I’ll
do it no matter how late or early
the hour”; you’ll wind up with
some sweet blessing from God
upon your life when someone
who has a mantle casts it off.
Elisha worked exactly twice
as many miracles as Elijah had
worked. He asked for it, and he
got it.
There’s no question that we’re
living in tough times. America has
never seen times like we have now.
This is not the time for us to whine
and cry. This is not the day to lay
down our tools and act like it can’t
be done! This is the time to look
right into the faces of Ahab and
Jezebel and stand up to the false
prophets of Baal.
Believe me, we have them all
over the place these days. This is
not the time to mount the pulpit
on Sunday and wimp out with
some little weak, anemic, lifeless,
homiletical ditty. God help us pick
up His Book and tell people about
it! Glory to God!
I heard a story that may have
been just a joke, but I like it. There
was a little lady about seventyfive years of age. She was driving
through town and going a little too
fast, and a local policeman stopped
her. As he walked up to the side
of her car, he looked in and saw a
pistol lying on the seat beside her.
“Ma’am, I see you have a gun,”
he said.
“I do,” she answered.
“Do you have a permit?”
“Absolutely!”
“Is the gun loaded?”
“Well, certainly. That’s a .38, but
I have a .22 pistol in the glove box,
and in the trunk I’ve got a 9mm.”
In amazement the policeman
then asked, “Dear lady, what on
earth are you afraid of?”
She said, “Not a cotton-pickin’
thing!”
I want that lady in my church! I
want to catch some of what she
has! When some devil wants to set
up shop in my town, when some
Be Strong
Be strong!
We are not here to play, to
dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do
and loads to lift;
Shun not the struggle—face
it; ’tis God’s gift.
Be strong!
Say not, “The days are evil.
Who’s to blame?”
And fold the hands and
acquiesce—oh, shame!
Stand up, speak out, and
bravely, in God’s name.
Be strong!
It matters not how deep
entrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes,
the day how long;
Faint not—fight on!
Tomorrow comes the
song.
—Maltbie Davenport Babcock
evil public official decides to do
something stupid, I want the drive,
the conviction and nonintimidation that that little lady had.
When I stand up to preach on
a Wednesday night, I want her
heart and spirit no matter the size
of the crowd. I want to stand up
and tell them about it and not be
afraid of a “cotton-pickin’ thing.”
May God help us not bend to
the Ahabs, the Jezebels, or whatever other venomous vipers worm
their way into our lives! Determine that you’re going to pick up
everything that you can and be all
that you can be for God; and then
go forward unintimidated, unflinching and unafraid. Just keep
going; and no matter what happens, don’t ever think about getting under a juniper tree!
Enough is enough, but let’s respond to it better than Elijah did!
Amen!
✟
Emmanuel Baptist Church
of South Haven
760 McCool Road
Valparaiso, IN 46385
Phone: 219-759-3317
Sun. School ................9:30 a.m.
John C. Allen Sun. Serv. ..10:45 a.m. & 6:00 p.m.
Wed. Serv. ..................7:00 p.m.
Pastor
5301 E. Riverside Blvd. • Rockford, IL 61114 • 815–877–6021
Sunday Morn. ........8:30 a.m. & 10:45 a.m. Evening Service ............6:00 p.m.
Sunday School ............................9:30 a.m. Wednesday Service ........7:00 p.m.
Paul Kingsbury
Pastor
Home of Reformers Unanimous • Christian School, K4–12
“An Independent Baptist Church”
550 Baltimore Blvd., Westminster, MD 21157 • 410-876-3838
(on MD 140 and 97 between Baltimore and Gettysburg)
A Family Focus, a Vision for the World
Home of Carroll Christian Schools
Sun. School ....................9:45 a.m. Sun. Eve. ..................6:00 p.m.
Morn. Services......8:30/10:45 a.m. Wed. Eve ..................7:00 p.m.
Web site: www.opendoorchurch.org
Dr. Norris E. Belcher, Jr.
410-257-0157 (Church) 301-855-5630 (Pastor’s Home)
[email protected]
www.cornerstonebaptistchurchofowings.com
Corner Stone Baptist Church
Sun. Services: 9:45 a.m. / 11:00 a.m. / 6:00 p.m. Ron Titus
Pastor
Wed. Service: 7:30 p.m.
The Reid Building, Suite 4C
Christ the Chief Corner Stone
7995 Old Solomon’s Island Road
Ephesians 2:20b
Owings, MD 20736
2460 Lexington Rd.
Nicholasville, KY 40356
859–887–1091
Lonnie Moore
Pastor
Pro Teen • Kids’ Clubs
Sunday School ....................9:30 a.m.
Sunday Morning ................10:45 a.m.
Sunday Evening ..................6:00 p.m.
Wednesday Evening ............7:00 p.m.
Home of Tabernacle Christian Academy
Moving to Jackson, Mississippi?
Visiting or Moving to Shreveport?
FELLOWSHIP BAPTIST CHURCH
SHREVEPORT BAPTIST TEMPLE
“ The Friendly Church”
3823 S. Siwell Rd. • Jackson, Mississippi 39212
288 Flournoy Lucas Road
Shreveport, Louisiana 71106
318–686–5538
Where Soul Winning is a Blessing
Dr. Tim Rader
Bill Lockhart
Senior Pastor
Assistant Pastor
Joshua Rader
Youth Pastor
Greg Reinfelder
Music Director
Baptist Pioneer Mission Agency•Maplewood Baptist Academy•Canaanland Baptist Camps
Dr. Howard Hall
3255 W. M-80•Kinross, MI 49752 •906-495-5200•www.fbconline.net
“21st Century Old-Time Religion”
601–372–6607
One of Jackson’s Largest and Fastest
Growing Independent, Fundamental,
Separated, Soul-Winning Churches
Carl Floyd
Pastor
Bus Ministry, Deaf Ministry, Children’s Church
February 26, 2016
SWORD OF THE LORD
Our Churches Have…!
find out that Mr. Krushchev was
right. We have been invaded. Communism is still alive. We think it has
died, and we have our détentes and
whatever else you want to say we
have. But it’s still alive.
Communism is not only a threat;
we have been invaded, and not one
shot has been fired. Our homes
have been invaded. Think of our
churches—divorce. It’s running
rampant, not among the heathen
but among God’s people.
Think of our home churches and
the immorality. I’m not proud of it,
and neither are you. But if you’ve
been a pastor any length of time,
you have dealt with immorality. If
you haven’t, don’t brag about it.
It’s only because you’re not reaching anybody. People have a lot of
baggage. It seems like there is not
a church that is exempt from immorality.
In addition to that, people get
in the church and find out that the
A young man gazing intently at a chart
showing the organs,
bones, muscles, nerves,
veins, and arteries in
the human body exclaimed, “And to think
that the first time that
body was put together, it worked!”
Yes, everything coming from God’s hand
is good!
CHARLOTTE, NC / ROCK HILL, SC
SOUTH CHARLOTTE
BAPTIST CHURCH
12416 Lancaster Hwy.
Pineville, NC 28134
704-542-5536
Pastor Joseph
Campbell
[email protected]
Home of South Charlotte
Baptist Academy
old flesh is real. There is fighting
and feuding in the home.
A Sunday school teacher was
telling me a little bus child kept
falling asleep. The teacher said,
“Son, why are you falling asleep?
You need to stay awake.”
That precious little boy said, “I
didn’t sleep last night.”
She asked, “Why didn’t you
sleep?”
He said, “They were up all night
fighting.”
That describes so many of our
homes today, even so many of our
Christian homes. Our homes have
been invaded. There’s no semblance of Christianity in the home.
There’s no Bible in the home.
There’s no prayer in the home.
There’s very little singing in the
home, very little happiness in the
home. I’m talking about Christian
homes. We’ve been invaded.
Stop and take inventory. How
many families in your church are
reading the Bible, praying, walking with God, singing, and having
fun together as a family? You know
as well as I do that in the vast majority of Christian homes nowadays, that is not the case.
We’ll take our families out to
lunch at the cafeteria, and people
always will comment about our
families. It’s unusual to see teenagers respecting their mother and
loving their dad. Our homes have
been invaded.
Our minds have been invaded.
I’m so scared to death of the Internet. I know it’s helpful and useful. I’m not saying you can’t have
it. But it’s frightening to me. There’s
not a week that goes by that a
preacher or somebody else doesn’t
call me, saying, “I messed up my
life on the Internet.”
There was a man in the ministry.
He got upset that his wife was a
little bit well upholstered. He felt
like she was too heavy for him. He
got on one of these stinking chat
rooms and wound up leaving his
wife.
4135 Thomasville Rd., Highway 109 Winston-Salem, NC 27107
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Dr. Ron Baity
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He came from one state, and the
woman with whom he was communicating came from another,
and they met. That woman was a
lot heavier than his wife, but he
went off and married her anyway
and left his wife and his kids and
the ministry. Stinking chat room! It
will get you.
I was preaching in the Northeast maybe twenty years ago. I
made a pledge before God. Why?
Because I’m such a great Christian?
No, because I’m so weak. Put no
confidence in the flesh. I pledged
before God I would never watch
television by myself at home or
in a hotel room ever in my life.
Why? Was I involved in pornography? No. I haven’t ever been in
it. I don’t want to either. Pornography will get you. You’d better put
up some barriers.
The Internet has invaded our
homes. It seems like nowadays we
don’t even talk together because
the Internet has captured our kids.
We have been invaded by the
environmentalists. This earth was
made for man. Go cut another
tree. We’ve been invaded from
east to west, north to south.
We’ve been invaded by the
animal rights people. PETA said
fishing is a harmful thing and damaging to fish. It’s torture. They compared it to putting a hook in your
son’s or daughter’s mouth and
jerking on it.
There was an event at our airport in San Jose that people
around the world heard about.
This woman banged into the car
of a man from West Virginia. He
got out of his car, reached into
her car, pulled out her dog, threw
it out in traffic; and it got killed.
I’m not for that. What he did was
wrong.
They finally tracked him down
after some months. Nationwide
they had raised over $200,000 in
three days for that little animal to
have a little memorial. When was
the last time we gave $200,000
for a murdered baby to have a
memorial service?
They found the man; they tried
the man. Nationwide news said,
“The judge is going to sentence
him. It looks like he’s going to get
three years’ probation.”
Those animal rights groups got
★
19
to work that night, calling and protesting. The next day the judge’s
hands were tied, and the judge
stood and said, “You are sentenced
to three years in prison.”
Not far from us a teenage girl
had a baby. She took that baby
and threw him in the dumpster,
and the baby died. They put the
girl into counseling. I’m not advocating harming Fifi, but Fifi is
nothing compared to a human life.
We’ve been invaded. In this society, you cannot mistreat a dog,
but you can take a cigarette and
burn little kids. You can be like
this couple in Dallas who had a
third-grade little girl who weighed
twenty-eight pounds because they
had locked her in a closet for seven
years. They’re trying to figure out
how to counsel the mother and
the boyfriend.
We’ve been invaded, and the
invasion has come right into our
churches and our homes.
Our schools have been invaded. I was there in 1962 and ’63
when they said, “No more God,
no more prayer, no more Bible.” I
remember my kindergarten teacher in public school in California
saying, “Boys and girls, you have
your Cloverdale Creamery milk
there, and you have your graham
crackers. Let’s have a word of
prayer.”
Now our public schools no
longer have God, but they have
guns. You know it’s true. They took
God out, and all of a sudden these
kids turned to anarchy.
On the school campuses we
have dope, guns, metal detectors,
counselors, therapists, doctors.
Girls can go off to an abortion
clinic and have abortions without
mothers’ and daddies’ consent, but
they can’t put earrings in their ears
without their parents’ consent.
We’re stupid. We have been invaded. Our schools have been invaded.
What’s the result? The United
States of America has a staggering rate of suicides among teenagers. In the United States of
America, your child is more likely
to die on the streets from being
shot at than in many other nations in the world. We’re in trouble. So we pass more laws to get
rid of the guns. Foolishness!
The government has been in-
New Jersey • Located 1 hr. northwest of NYC area
121 Sparta Ave. • Sparta, NJ 07871 • 973–729–7954
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Sunday School ............9:45 a.m. Sunday Evening ........6:00 p.m.
Sunday Morning ......11:00 a.m. Wednesday ................7:00 p.m.
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Brian Phalon
Pastor
Traditional Worship Services
890 Walkertown-Guthrie Rd., Winston-Salem, NC
(Corner of Gospel Light Ch. Rd. &Walkertown-Guthrie)
336-722-9700
Sunday School......10:00 a.m. Sunday Evening ..6:30 p.m.
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Trinity Baptist Church Asheville
Sunday Early Service
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10:45 a.m.
5:00 p.m.
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Hope, Heritage And A Place To Call Home
Dr. Ralph Sexton, Jr.
Pastor
215 Shelburne Road, Asheville, NC 28806
828-254-2187 www.tbcasheville.org
4431 Tiedeman Rd. • Cleveland, OH 44144
216–671–2822 • www.clevelandbaptist.org
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Sunday School..................10:00 AM
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“Preaching Christ...Reaching the World”
Dr. Kevin Folger
Pastor
vaded—Democrats, Republicans
and the whole crowd. They don’t
think straight. Our military has
been invaded: “Don’t ask; don’t
tell.” I can’t believe it, but this is
true. In boot camp now, if you get
too stressed, if you feel like the officers are putting too much stress
on you, you get to hold up a little
card called the stress card.
The very thought of that makes
my blood boil. You’re out there in
battle, and you say, “Uh! I have to
get my little stress card out, enemy.”
Though our great institutions,
our military, our government, our
schools, our homes have been
invaded, my concern today is
with the man of God and people
of God at the house of God. We
have been invaded too.
“O God, the heathen are come
into thine inheritance; thy holy
temple have they defiled” (vs. 1).
They may defile government and
the schools, but let’s not let them
defile the house of God.
The house of God is the steadying ship in the storm of life. We
need the house of God. We need
you preachers like we’ve never
needed you before. We need you
to stand straight and strong for
what’s right.
You church members, don’t you
write a letter against your preacher. Don’t you get on the Internet
and complain about your preacher. If there has ever been a time
when preachers need their people to stay true to God, it’s today.
There’s enough fight out there;
they don’t need it in the church.
I’m disappointed when I see in
Psalm 79 that Asaph, the music director for David, writes and says
the house of God has been invaded.
I. Our Music Is Being Invaded
I believe our churches are being
invaded. Please do not take this
as if it were coming from an arrogant one or a know-it-all but
perhaps as a warning. I wish we’d
take inventory of the music in our
churches. Our music is being invaded. If you don’t think it is, then
you have been deluded. It is a
weekly battle to stand for what is
right.
We don’t have a Christian radio
station where we are out in California. Here in North Carolina, we
got into the car the other night
and turned on the radio. We heard
a guy preaching. He got done and
said, “This is Evangelist Bill Rice.”
I had never heard that on the
radio before in my life.
I had never heard Dr. Harold
Sightler or Dr. Oliver B. Greene
on the radio. We don’t have Lester
Roloff on the radio. We don’t have
Bobby Roberson. We don’t have
Christian programming. But not
having it may be a blessing.
Though I like to hear those men
and Dr. Curtis Hutson and others, it may be a blessing that we
don’t have this contemporary stuff
coming into our members’ houses. Our music is different from
what it used to be in the fifties and
sixties. I’m not saying you have to
sing only “Near the Cross.” Thank
God for that. But check your
music.
A great fundamental church
called me and said, “We’re looking for a worship leader for our
music department.” My antenna
went up. We’re not preparing
worship leaders. We’re not going
that direction.
How did we do it in the fifties,
sixties, seventies, and eighties when
we didn’t have worship leaders?
I’ll tell you how we did it. We
didn’t let the charismatics influence us.
20
SWORD OF THE LORD
If we’re not careful, our music
will move in a heathen direction.
I don’t want to wear out my welcome, I don’t want to embarrass
you, I don’t want to hurt anyone
here, but let’s get back to saying
“amen” when someone sings.
When a guy or a group gets
done singing, “Who am I that a
King should bleed and die for?
Who am I that He would pray,
‘Not My will; Thine, Lord’?” just
come unglued: “Amen! Glory to
God!” That doesn’t go over well
everywhere. There are a few
“amen’s.” But we’ll go ahead and
preach it.
How did we make it before we
had the nightclub? Let’s just get
back to good, old-fashioned,
down-home music. “What can
wash away my sin? Nothing but
the blood of Jesus.” I know “He
Came to Me” is a relatively new
song, but He did come to me:
“When I could not come to
where He was, He came to me.”
If our churches are going to be
effective, we must guard our
music. Music is the expression of
the heart. When we get our people expressing worldliness, it will
invade our churches.
Worldly music in a church is
usually introduced by a woman
or a teenager, and it’ll be hard to
fight against it. If you’re not careful, you’re going to find out that
that little lady in your church probably has more power than you
do. You’re going to find out that
perhaps those teenagers have
more power than you do.
The power we need is not the
power of persuasion but the power
of prayer: “O God, my youth group,
my church, some of these ladies,
some of these families are moving
down another path. God, keep me
straight.” We ought to be praying
our churches will stay straight.
Music has been invaded. You
have to be careful. A lot of the
showmanship comes from television. Ministry is not a show; it’s
delivering something from your
heart that God has implanted in
your heart. Deliver it to the people of God.
II. Soul Winning Is
Being Invaded
I know we have great soulwinning churches in America; but
if we’re not careful, our soul winning is going to get invaded. You
know it’s a struggle all the time to
keep that thing right. That’s the
heartbeat of the church. Soul
winning has to stay right.
Soul winning is controversial,
confrontational, direct. That’s why
God gave His power—to go out
to the uttermost part of this earth
and preach the Gospel so that
people can come to know Jesus
Christ as Saviour (Acts 1:8).
I want to challenge you to go
home and start another soulwinning ministry. Start it for ladies,
start it for senior citizens, start it
for men, or start it for children. I
heard preaching on soul winning,
and my heart got set on fire as it
does every time I hear about soul
winning.
We must have fifteen or twenty
soul-winning ministries already,
but I got another idea for another
one. I want everybody out on
soul winning.
They say, “How are your church
and school out there on the West
Coast? How are they growing?”
From all over—the charismatics
and every other group—they’re
just coming in; they just want us.
No! I’ll tell you how we’re growing: by soul winning.
I live in the Silicon Valley where
it is prosperous (except for when
our parts in the stock market don’t
do well. It’s not prosperous right
now, and that’s probably the best
thing for us too).
I think of a man and woman
whom I led to Christ. I went to
their home. They had a nice, beautiful car; a beautiful truck; and lots
of other beautiful possessions.
They had money—the whole nine
yards.
He said, “This alcohol bottle has
captured my life. I just can’t get
the victory over this thing.” They
have success, but they don’t have
God, and they still have nothing.
Jesus Christ died for little bus
kids, little boys and girls. He died
for men and women, the poor
and the rich, the whole crowd.
Let’s just go after them!
February 26, 2016
not how to stay with a church.
Our church was five months old
when my wife and I went there.
We had twenty-two people meet
us. There were two other churches who wanted me to candidate.
They found out how old I was and
that I had had no experience as a
pastor of a church. I had been an
assistant pastor. They said, “We
don’t want you.”
This church had twenty-two
people. I said, “Look, I’m twentyfour years old. I’ve only preached
three times in my life.”
They said, “It doesn’t matter. If
you’re God’s man, we want you.”
I said, “Because of that, if you’ll
call me, if you’ll let me stay and if
God gives me health, I want to give
fifty years of my life right here.”
That was 1976—forty years ago!
I’ve watched our churches being
invaded. Let’s get out Curtis Hutson’s book Ingredients of a Great
Church and study it again. It
worked.
Every week I study those books
on the great, fundamental churches in America published some
years back. The binding is broken
off them now, but the principles
are still right. Every one of them
says there has to be stewardship,
separation, soul winning; and they
go on and on. Those things still
work.
Let’s put down the books of philosophy on how to build a church
by the contemporary and emerging church guys and get back to
the Book of Acts.
take a look at where your teenagers sit this Sunday. Teenagers
don’t need to be in the back. Teenagers need to be down on the firing line. They need to get down
front and stay there.
Teenagers still need, want and
desire good, old-fashioned preaching. We see it. We see it in our
youth meetings. We see it in our
own youth group. Thank God for
preaching. It still is the need for
youth groups. “Kum Ba Yah” is not
what young people need.
In a lot of these Christian
schools—I’m talking about fundamental Christian schools—the
boys’ britches are down on their
hips. We don’t have that.
These kids need good preaching. Churches need youth groups
that hear preaching from the
preacher who’s in the pulpit who
has something to say.
V. Counseling Has Invaded
Our Churches
Somebody turned many of our
preachers into therapists. Can I
tell you something about counseling? It doesn’t work. You look
III. Our Philosophy Is
at the people into whom you put
Being Invaded
the most time. It doesn’t work.
I’ll tell you what will work. Get
Our music has been invaded.
them to Sunday school, Sunday
Our soul winning has been invadmorning service, Sunday night
ed. If we’re not careful, our phiservice, Wednesday night service,
losophy will be invaded. I wish
soul winning. Get them reading
we’d put down the book by the
their Bibles and praying. That
preacher who’s not a Baptist who
works.
told us how to build a great church
and who has now left his church
We bring them in and set them
because it’s more lucrative when
down. In our pride we think we
you get out there and lecture to
know every answer. Just get them
the other crowds.
to church.
Why would you want to read a IV. Our Youth Are
Counsel is important. Counsel is
book from a guy who quit his Being Invaded
biblical. Counsel is advice. You
Our youth have been invaded. can give advice just standing up.
church? Apparently the principle is
to teach you how to leave a church, If you don’t think they have, just They say, “What do I do about
this drinking problem?” Come to
church.
Let’s go to a home, as I went to
a fellow’s home, and say, “Let’s get
your bottles out of the cupboards,
and let’s pour it down the drain
right now.”
How’s the church doing with
your counseling? What it’s doing
is wearing you out. Put more time
into preaching.
West Tennessee’s Home for Old-Time Religion
A fellow was in church and said
Sunday School
10:00 a.m.
to me, “Preacher, I think I’m getSunday Morning
11:00 a.m.
ting the idea of this: you just suit
up and show up.”
Sunday Evening
6:00 p.m.
West TN Bible Institute
I said, “That’s exactly what you
Tuesday
7:00 p.m.
Wednesday Night
7:00 p.m.
Holy Hills Baptist Church
Jeremy Ballinger
Pastor
475 US Hwy 51 By-Pass N ~ Dyersburg, TN
(731) 285-9432 www.holyhillsbaptistchurch.com
Minot Baptist Church
500 46th Ave NE•Minot, ND 58702
Pastor David Miller•701-839-1351
Sun. School 9:45 am
Sun PM 6:00 pm
Sun AM 11:00 am
Wed. PM 7:00 pm
www.MinotBaptistChurch.com
Dayton, Ohio
Bethel Baptist Church
Jim Shihady
Pastor
434 Wilson Park Dr.
West Carrollton, OH 45449
(937) 859-4713
Christian School K5–12th
Independent • Fundamental
KJB • Soul Winning
Military Ministry-Fort Sill Artillery Base
Bible Baptist Church
7501 S.W. Lee Blvd.
Lawton, OK 73505
Phone: 580-536-6272
Sun. School ..................10:00 a.m.
Sun. Morning................11:00 a.m.
Sun. Evening ..................6:00 p.m.
Wed. Evening ................7:00 p.m.
Bob Weger
Pastor
Cornerstone Baptist Church
Corner of Miller Avenue & 10th Street
931-484-8476
◆ Mike Kerley, Pastor
Sunday School • 10:00 am Morning Worship • 11:00 am
Sunday Evening • 6:30 pm Wednesday Evening • 7:00 pm
Independent Crossville, Soul Winning
Fundamental
King James
Tennessee
Washington State-Near Ft. Lewis & McChord AFB
TEMPLE BAPTIST CHURCH
Home of Temple Baptist Academy K5–12
3806 College St., S.E. • Lacey, WA 98503
360-491-3395 • Pastor Mike Kinney
E-mail: [email protected]
Sun. School—10 a.m. • Sun. Morn—11 a.m.
Sun. Eve.—6 p.m. • Wed. Eve.—7 p.m.
Bus • Faith Promise Missions • Youth Ministry
February 26, 2016
SWORD OF THE LORD
need to do: suit up and show up.”
I challenged my people recently,
“Instead of making a counseling
appointment, if you want some
counsel, I’ll give you some: come
to Sunday school, Sunday morning service, Sunday night service,
Wednesday night service for a
year.”
I think Dr. Roberson said, “Do
you want to see me? Come to
church. I’ll talk to you after
church for a few minutes.”
My mother and dad lived
through the Depression. They
never sat on a preacher’s couch
asking for counseling. You don’t
need counseling. Get alone with
God. “This kind goeth not out but
by prayer and fasting” (Matt. 17:21).
A big guy came in and said, “I
want to start a church.”
I said, “Come back.”
A couple of months later he
came back to see me. He had
gained about another twenty-five
pounds. He’s not ready to start a
church. When your soul is giving
birth to something, you have so
much excitement and turmoil in
your soul that you’re on your face
before God saying, “O God, what
I’m about to do is something bigger than I am. I need Your help.”
You begin to pray and fast and
walk with God, and you forget
about food. It’s an amazing thing,
when you put down the flesh, how
the spirit rises every time. That’s
why God designed fasting. We put
down our physical body and desires, and the Spirit of God rises
in our lives and hearts.
I’m not smart, but counseling
doesn’t work. I wrote a book and
covered every letter of the alphabet: A, anger, alcohol; B, bitterness; and all the way through the
alphabet. A prescription is given
for each problem. All you have to
do is go alphabetically to that
chapter.
They all say the same ten things:
number one, go to church. Nobody is going to conquer alcohol
missing Sunday school and Sunday morning, Sunday night and
Wednesday night services.
Can you imagine Billy Sunday
saying, “Now the group therapy
class will be meeting together with
Ma Sunday. She’s going to tell you
about the dangers and the evils
of liquor”? Oh, no! No therapy
class.
Advice or counsel from the Word
of God is what we need; but sitting down on the couch and receiving therapy is not the answer.
People come in for marriage
counseling. We talk. I say, “All right,
here is the prescription.” When
you go to the doctor you want a
prescription. “Here’s the prescription.” I do it every time. “I want
you every day to kneel by your
bed together, clasp your hands and
pray together. Sir, you pray; then,
Ma’am, you pray.
“I want you every day to read
your Bible together. I want you to
be kind to each other. If you say
something that’s wrong, I want you
to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ I want you to be
in church—Sunday school, Sunday
morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Now let’s have prayer.”
Dr. Lee Roberson was this way.
The father-in-law of the vice president of our college, Dr. Jorgensen,
was the Sunday school superintendent under Dr. Roberson in the
heyday of his ministry. His wife
got cancer. Somebody said, “You
ought to go see Dr. Roberson.”
Dr. Jorgensen, one of Dr.
Roberson’s right-hand men, went
into Dr. Roberson’s office and said,
“Pastor, my wife has cancer, and I
was told to come see you.”
“All right. That’s good. I’m glad
you did. Believe God. Trust God.
Have faith in God. Let’s pray. Our
Father…,” and he prayed.
I’m not making light of it. When
she passed away, somebody said,
“You ought to go see the preacher.” He went and saw Dr. Roberson: “All right. God bless you. That’s
good. Now here’s what we need
to do: have faith in God; believe
God; trust God; read your Bible.
All right, let’s have prayer.”
I’m not trying to make light of
21
should be able to run twice as
many buses!
Our Christian schools have been
invaded. If you have a Christian
school, you know it. I think we have
the best; but I’m telling you, it’s a
daily battle. You have to keep your
eyes and ears open.
I received something explaining terminology that’s used on the
Internet. I hear Christian young
people across our nation using
these terms. We have to be careful. We have to keep our ears and
eyes open.
Nehemiah built the wall around
Jerusalem in fifty-two days. He then
left and came back years later and
VI. Other Invaders of
saw that his people had been inOur Churches
vaded. In chapter 13 he came to
“Woe to them that are at ease the congregation, came to the
in Zion” (Amos 6:1). The New King house of God.
James and other versions are slight“Now it came to pass, when they
ly (not much) invading our churches. “Well, it says this in the New had heard the law, that they sepaKing James.” No, what does it say rated from Israel all the mixed multitude.
in the Old King James?
“And before this, Eliashib the
Sharing and talking and discuspriest,
having the oversight of the
sion groups have invaded our
churches. No, God hath chosen chamber of the house of our God,
was allied unto Tobiah.”—Vss. 3, 4.
the foolishness of preaching.
sorrows and burdens, but let’s
spend more time preaching the
Book instead of having therapy
class. It doesn’t work. I’m not
smart; but when a pastor has been
at the same church a lot of years,
he learns some things; and I’ve
learned what doesn’t work.
The church has grown every year.
Preaching works. We have some
of the most beautiful buildings in
America, and they’re jam-packed.
In the middle of the summer the
8:30 crowd has grown, and the
eleven o’clock crowd has grown,
and people are coming. Why?
Preaching.
Quitting the bus ministry has
invaded our churches. Get back
in it. Start another route. Who is
going to rescue these boys and
girls, mothers and dads? Go start
another bus route. You say, “Oh,
you’re one of those churches! A
big bus church.”
Well, I’m sorry to say it’s not as
big as I want it to be. We have
twice as many who come by car
as we have who come by buses. I
told our people, “That’s going to
change. I want at least as many
coming by buses as by cars.”
I look out there in the parking
areas and see the BMWs and the
Mercedeses and the Lexuses and
the Rolls Royces. I see them out
there. If we can drive cars like
that, we can buy more buses and
put some kids on them.
We have twenty-one buses going
out every Sunday throughout the
day, and we’ll start some more
this fall. Don’t get out of the bus
ministry. I look at your gasoline
prices here in the East. Good night!
Great day in the morning! You
Wasn’t that something? He
brought the enemy that Nehemiah had fought awhile before into
the house of God.
Some of these great preachers
of yesteryear stood for right, stood
against wrong. They have left the
scene or are leaving the scene,
and we are bringing in the people
they stood against. We ought to
be ashamed!
“And I came to Jerusalem, and understood of the evil that Eliashib did
for Tobiah, in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.
“And it grieved me sore: therefore I
cast forth all the household stuff of
Tobiah out of the chamber.”—Vss. 7, 8.
It’s time to start casting out some
stuff that doesn’t belong in the
church. You say, “They’ll vote me
out.” You’ll be free, but you’ll be
right. We all have to take inventory. I’m looking all the time. I go
into that bookstore of ours at the
college. I go into the bookstore
at the church. I look at those
bookstores.
Fairi fax
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K3 -12 Academy
Missions Emphasis
Iglesia de Habla
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6401 Mission
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A 22039
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I’m checking all the time for
things that might come in there
that don’t belong in there. Some
music or some books might come
in there that don’t belong in there.
Observe and watch all the time.
Preachers, we need you!
World War II was fought over
the course of six years. In the
spring of 1940 Germany invaded
France. An American general said,
“I’d like to make a plan to invade.”
He began working on his plan.
His name was General Eisenhower. He worked on a plan for a
week, for a month, for a year. He
worked the second and third
years. For three years he planned
an invasion at Normandy.
They suspected that the casualty rate would be eighty percent,
but they said the time had come
and Hitler’s regime must be
stopped.
The day came. The night before
the invasion of Normandy, General Eisenhower could not sleep
because he knew that the blood
of young men would be shed and
young boys would not come
home to see their families and
loved ones.
He deployed 7 battleships, 25
cruisers, 135 destroyers, and more
than 5,000 other ships along with
thousands upon thousands of
planes. On D-Day 156,000 soldiers
invaded. To their surprise, only
about 4,500 died.
It took them three years to plan,
but they invaded. We defeated the
enemy.
We desperately need the men
of God. You’re good men. I hope
you don’t think I’m looking down
on you. You’re men of God. You
might be preaching out in some
hollow back here, but you’re a
great man of God. You love God.
You know what this is about. We
need you. You’re not second-rate.
You’re God’s man.
God’s people, you remember
he’s God’s man. Let’s stand up for
Jesus.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
Ye soldiers of the cross.
Lift high His royal banner;
It must not suffer loss.
From vict’ry unto vict’ry
His army shall He lead
Till every foe is vanquished
And Christ is Lord indeed.
—George Duffield, Jr.
Let’s invade our cities for Christ
the way the allies invaded Normandy.
✟
Baytown, Texas • Minutes East of Houston
Christchurch Baptist
Fellowship
Dr. Kenny
Baldwin
Senior Pastor
While Visiting the Nation’s Capitol
Plan to Attend
Crossroads
Baptist Church
5811 Hoffman’s Lane, Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia 22041
Phone: (703) 845–0017 / www.ourcrossroads.org
Independent
Dr. Johnny Pope
Visit our Web Site www.christchurchbaptist.org
Schedule of Services:
Sunday School - 9:15 a.m.
Worship - 10:30 a.m. & 6 p.m.
Wednesdays - 7:30 p.m.
TEMPLE BAPTIST CHURCH
(Between Seattle and Tacoma)
EAST HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
25650 124th Ave SE, Kent, Washington 98030 PH: 253-631-2565
SS...9:45AM Sun Morn...11:00AM Sun Eve...6:00PM Wed Eve... 7:15PM
Preaching a Living Christ Bible Institute - Master’s Club Pastor John Steen Bus Ministry - Youth Ministry
to a Dying World
2501 Northshore Blvd., Flower Mound, Texas 75028
(972) 874-8700
Jim
Jim Lamb
Lamb
Pastor
Pastor
Sunday School..........10:00 AM
Morning Service ......11:00 AM
Evening Service ........6:00 PM
Wednesday Service ....7:00 PM
Deaf Ministry • Traditional Hymns
www.garthroadbaptist.com
www.easthillbaptist.org
123 ANY ROAD YOUR TOWN, AB 12345
CHURCH PHONE (123) 456-7890
www.yourchurch.com
Loving Christ & Making Him Known
K4 through 12th
Traditional
Off FM 2499—Long Prairie Road; Minutes from DFW Airport
and
Reformers
Unanimous
Your Baptist Church
Temple Christian Academy
Visit us at: www.templebc.org
Home of
Lighthouse
Baptist Academy
Your Church Could Be Here
A Place To Call Home
Dr. Richard L. Wallace, Sr.
Founder/Pastor
Fundamental
KENT, WASHINGTON
12501 Champion Forest Dr. • Houston, TX 77066 Office • 281-866-8377
On the Fast Growing North Side of Dallas, TX
•
8622 Garth Road • Baytown, TX 77521
Phone: 281-421-5728
Service Schedule
Your Pastor
Sunday School......9:00 A.M. Sunday Morning......10:00 A.M.
Sunday Evening......5:00 P.M. Wednesday......7:00 P.M.
Now available in BLACK / WHITE or COLOR
619 WAGNER ROAD, BRISTOL, VIRGINIA 24201
276•669•4023
Listen to radio by logging onto www.bellemeadows.org
Home of Belle Meadows Baptist College
SERVICES
Sun. School ..........10:00 A.M.
Sun. Morning.......11:00 A.M.
Sun. Evening........ 6:00 P.M.
Wed. Teen/Children’s
Program ............... 7:00 P.M.
Wed. Evening....... 7:00 P.M.
Pastor
Dewey W. Williams
22
1
SWORD OF THE LORD
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1 “fine flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and
one ___ of oil” (Lev. 14)
4 “He esteemeth iron as ___ ,
and brass as rotten wood”
(Job 41)
9 “prosper and be in health,
even ___ thy soul
prospereth” (III John)
12 “sent to Jeroboam king of
Israel, saying, ___ hath
conspired” (Amos 7)
14 “upon mount Zion shall be
deliverance, and ___ shall
be holiness” (Obad.)
15 “Christ both died, and ___ ,
and revived, that he might
be Lord” (Rom. 14)
17 “Christ ___ me not to
baptize, but to preach the
gospel” (I Cor. 1)
18 “Servants have ___ over us:
there is none that doth
deliver us” (Lam. 5)
43
44
46
69
CLUES ACROSS
40
1
67
by Emory Ediger
[email protected]
16
1
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Crossword
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19 “beareth false witness
against his neighbour is a
___ , and a sword” (Prov. 25)
20 “The former ___ have I
made, O Theophilus, of all”
(Acts 1)
22 “he might have ministered
unto me in the bonds of the
___” (Philem.)
24 “send Lazarus, that he may
dip the ___ of his finger in
water” (Luke 16)
25 “That the ___ men be sober,
grave, temperate” (Titus 2)
27 “___ with bread, and a
bottle of wine, and a kid,
and sent them” (I Sam. 16)
30 “that which is good to the
___ of edifying, that it may
minister” (Eph. 4)
31 “bake twelve cakes thereof:
two tenth ___ shall be in
one cake” (Lev. 24)
36 “all that handle the ___ , the
mariners, and all the pilots
of the sea” (Ezek. 27)
37 “I will very gladly spend
and be ___ for you”
(II Cor. 12)
39 “he uttereth his mischie-
52
54
55
59
64
65
67
68
69
70
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vous desire: so they ___ it
up” (Mic. 7)
“they said one to another,
Behold, this ___ cometh”
(Gen. 37)
“Let no man ___ you by any
means” (II Thess. 2)
“as I was considering,
behold, an he ___ came
from the west” (Dan. 8)
“they took them wives of
the ___ of Moab” (Ruth 1)
“I trust I shall shortly ___
thee, and we shall speak”
(III John)
“keep fast by my young
men, until they have ___ all
my harvest” (Ruth 2)
“in the clouds, to meet the
Lord in the ___” (I Thess. 4)
“not be found in the bursting of it a ___ to take fire
from the hearth” (Isa. 30)
“pulled away the shoulder,
and stopped their ___ , that
they should not hear”
(Zech. 7)
“let us not be weary in well
doing: for in ___ season we
shall reap” (Gal. 6)
“it is evident that our Lord
___ out of Juda” (Heb. 7)
“beasts, and of birds, and of
___ , and of things in the
sea” (Jas. 3)
“having their conscience
seared with a hot ___”
(I Tim. 4)
“laying ___ all malice, and
all guile, and hypocrisies”
(I Pet. 2)
“also will I punish all those
that ___ on the threshold”
(Zeph. 1)
“leave the seventh year, and
the exaction of every ___”
(Neh. 10)
“the oracle, with the flowers,
and the lamps, and the ___
of gold” (I Kings 7)
“portions to eat, beside that
which cometh of the ___ of
his patrimony” (Deut. 18)
“is it not in your ___ in
comparison of it as
nothing?” (Hag. 2)
“These things saith he
CLASSIFIED ADS
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EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
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WHY NOT SERVE IN A CHRISTIAN MINISTRY?
Pensacola Christian College is seeking qualified
candidates for the following areas: Cabinet Maker,
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Send cover letter, résumé and brief testimonial
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TAMPA, FLORIDA
We are seeking résumés for the following positions: Cook, Maintenance personnel and H.S.
Teacher for Math and Science. Competitive
salary, housing and benefits. Please respond at
HopeChildrensHome.org/ministry-openings
INTERESTED IN SERVING IN A CHRISTIAN
TEXTBOOK MINISTRY?
A Beka Book is seeking candidates for the position of Educational Consultant. Visit
www.abekaservices.com for more information.
Send résumé and brief testimonial to Employee
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WHY NOT TEACH IN A CHRISTIAN MINISTRY?
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Send cover letter, résumé and brief testimonial
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ATTENTION MOMS AND DADS
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LIBRARY FOR SALE
Five thousand books and booklets, with over 50
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2252 W. Oaklawn Dr., Decatur, IL 62526.
Phone: 217-423-4303 or 217-454-7040
USED BOOKS FOR SALE
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SERVICES PROVIDED
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February 26, 2016
which hath the sharp sword
with two ___” (Rev. 2)
73 “The shield of his mighty
men is made ___” (Nah. 2)
CLUES DOWN
1 “rejoiced in the Lord greatly,
that now at the ___ your
care of me hath flourished”
(Phil. 4)
2 “Now an ___ is the tenth
part of an ephah” (Exod. 16)
3 “because many false
prophets are ___ out into
the world” (I John 4)
4 “Lest I ___ her naked, and
set her as in the day that
she was born” (Hos. 2)
5 “therefore ___ saith the
LORD of hosts; Consider
your ways” (Hag. 1)
6 “he made a ___ to the
provinces, and gave gifts”
(Esther 2)
7 “deceivers ___ entered into
the world, who confess not
that Jesus Christ is come”
(II John)
8 “the silver, and the garment,
and the ___ of gold” (Isa. 13)
9 “I have bound and strengthened their ___ , yet do they
imagine mischief” (Hos. 7)
10 “for he is like a refiner’s
fire, and like fullers’ ___”
(Mal. 3)
11 “I will ___ your sons and
your daughters into the
hand of the children of
Judah” (Joel 3)
13 “All my ___ shall Tychicus
declare unto you” (Col. 4)
16 “if any man will ___ thee at
the law, and take away thy
coat” (Matt. 5)
21 “gold, and the silver, the
brass, the iron, the ___ , and
the lead” (Num. 31)
23 “the money, wherewith the
___ number of them is to
be redeemed” (Num. 3)
26 “unlearned questions avoid,
knowing that they do ___
strifes” (II Tim. 2)
27 “let us go forth into the
field; let us ___ in the
villages” (Song of Sol. 7)
28 “the son of Phinehas, the
son of Eleazar, the son of
___ the chief priest” (Ezra 7)
29 “be strong, and of good
courage; ___ not, nor be
dismayed” (I Chron. 22)
30 “Not on the feast day, lest
there be an ___ of the
people” (Mark 14)
32 “the poor man had nothing,
33
34
35
37
38
41
45
48
50
51
53
54
55
56
57
58
60
61
62
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save one little ___ lamb”
(II Sam. 12)
“until the day dawn, and
the day star ___ in your
hearts” (II Pet. 1)
“the borders of the bases,
and removed the ___ from
off them” (II Kings 16)
“he that biddeth him God
___ is partaker of his evil
deeds” (II John)
“A time to rend, and a time
to ___; a time to keep
silence” (Eccles. 3)
“the Lord cometh with ___
thousands of his saints”
(Jude)
“joined themselves also
unto Baalpeor, and ___ the
sacrifices” (Ps. 106)
“we hurt them not, neither
was there ought ___ unto
them” (I Sam. 25)
“O king, he shall be cast
into the ___ of lions”
(Dan. 6)
“their faces shall ___ up as
the east wind” (Hab. 1)
“are thy skirts discovered,
and thy ___ made bare”
(Jer. 13)
“And the third row a ligure,
an ___ , and an amethyst”
(Exod. 28)
“put him into the garden of
Eden to ___ it and to keep
it” (Gen. 2)
“pierced his ___ , and forthwith came there out blood
and water” (John 19)
“it is all full of lies and
robbery; the ___ departeth
not” (Nah. 3)
“he arose from his throne,
and he laid his ___ from
him” (Jonah 3)
“The ___ are a people not
strong, yet they prepare”
(Prov. 30)
“not whet the ___ , then
must he put to more
strength” (Eccles. 10)
“the day of the LORD is ___
upon all the heathen”
(Obad.)
“ministering vessels, that
they should bring them in
and out by ___” (I Chron. 9)
“Have they not ___? have
they not divided the prey”
(Judg. 5)
“the other holy offerings
___ they in pots, and in
caldrons” (II Chron. 35)
(Answers on page 16)
David Brainerd’s Greatest Work
David Brainerd did his greatest work by prayer. He was in the
depths of the forest alone, unable to speak the language of the
Indians; but he spent whole days in prayer.
For what was he praying? He knew that he could not reach
those savages. He did not understand their language. If he
wanted to speak at all, he must find somebody who would
vaguely interpret his thought. Therefore, he knew that anything he might do must be absolutely dependent upon the
power of God. So he spent whole days praying simply that the
power of the Holy Ghost might come upon him so unmistakably that these people should not be able to stand before him.
How did God answer? Once he preached through a drunken
interpreter, a man so intoxicated that he could hardly stand
up. That was the best he could do. Yet scores were converted
through that sermon.
We cannot account for it except that it was the tremendous
power of God behind him.
After Brainerd was dead, William Carey read his life and
went to India; Robert McCheyne read his diary and went to the
Jews; Henry Martyn read his journal and went to India. The
hidden life in communion with God in trying to reach the
Source of power is the life that moves the world.
—S. D. Gordon
February 26, 2016
Selling Out Too Cheap
Often man has been known to
sell his fellowman, but here is a
man who has sold himself. Marvel
of folly—a king who sold himself
for a plot of land! He sold out too
cheap.
Ahab was king of Israel in the
days of Elijah, the prophet of God.
He was married to a wicked, heathen woman, Jezebel. He was
weak, sinful, idolatrous, covetous.
Naboth was a law-abiding citizen whose only fault was that he
owned a vineyard that was a bit
too beautiful and lay a bit too
near the palace of the king.
Sold Out for Property
Ahab desired the vineyard of
Naboth of Jezreel that lay hard by
the side of his palace. He offered
to buy it or to give for it a better
vineyard in exchange. Naboth refused to sell his vineyard; he
would not go against divine law
and part with the inheritance of
his fathers. So Ahab went home
and pouted.
When Jezebel learned that the
king was sick from his greed, that
he lay upon his bed and refused to
eat, she came gliding to his bedchamber with serpentine grace
and silken rustle—with all the wiles
of an enchantress. She consoled
him, and perchance she mocked
him.
What! Could not he, the king of
Israel, take what he wanted? Was
he to be pushed around by one
of his subjects? He need have no
fear. She was the queen. She would
get the land for him. She would
give it to him.
But wait! She forgets that there
is a God of justice.
Treachery unexcelled! Underhanded scheming unparalleled!
Crooked deception, murderous
planning! A fast is proclaimed.
Naboth is set on high among the
people. It is the day of his honor.
How happy he must have been,
and how proud his wife!
But was there a tiny bit of fear
in her heart? Were there faint
misgivings that she crowded back
and refused to recognize?
There were men sent to bear
witness, witness false poisoned
with the darts of Satan—men of
SWORD OF THE LORD
Belial who would lie a man to
bloody, brutal death for a price.
“He blasphemed God and the
king! He blasphemed God and the
king!” they cry, and there are none
to testify on Naboth’s behalf. There
is no fair trial. They carry Naboth
out. They stone him. He dies!
The king smiles. He has sold
Naboth to blood. He does not
yet know that he has sold himself
to blood also. With force of will
he stills the warning bell of conscience. He has sold out too
cheap. He has exchanged his soul
for a piece of property. What a
poor bargain! He has given up the
evergreen fields of Heaven for the
fleeting glimpse of a weed- and
thorn-infested garden that he
must leave when he dies.
Ahab is happy now, as happy as
a man who murders can be. The
vineyard he coveted is his. He is
going down to take possession.
He has had his way.
But God! Ahab hears a footfall
behind him. He turns but there is
none there. Can it be that Naboth
has come again to walk along this
path where he trod so oft in life?
Ahab shrugs. It is nought but
imagination. He will look and enjoy
the beauties of his vineyard. Then
he starts when he looks before
him; for there in the pathway stands
Elijah, the prophet of God.
The king stands still and then
turns pale as death when Elijah
speaks:
phat, king of Judah, go forth to war
against Syria. Ahab is wounded
to the death. He dies and the dogs
lick his blood. His chickens have
come home to roost. He sold out
too cheap.
Property is not the only thing
for which a man will sell his soul.
There are many others who sell
out too cheap for other reasons.
Sold Out for Riches
There was a rich man. He dwelt
in a palatial home surrounded by
broad, sprawling acres of fertile
land. His grain, ripe to the harvest,
was like a golden ocean with golden wavelets that rippled before
the passing breeze. But alas, his
barns were too small.
There is no wrong in a man’s
being prosperous. Industry is a
virtue rather than a vice. There is
no wrong in a man’s conserving
his harvest. Yet this rich man was
condemned when he said, “I will
pull down my barns, and build
greater; and there will I bestow
all my fruits and my goods” (Luke
12:18).
No wrong in that. But hark, the
rich man speaks again: “Soul, thou
hast much goods laid up for many
years; take thine ease, eat, drink,
and be merry” (vs. 19). Ah, now
we see his sin. He was a materialist. He would feed his soul upon
things, things material.
He sold out for profit. He allowed his business to come between him and his God. He has
sold out too cheap.
What a tragedy that many will
allow the property that we call
riches in this world to deprive them
of true riches forever!
“Thus saith the LORD, Hast thou
killed, and also taken possession?
And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, In the place
where dogs licked the blood of
Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood,
even thine.
Sold Out for Pleasure
“And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou
There are those who sell out not
found me, O mine enemy? And he
for
property or for profit but for
answered, I have found thee: because
pleasure.
thou hast sold thyself to work evil in
A king is celebrating his birththe sight of the LORD.”—Vss. 19, 20.
day. He will have nothing to inGod has spoken. Ahab sold out terfere with his pleasure. When
too cheap. He sold his soul for the evangelist, John the Baptist,
property. He must pay a price, told him it was wrong for him to
and so must Jezebel who stirred have his brother’s wife, he had
him up to commit his awful sin.
John committed to prison.
He would have no preacher tell
“But there was none like unto
Ahab, which did sell himself to work him of his sin. He was the kind
wickedness in the sight of the LORD, who would silence the fire alarm
whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.”— and stop the sirens of the officers
of justice. Like Hitler, he would
Vs. 25.
hear no news that was ill news.
Three years pass; and Ahab, king
He would not accept the truth.
of Israel, with his ally, JehoshaCertainly he would have no
preacher tell him of his sins.
A little dancing maid performed
upon the floor before Herod the
king at his birthday celebration.
Herod clapped his hands with
glee. He was so carried away in
that moment of pleasure that he
made a foolish promise. To keep
that promise he had to behead
the preacher, John.
He was not the only one who
disliked
a man who would tell the
WND.com (February 12, 2016) reports that “a recent survey from
YouGov found youthful voters in greater numbers are coming truth. The mother of the little dancaround to the idea of socialism; and in fact, more in the age range ing girl knew Herod’s weakness
of 18–29 actually regarded the socialist way of politicking as supe- for pleasure. She laid the trap for
him treacherously, even as Jezebel
rior to the system of capitalism.”…
stirred up Ahab; and Herod like a
“Fully 43 percent of those in the age range of 18 to 29 said they
blind ox stumbled into the trap.
viewed socialism in a favorable light; only 26 percent in that same
Now he must bring the head of
age category saw it unfavorably.
the prophet, gory, dripping blood,
“In the 30 to 44 age range, 27 percent viewed socialism favorably, and serve it on a charger to the
compared to 50 percent, unfavorably; in the 45 to 64 age group, 27 damsel.
percent, favorably, 54 percent, unfavorably; and in the over 65 age
He sold out for pleasure. He sold
grouping, 23 percent saw it in favorable terms versus 60 percent,
out too cheap. Ever after he must
unfavorably.”…
live in fear. When he heard of the
Living in the most prosperous nation in history has spoiled an en- miracles that Jesus did, he betire generation into believing that what was earned by the “blood, lieved that John had arisen from
sweat and tears” of older generations should be given to them the dead. To live in fear, to die in
freely without having to shed one drop of blood, sweat or tears.
fear—what tragedy! He sold out
—Dr. Ron Baity, RETURN AMERICA
too cheap.
EDITOR’S COMMENTS: From kindergarten through graduate
school, the present generation has been spoonfed on dissident Sold Out for Politics
philosophies that undermine our cherished way of life. HollyThis still is not all for which a
wood, the networks, social media, the ACLU, and any number of man will sell his soul. Let us obothers have been hard at work; and obviously they are achieving serve Pilate, another example of
some success.
one who sold out too cheap.
Young Adults Increasingly Favor
Socialism Over Capitalism
23
Asleep Between the Tracks
Dr. John McNeill once told a group of
ministers how he had come upon a drunken man fast asleep between the railway
tracks—and the midnight express was due.
“What would you have done?” he demanded of the ministers.
One answered, “Man, I would get him
off the track. I would not be mild in dealing
with him. I would not invite him to get himself off. I would be rough and seize him and
by main strength drag him off though I
dropped exhausted by his side.”
“Even so,” said McNeill, “that is the state
of every unsaved soul—asleep between the
tracks, and God’s judgment express is almost due.”
Pilate was a politician. He wanted power, favor. One day he found
himself with Jesus on his hands.
He faced the question that every
individual must face: “What shall
I do then with Jesus which is
called Christ?” (Matt. 27:22). He
must choose between that which
was right and that which would
give him favor with Caesar.
He knew Jesus was innocent; “I
find no fault in him” (John 19:4),
his verdict. He was warned by his
wife, “Have thou nothing to do
with that just man” (Matt. 27:19);
yet he was like putty in the hands
of the angry populace when they
cried, “If thou let this man go,
thou art not Caesar’s friend” (John
19:12).
So Pilate sold out and sealed
the contract of his doom when
he washed his hands before the
mob.
world and glory inexpressible in
the world to come.
Sell out to Jesus and you make
a good bargain. No one will ever
accuse you of selling out too
cheap.
Sold Out for Popularity
To Whom Will You Sell Out?
There are many who sell out
for popularity. They want to be
applauded by their crowd. They
turn Jesus down in order to be
good sports. Hungry-hearted yet
with hollow, mocking laughter,
they go on their way to destruction. They sell out too cheap.
The choice is yours. If you say
yes to Satan, you may or may not
realize all the world has to offer a
person; but when you die, you
will go to an eternal Hell. If you
say yes to Jesus Christ, no matter
what transpires in your earthly life,
you will have a home forever
with Him in Heaven.
About two thousand years ago,
Jesus Christ, God the Son, died
on the cross and thereby paid the
debt for our sins. He was buried
and rose again on the third day,
triumphant over sin, death, Satan,
and all his minions.
If you will simply trust Jesus
Christ as your own personal Saviour, He will save you and take
you to Heaven when you die.
John 3:36 says, “He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life:
and he that believeth not the Son
shall not see life; but the wrath of
God abideth on him.”
Will you call upon Him now?
From your heart say this prayer
sincerely and with a repentant
spirit.
Sold Out Too Cheap
Call the roll. Every lost person
has his price—selling out for something, selling out too cheap. What
is your price, my friend? Count the
cost. Which is of more value, the
price for which you sell or the soul
and the eternity you sell?
If Satan should come to you at
the midnight hour; if you should
sense his presence in your room;
if you should feel cold chills streaking up your back like a dozen
lizards fresh from the ice; if Satan
should speak in a voice that would
make every hair stand on end, in
a voice that would make you think
the lizards were tangling in your
hair; if Satan should offer to buy
your soul, what would be your
price?
Think of your besetting sin, the
one sin that keeps you from God.
That is the price of your soul. But
suppose Satan should offer you
all the gold in the world; suppose
he should guarantee that you
would live another fifty years; suppose somehow you could trust
that unworthy paragon of corruption—would you sell out for
fifty years with all the gold in the
world?
Would you sign a mortgage on
your soul for that price? I think I
can hear you shouting, “No!” with
all the force of your being. Yet you
sell out for less. You sell out too
cheap.
Suppose Satan should add to his
offer. Suppose you are so numb
with fear you cannot speak. You
only shake your head in negation. Satan goes on adding to his
offer. He will give all the gold, all
the silver, all the jewels, yea, all
the world.
Suppose you should trade. “For
what is a man profited, if he shall
gain the whole world, and lose his
own soul? or what shall a man give
in exchange for his soul?” (Matt.
16:26). Again I ask, Would you sell
your soul?
Would you sell your soul for
fifty years’ guaranteed life with the
world at your feet, knowing that
in fifty years the Devil will foreclose the mortgage? You answer,
“No!” Yet you are not a Christian!
You are selling out too cheap.
There is another who bids for
your soul. Jesus comes gently,
lovingly, tenderly, pleadingly. He
makes His offer. If you will sell out
to Him, He will give you eternal
life. He will give happiness in this
Dear God, I’m a sinner headed for Hell, and I need to be
saved. I cannot save myself, but
I know You can do it for me. I
do believe that Jesus in His
death, burial and resurrection
paid my sin debt and purchased
salvation for me. I believe it,
and right now I submit myself
in full trust to Him. Please, God,
forgive my sin and save me. In
Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
If you have at this moment
turned to Christ in faith and received Him as Saviour, would you
fill out the decision form and mail
it to me so that I can pray for your
success in your new Christian life?
Decision Form
Dr. Shelton Smith
Sword of the Lord
PO Box 1099
Murfreesboro, TN 37133-1099
[email protected]
Dear Dr. Smith,
I have read the pointed sermon
“Selling Out Too Cheap” by
Louis W. Arnold. Realizing I am a
sinner and believing Jesus Christ
died and rose again for me, I here
and now trust Him as my own
personal Saviour.
Please pray for me as I set out
to live the Christian life.
Date _________________
Name________________________
Address ______________________
_____________________________
E-mail _______________________
24
SWORD OF THE LORD
February 26, 2016

I`ve Fallen - Sword of the Lord

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