“’They must repent and turn themselves from their idols, or nothing could avail to avert God’s judgment. Though Noah and Samuel and Job had made intercession, it would not have induced the Lord to withdraw from the conflict. They must forsake their idols and return to Jehovah.’ Those words were written almost a century ago, yet they are as true and pertinent now as they were then, for they enunciate an abiding principle. God will not wink at sin or gloss over evil doing. Whether He is dealing in judgment with an individual or with a nation, that which has…
Sunday Morning Calls to Worship
Call To Worship June 11 2017
“Equally striking is it to observe the particular person whom God selected to entertain Elijah. It was not a rich merchant or one of the chief men of Zidon, but a poor widow—desolate and dependent—who was made both willing and able to minister unto him. It is usually God’s way, and to His glory, to make use of and place honour upon “the weak and foolish things of this world.” In commenting upon the “ravens” which brought bread and flesh to the Prophet while he sojourned by the brook, we called attention to the sovereignty of God and the strangeness…
Call To Worship June 4 2017
“Instead of a river God often gives us a brook, which may be running today and dried up tomorrow. Why? To teach us not to rest in our blessings, but in the Blesser Himself. Yet is it not at this very point that we so often fail—our hearts being far more occupied with the gifts than with the Giver? Is not this just the reason why the Lord will not trust us with a river?—because it would unconsciously take His place in our hearts. “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered…
Call to Worship April 28, 2017
“The task which now confronted Elijah was no ordinary one, and it called for more than common courage. For an untutored rustic of the hills to appear uninvited before a king who defied heaven was sufficient to quell the bravest…What likelihood, then, was there of this lonely Gileadite escaping with his life? “But the righteous are bold as a lion” (Pro 28:1)…The hour for the execution of his stem task had arrived, and Elijah leaves his home in Gilead to deliver unto Ahab his message of judgment. Picture him on his long and lonely journey. What were the subjects which…
Call To Worship May 7 2017
“It was openly declared that Baal lived and that Jehovah ceased to be. What a shocking state of things had come to pass…Defiance of the Lord God and blatant wickedness had now reached its culminating point…Now it was in the midst of this spiritual darkness and degradation there appeared on the stage of public action, with dramatic suddenness, a solitary but striking witness to and for the living God. An eminent commentator began his remarks upon 1 Kings 17 by saying, “the most illustrious Prophet Elijah was raised up in the reign of the most wicked of the kings of…
Call To Worship April 16 2017
“The proverb has it that Hunger is the best cook. The Law makes afflicted consciences hungry for Christ. Christ tastes good to them. Hungry hearts appreciate Christ. Thirsty souls are what Christ wants. He invites them: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Christ’s benefits are so precious that He will dispense them only to those who need them and really desire them.” Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians
Call To Worship March 26 2017
“We observe a certain assumption operating in [Joshua] 4:1-10, namely, that the greatest enemy of faith may be forgetfulness (cf. Deut. 8). Just as in marriage, the real threat may not be infidelity but simply a slow process of forgetting and a gradual failure to remember the preciousness of the other person. So, Joshua says, you must remember what Yahweh has done; and these stones are to serve as visual aids to that end.” (Dale Ralph Davis, Joshua: No Falling Words, [Christian Focus, 2000], pg. 39.)
Call To Worship March 19 2017
“By reconciliation is meant the whole work of redemption. The Scripture has various terms for our recovery by Christ, which all amount to one thing, but imply the variety of our misery by sin, and the full proportion of the remedy to all our capacities in that misery. Our fall put us under various relations; our Saviour has cut those knots, and tied new ones of a contrary nature. It is called reconciliation as it respects us as enemies, salvation as it respects us in a state of damnation, propitiation as we are guilty, redemption as captives, and bound over…
Call To Worship March 12 2017
“Reconciliation is the reintegration of friendship between parties before at variance, both parties being properly said to be reconciled, even both he that offends and he that is offended…Reconciliation is the renewing of lost friendship, the slaying of enmity, the making up of peace, the appeasing of God, and turning away of his wrath.” (John Owen, Death of Death in the Death of Christ, ch. IV.)
Call To Worship March 5 2017
“2 Cor. 5:18-19, These words are small in bulk, but great in mystery, it is the heads of the gospel in a nut-shell; the most sparkling diamond in the whole golden ring of Scripture. It comprehends the counsels of eternity and the transactions of time. A wonder in heaven, God bringing forth a man-child to be a propitiation for sin, which was the Jews’ stumbling-block and the Gentiles’ scoff. 1 Cor. i. 23, 24; but wherein the wisdom and grace of God’s counsel in heaven, and the power of his actions on earth, clearly shine forth in the face of…