Hello All,
Rain and heat and then more rain. Here is this week’s bulletin. See you Sunday.
Pastor Dave
As each petition is expressed for His dear people, our Lord seems to open out His whole heart afresh, and this shows how dearly He loved them, how fully He knew them, and how deeply intent He was upon providing for all their need, for all their cases of difficulty, and for all their circumstances of sorrow. Our Lord Jesus Christ could not express more; nor could His disciples, under any circumstances that ever might arise in their earthly history, need more than our blessed Lord asks for them. His petitions were not for His disciples alone, “but for them also which should believe on Him through their word”; and they embrace every blessing of the Father’s everlasting love. Yet methinks the words we have just now read must have sounded very strangely in their ears, “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world.”
“Perhaps it may have occurred to us as exceedingly strange, perplexing, and mysterious, that we should find ourselves in a world such as this, in which we are subject to evil thoughts and evil desires; prone in ourselves to what is evil, and impotent for anything that is good, surrounded on every side by difficulties and temptations, —fightings without and fears within: where we are constantly solicited by an evil heart of unbelief to do what we ought not to do, and to be what we ought not to be —a world which is filled with the peculiar attractions suited to our fallen corrupt nature; where we have to “Wrestle not only against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
“And yet hear Him, “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world.” Under all these circumstances, we might have thought His prayer would have been exactly the opposite; we might have expected Him to say, “Father, remove My redeemed ones, translate My treasured portion from the world’s corrupted and corrupting atmosphere, from a scene where tears and conflicts and tribulations and failures, and humiliations, and distresses will surround them on every side; Father, I have revealed Thy love to them, I have fulfilled Thy law, I have magnified Thy name, I have brought in everlasting righteousness, I have entitled Thee to send them the Holy Ghost, and to make them Thy living temples, I have purchased and bequeathed to them their inheritance; and now, Father, translate them that they may be with Myself, where no tears can dim their eyes, where no sorrow can chill their hearts, and where Thou art all and in all!” We might suppose that this would have been the Lord’s prayer, but He does not desire it; on the contrary, He distinctly states, “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world.”
“We may learn here at the outset, how very little qualified we are to judge of the ways of God in His dealings with His people; how very little we can understand or fathom the depths of His wisdom, His love, and His goodness; nay, how very much we are in danger, if we keep not closely to His word, of misunderstanding His dealings with us.”
“Truly, there must be many and potent reasons why, under all these circumstances, we should be left here. However, of one thing we may be quite sure, it is for the glory of the Lord we are here, in the world; and if so, depend upon it we are not here at our own charges, depend upon it we are not left to battle in our own strength, nor are we here without the sympathy of Him who is love itself, nor without the saving help of His right hand.”
Excerpt From Our Lord Prays for His Own: Thoughts on John 17- Marcus Rainsford
https://books.apple.com/us/book/our-lord-prays-for-his-own-thoughts-on-john-17/id989980206
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Hello to You,
I hope you are enjoying this beautiful summer weather. Our crops and gardens are enjoying these timely rains which show the amazing care our Sovereign Lord has over his creation. Praise his holy name. Here is this week’s bulletin.
Pastor Dave
Hi All,
Oops. Yes I forgot to post the bulletin yesterday. But here it is now.
Pastor Dave