A Fifty-year-old Decision

"People do not accidentally attend worship without missing one worship service for twenty years.  They must have planned always to attend.  Soon after I obeyed the gospel in the fall of 1909, I read of an old brother who had not missed going to worship a single Sunday in 41 years.  That story caused me to resolve and to purpose in my heart that I would never miss the worship on a single Lord's Day as long as I lived, if possible to attend.  I have missed four Sundays in over fifty years, and then it was because of illness.

Once I made that decision, the question has not come up as to whether I would attend church services or not.  In fact, I did not decide last Lord's Day to go to worship, nor the Sunday before.  That decision was made more than fifty years ago. 

“It is a sin for any member of the church to miss the worship unless he is unable to attend.  The very nature of our religion is such that those who feel this is a burden need to be converted."

 Gus Nichols

Mother's Day

Today is the day we mortals have agreed upon to honor the most wonderful human being in our lives—our sweet, precious mother. There can be no reasonable doubt but what God wants us to love, honor, and cherish our mothers (Ephesians 6:1-3). While every day should be Mother’s Day, we certainly are not opposed to setting aside one particular day just for her. As a matter of fact, we think it is a splendid idea. Let us make sure our mothers know how special they are and how much we love and appreciate them. Let us do something really special for them on their day.

No one has had a greater influence in molding our lives than our mothers. Someone has determined that from the time we are born until we are twenty-one we are awake 105,000 hours. We spend approximately 10,000 hours in the school room and 2,100 hours in Bible classes, which leaves 93,000 hours under the direct supervision of our parents. Since the father is generally the bread winner and a survey some time ago revealed that the average American father spends only seven minutes per week alone with his teenage children, most of those 93,000 hours are spent under the supervision of our mothers. Indeed the hand which rocks the cradle rules the world. Abraham Lincoln said, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. I remember her prayers, and they have followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”

One of the great characters of the Bible is the evangelist Timothy. One of the prime ingredients which made him a dependable servant of God was the influence of his godly mother and grandmother. For as far back as he could remember, he was taught God’s Word by these two very special women (II Timothy 3:14-15; 1:5). When young mothers decide they want to do something about the preacher and elder shortage in the Lord’s church, they can and will. They have control of a child’s life during the first six years, which are the most formative years of his life.

One of the tragedies of modern America is that so many mothers make up the working force. We certainly do not want to be critical of working mothers because some of them must work. However, if there is any possible way they could be with their children during those formative years, even if they had to do without some of the things they want, we would encourage them to do it. It is far better for mothers to be with their children during those years than it is for them to left in the care of a babysitter or a nursery attendant who only considers it a job.

Author Unknown

Offering the Invitation

On the day of Pentecost, after his sermon, which concluded with the plan of salvation, Peter used “many other words” of exhortation, including the persuasive plea, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” About 3,000 souls responded in obedience (Acts 2:38–41). The Gospel invitation is not as specifically described in other New Testament records of conversion, but can any doubt that those zealous preachers exhorted, persuaded, and invited men to respond in Gospel obedience after they preached to them?

 In spite of both Scriptural example and practical considerations, a move has been underfoot by some brethren for several years to dispense with the invitation. I well remember the pressure put on me to stop extending an invitation at the close of my sermons in a large West Texas congregation soon after I began work there in 1972. The basis of this insistence was that it was only a “human tradition.” That church (as I soon discovered) was (and still is) set on overturning every long-standing practice, even if it was in God’s Word. (I insisted that I would offer the invitation each time I preached as long as I was preaching there, which I did—my entire tenure of seven months there!) That church has moved ever further from the Truth, and it has for decades deceived the public (and perhaps itself) by continuing to employ the Scriptural designation, “Church of Christ” on its property.

 Some preaching brethren have now “outgrown” offering any invitation at all. This is just as well in some cases, I suppose. Some of the “sermons” being “preached” have little in them to produce any conviction of sins that might provoke a public response. Many who still offer an invitation pattern it more after Billy Graham than Simon Peter (e. g., “Come and accept Christ as your personal Savior” or “If you need to respond, please come forward”). If the sermon had nothing to do with the plan of salvation (very likely in such preachers), with such a general invitation how is a sinner to know (1) he needs to respond and (2) what response he should make?

I never assume that everyone in an assembly I address (1) is a Christian, (2) is a faithful Christian, or (3) knows what to do to be saved. Since not every sermon can be on the plan of salvation, I have made it my practice through the years to conclude my sermons with an invitation emphasizing (1) the urgency of being at peace with God through the blood of Christ, (2) what the Lord requires of men for such peace, and (3) the urgency of responding immediately. I plan to persevere in this practice. (Inexperienced speakers sometimes fail in these matters simply because they have not thought them through. However, men who have preached even a few years have no such excuse.)

Dub McClish

It Survives Still!

In I Peter 1:25 the record reveals, “But the Word of the Lord abideth forever, and this is the Word of good tidings which was preached unto you.” As a young preacher I preached a lesson called “3 Reasons Why I Believe The Bible” and later changed it to “7 Reasons Why I Believe The Bible.”

Now as a not so young preacher it is “12 Reasons.” In each outline my final point has remained the same. I believe the Bible to be God’s inspired, inerrant and infallible word because of its indestructibility! The Bible has been subject to attack from without and within. A book written by mere men alone could not have undergone the attacks the Bible has sustained, and still survive!

Consider the persecution of the early Christians for believing the gospel message. Some were burned alive, others were delivered to the lions, still others were crucified, some were placed into leather bags with scorpions and snakes – then thrown into a body of water. The listing could go on. The first translators of the English Bible were persecuted and some martyred for their efforts.

Contemplate the efforts of modernism and liberalism toward the destruction of the Bible. One of their most vicious attacks has been through the modern versions (perversions) of Scripture; whereby they have denied the deity of Christ, the existence of hell, the virgin birth of our Lord, the resurrection, the truth that one day this earth will be burned up, Jesus’ teaching on the subject of divorce, that there is but one church, ad infinitum.

Call to mind the efforts of denominationalism to “kill” the Bible. Both the state and the corrupted church tried to stamp out its influence during the middle ages by openly burning copies of the Bible and subjecting those who owned a copy to severe persecution and sometimes even death. Yet, in spite of all these attacks across the ages – the Bible lives on!

Continually the Bible is attacked from without and within. The Bible still survives! Ingersoll held up a copy of the Bible and said, “In 15 years I’ll have this book in the morgue.” Fifteen years rolled by and Ingersoll was in the morgue – the Grand Old Book lives on. Voltaire said that in one hundred years the Bible would be an outmoded and forgotten book. At the end of that century, Voltaire had died and his house was used by the Geneva Bible Society to print, store and distribute the Bible. Recently in a pulpit in this area a preacher (?) held up a copy of the King James Version and a copy of the New International Version. He adored and praised the NIV – then referring to the KJV he stated the world would be better off if all the copies of it (KJV) could be gathered up and cast into a giant fire. Nobody came to the defense of God’s precious Word that day. But, to this day the Bible remains the #1 best seller and KJV of the Bible outsells all the others (NIV included) combined! The Bible lives on!

Clifford’s poem, “The Hammer and The Anvil” says it...

Last Eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door

And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;

When looking in, I saw upon the floor,

Old hammers worn with beating years of time.

“How many anvils have you had,” said I,

To wear and batter all these hammers so?”

“Just one,” said he, then said with twinkling eye,

“The anvil wears the hammers out you know.”

And so, I thought, the anvil of God’s Word

For ages skeptic’s blows have beat upon;

Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,

The anvil is unharmed – the hammers are gone!

“But the word of the Lord abideth forever...”

Jesse Whitlock

End-time Backlash

We know that “of that day and hour” we are ignorant—and so forever shall remain right up until “that day and hour.” We are given no signs concerning its arrival, no warnings, no pre-indicators, nothing. He will come “as a thief in the night.” That being true, could it be that many, out of sheer exhaustion from fighting against the error of the prevaricating prognosticators, have grown careless in their watching? The fact that we have no signs or indications whatsoever in no wise means that He will not come today!

We do not know when He will come, but we do know that He is coming. It may be today. It could be tomorrow. It could be next week. It could be twenty thousand years in the future. We do not know. Our part is to live rightly. So living, it will not matter when He comes.

Equally important with the date of His return, and equally unknown to us, is the date of our death. We do not know when our natural life will end. It could be today. It could be tomorrow. It could be next week. It most certainly will not wait twenty thou and years! Still, we do not know when it will be. Now, if people ignorant of their own approaching death will not live rightly, is it any surprise that something that may yet linger twenty thousand years distant has failed to move them?

In the final analysis, it does not matter when He comes or when we die if we are living rightly. To be prepared for the one is to be prepared for the other. To live rightly is to die rightly, and that is to be with Him in Heaven forever. Are you living rightly? May God bless us all as we study and obey His Word.

Tim Smith

Mother's Day

Today is the day we mortals have agreed upon to honor the most wonderful human being in our lives—our sweet, precious mother. There can be no reasonable doubt but what God wants us to love, honor, and cherish our mothers (Ephesians 6:1-3). While every day should be Mother’s Day, we certainly are not opposed to setting aside one particular day just for her. As a matter of fact, we think it is a splendid idea. Let us make sure our mothers know how special they are and how much we love and appreciate them. Let us do something really special for them on their day. 

No one has had a greater influence in molding our lives than our mothers. Someone has determined that from the time we are born until we are twenty-one we are awake 105,000 hours. We spend approximately 10,000 hours in the school room and 2,100 hours in Bible classes, which leaves 93,000 hours under the direct supervision of our parents. Since the father is generally the bread winner and a survey some time ago revealed that the average American father spends only seven minutes per week alone with his teenage children, most of those 93,000 hours are spent under the supervision of our mothers. Indeed the hand which rocks the cradle rules the world. Abraham Lincoln said, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. I remember her prayers, and they have followed me. They have clung to me all my life.” 

One of the great characters of the Bible is the evangelist Timothy. One of the prime ingredients which made him a dependable servant of God was the influence of his godly mother and grandmother. For as far back as he could remember, he was taught God’s Word by these two very special women (II Timothy 3:14-15; 1:5). When young mothers decide they want to do something about the preacher and elder shortage in the Lord’s church, they can and will. They have control of a child’s life during the first six years, which are the most formative years of his life. 

One of the tragedies of modern America is that so many mothers make up the working force. We certainly do not want to be critical of working mothers because some of them must work. However, if there is any possible way they could be with their children during those formative years, even if they had to do without some of the things they want, we would encourage them to do it. It is far better for mothers to be with their children during those years than it is for them to left in the care of a baby sitter or a nursery nursery attendant who only considers it a job.  

Author Unknown