BIBLE CLASS- 10:00 AM

Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus- Luke 16:19-31

MORNING WORSHIP- 11:00 AM

Scripture Reading/Prayer: Psalm 145 (David)

Call to Worship: ‘Long as I live, I’ll bless Thy name’

Scripture Reading/Prayer: 2 Kings 13 (Mike)

Hymn: #277-‘O Thou, In Whose Presence My Soul Takes Delight’

Message: ‘THE COMFORTER’S WORK- John 16:7-33

Hymn: #192- ‘According to Thy Gracious Word

THE LORD’S TABLE

Hymn: #67- ‘How Can It Be?’

FELLOWSHIP MEAL- 12:00 PM

CONTACT INFORMATION

PO Box 5028, Shreveport, LA 71135

hat a wonderful book is God's Bible--as opened to the heart by the Spirit! Christ is the key which fits every lock, both in the book and in the heart. "When the Counselor comes, the One I will send to you from the Father--the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father--He will testify about Me." John 15:26 Adorable Immanuel, Moses wrote of You, the Psalms and prophets speak of You. Open my dull understanding to discern You through the types and through the shadows. Show Yourself through these lattices, and open my heart to receive You experimentally in all. Eternity will be too short to utter half Your praise. Oh, cause me to lisp it more constantly and feelingly in the low notes of the wilderness!

"Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all the truth, for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. HE SHALL GLORIFY ME: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you" John 16:13

asn’t the Spirit of God already in the world before Christ died on the cross? Most definitely yes! We see Him first mentioned in Genesis 1:2 in the creation of the world, ‘moving upon the waters.’ He was the Spirit of faith then as now. Apart from the Spirit of God regenerating sinners in the Old Testament, none could have believed on the Christ who was to come, being otherwise dead in their sins. It was not just that the Spirit came upon them, but Peter affirmed that ‘the very Spirit of Christ was IN them,’ 1 Peter 1:11. It was the very same Spirit of Christ, which regenerates, illumines, and draws sinners to Him today, that was at work in them, ‘testifying BEFOREHAND the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should FOLLOW.’

So when our Lord said, ‘when He, the Spirit of truth IS COME,’ He was clearly speaking of the presence of the Spirit in the world as an ADVOCATE, v. 7 (the meaning of ‘comforter’) attesting to the work that Christ came and accomplished by His death, to satisfy God’s law and justice on behalf of sinner’s whom He had eternally chosen by His electing grace in Christ, Eph. 1:4-14. Christ is not referring here to His work of regeneration as being new, but the Spirit’s very presence in the world attesting and confirming (which an advocate does) that indeed what God the Father purposed from eternity, Christ has accomplished in putting away the sin of His people, and the Father justifying them in one simultaneous act by His death on the cross. What the Spirit had regenerated those of the Old Testament to know and believe through Promise (Galatians 3:18), his presence now testifies as FULFILLED- FINISHED ONCE FOR ALL.

The revelation of Christ’s death by the Spirit of God is essential to the comfort and consolation of those for whom Christ died- v. 7. This order is vital in our understanding of the relationship of the Father in election, the Son in redemption and justification, and the Spirit in regeneration and the revelation of that righteousness -PURPOSED by the Father, IMPUTED at the Son’s death, and REVEALED by the Spirit.

“BUT God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (BY GRACE YE ARE SAVED),” Ephesians 2:4,5

es, He is rich in mercy, but how can mercy be bestowed on one who is not a sinner? How could the great richness of God’s mercy ever have been manifested without a transgressor? But man transgressed and now God can “make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had AFORE PREPARED unto glory,” Romans 9:23. Yet notwithstanding the greatness of God’s love, and the richness of His mercy, they must have been forever unknown and unappreciated if man had not become a sinner.

The two most glorious attributes, however, could not reach the case of, nor benefit a sinner at the expense or exclusion of justice. Justice in its greatness could not be manifested in a world of sinless, upright beings, but when man transgressed, she laid her iron hand upon him, and neither love nor mercy could reach him except through justice. Behold what UNRELENTING JUSTICE! Before she will swerve one jot or one tittle, she will take the heir of heaven, the only Son of the Supreme Judge Himself, who sits upon the great white throne, and slay HIM for the crimes committed!

Love and mercy (guided by wisdom) offered HIM as a ransom. Justice, guided by wisdom, accepted Him in behalf of all for whom He became a Surety. But God continues to show His wrath and make His power known on the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. Through all of this we can see God in His true character. His attributes are most gloriously manifested in the creation of the world and His dealing with sinners.