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The Lord's Day Passages Sunday, July 13th, anno Domini 2008 (Order of Worship)
(Bulletins are available the Thursday preceding the coming Lord’s Day.)
"And on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment" (Luke 23: 56b).
“Do you thus repay the Lord, O foolish and unwise people? Is not He your Father who has bought you? He has made you and established you” (Deuteronomy 32:6).
Every person comes into this world enslaved to worldliness – he is enslaved to the one he obeys (Ro. 6:16-18). He must be redeemed from obedience to worldliness. Since money is the supreme commander and monarch of this world, man labors under the assumption that he can buy his way into heaven via his good works or his lack of wicked works.
Scores of church-goers with financial means perceive that their economic prosperity is a sign of God’s pleasure upon them. They believe their worldly currency will escort them into the presence of the King of kings when the time is ripe. They recognize no advantage in the blessing of sanctified scarcity.
The prince of death has kidnapped fallen man and the ransom demanded is the soul of the one kidnapped. The ransom must be given to God for the soul of every heavenling because those occupying heaven have sinned against God’s holiness and payment must be made. Nevertheless, worldly shekels are insufficient for trading in eternal matters. Their currency lacks currency with God, for as William S. Plumer declared, “Death laughs at bags of gold.”
The sweet psalmist writes, “But God will redeem my soul” (Ps. 4915). Can you conceive of two more moving words than “But God?” The summit of all life is contained in the exclamation, “But God! – for “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28). God Himself pays the ransom His holiness demands. Adam’s depraved race becomes children of glory, partakers of the divine nature, receivers of the hidden manna, and the white stone.
All of this is accomplished through a thorough redemption not “with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (I Pe. 1:18f.). The blood of Christ is the only currency of value in death’s sanctuary. Death’s mouth will not be stopped and death cannot be bought off. In the last day, every man shall be separated from life’s socio-economic distinctions. A wasted life cannot be lived again, but one who has wasted his life can be born again (Jn. 3:3; I Pe. 1:23).
The King of the kingdom graces the kingdom with kingdom dwellers because He is rich in mercy (Eph. 2:4). Has He a housing for you in everlasting mansions of grace?
“No man can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him – for the redemption of his soul is costly, and he should cease trying forever – But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol; for He will receive me” (Ps. 49:7f., 15).
SOLI DEO GLORIA!
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*Please Note: There will be no study on July 9th and 10th.*
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