Author Archives: Royce

Jul 5 2010

The Salvation of a Sinner is the Work of God


New Life

If we believe what we profess because it is what the Bible teaches we must conclude that the salvation of sinners is by God alone.

The Bible describes the state of a man without God in several ways. One of those is that a man without God is Dead.

Spiritually Dead

(Colossians 2:13, Ephesians 2:1,5) Just as surely as a man’s body is dead without his spirit (James 2:26), a man’s spirit is dead without the infusion of the life of Jesus by the means of the Holy Spirit of God.

Although this death is spiritual, it is no less true than physical death. A dead man’s greatest need is not religion, not reform, not new dedication, not church membership, no, his greatest need is life!

A dead man is powerless to do anything, and furthest from the realm of possibility is that a dead man can give himself life. Only God can give life! Here is the great overlooked and under appreciated fact of the gospel, God makes dead sinners live!

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5)

Spiritual life is beyond the scope of probability for a dead man, only a merciful and loving God can make us alive together with Christ! There is no spiritual life outside of Christ and every person who is not alive in Him is spiritually dead. He is dead to everything about God and unless God acts in mercy and love this dead sinner will only know God’s anger and fury against sin.

Just as certain as God called Lazarus to life from death he too calls spiritually dead sinners to a resurrected life in Jesus! Only God can do that.

…to be continued…

Royce


Jul 4 2010

Will America bless God?


It is because of United States flags by the thousands presented this way that today we celebrate 234 years of freedom, the birth of a nation. We must never forget, or pretend it isn’t true that freedom from tyranny comes at an awful cost. Both my mother and my father lost a brother on the foreign battlefield. My uncle Warren Fox, my mother’s youngest brother and my uncle L.G. Ogle, next to the youngest of my fathers six brothers were killed by sniper fire. So, I know something of the price of freedom. Many brave men and women, patriots all, have followed in the steps of Patrick Henry who made the famous declaration “Give me liberty of give me death!”.

Revisionist historians have sanitized our national history so that no longer are our children taught that our nation was founded on the Word of God and the belief that liberty is a gift from the Creator God of the Bible. Those who deny this fact are either ignorant or dishonest. Every one of those heroes of our founding acted at the threat of death, and many of them paid in blood. This morning in the Sunday school hour our elder, Phil (Duckcommander) Robertson, gave a stirring presentation. He read the words of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Jay, Henry, and others. No reasonable person can hear those words and not be convinced that our national history was shaped by people of great faith in God and love for their fellow men.

234 years of freedom but it is slipping away. Bit by bit our national greed, our perversion, and our rejection of God and His will for the affairs of men is resulting in people being placed in positions of power and influence who are godless deviates. The U.S. Congress, the judiciary, and the executive branch are such that God-fearing people in those bodies are the exception and not the rule.

Our national morality has lost its anchor and so we by government sanction kill thousands of unborn children and justify it by citing the convenience of the would be mother. Our government’s official position is that sexual perversion is “normal” and that the perverted deserve special protection. Young school children in some districts are being indoctrinated at early ages in immorality and sexual impurity.

History teaches us that no nation who forsakes the God of the Bible will stand for long. Unless there is a revival of religion and morality this great nation will be only a history lesson. It is a sad state of affairs. We still have many good people. Our generosity has touched the lives of tens of millions around planet earth and most notable is the care we have given to previous enemies. It was from our shores that the gospel of Jesus Christ went all around the modern world. From every tribe and nation on earth people of good will have come to the United States for a shot at freedom and the right to reach their full potential. Even many of our most outspoken critics have sent their children to the U.S. for the best education on earth.

I am hopeful that the tide is turning. There is a ground swell of patriotism rising and a full complement of fresh faces in politics who appreciate our history and want to repeat it. Perhaps in two more national election cycles we will again start to see a shift toward sanity, physical responsibility, and national pride. God has been very patient, he is long-suffering. How long will he wait? Only he knows.

Oh God, please grant us mercy, don’t give us what we deserve. Please put men and women in office who are moral, fearless, and willing to pay the price of doing what is right and good in the midst of depravity and selfishness.

So, on this 4th of July, my hope is that God will bless America. Will he stay his justice? Will we as a nation turn from our wicked ways and do right? May God have mercy on the United States of America is my hope and prayer.

I am an American. I am proud of my country and honor those faithful and fearless men and women who at great personal sacrifice have given us the greatest country in the history of man. Instead of closing this post with the familiar “God bless America” I instead ask “Will America bless God?”.

Royce

Jun 30 2010

The Little Church that Could…


If you see your sister church with more kids than the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe, temporary BP workers that need transportation to their jobs on the coast, and many, many who need a ride to church on Sunday and Wednesday, and you say to her, “Fill it up! and Happy Motoring!” and your spare van sits idle and doing no good, what have you accomplished?

The Hemley Road Church of Christ in Bayou La Batre, Alabama desperately needs another good van. They have a good one and two that are pretty much used up. In addition to their regular and ongoing need for transportation they are now trying to help members and neighbors get to their temporary jobs. Many of the citizens in Bayou La Batre either don’t have a vehicle or can’t afford to keep it on the road.

The University Church in Shreveport gave them a nice van not many months ago but it is essential to their ministry that they have one more good, solid van that needs no work to make it serviceable. If you know of any possibilities please comment and I’ll get the message to the folks in Bayou La Batre.

The town is getting lots of attention. Daphne German was on CNN last night and will be on the Today Show on Thursday a.m.  The networks are swarming the coastal area looking for a scoop. We are glad for the publicity for the work there.

Many naysayers wrote this little church off long ago, others hinted there was no way they could make it, but they have trusted God and He has provided. And, He will provide this time too.

Thanks for your consideration and prayers.

For Jesus,
Royce

Royce

Jun 27 2010

Are you a good lover?


The most well-known New Testament verse in the Bible begins with the words “God so loved the world…” It does not say simply that God loved, it says He “so loved“. That is He loved in such a way that the expression of His love is the apex of time and eternity. He “so loved” less than lovable people so that He would come to earth leaving the splendor of the heavenlies, meeting all of His own just demands, living up to His own standard for righteousness, taking upon Himself the short comings of every person, then becoming an accursed one dying outside the city as a common criminal.

God “so loved”…. What about you? What about me?

The great love chapter, a favorite reading at weddings, begins as it ends, with the superiority of being a lover. In the first part of the chapter (1 Corinthians 13) the great Apostle says if he becomes the best orator ever, without being a lover he is only making irritating noise. And, he said if he knew everything, past, present, and future and yet was not a good lover he would be zero, nothing. Then before he explains the God/love he says that if he had enough faith to move a mountain, gave everything he had to the poor, and became a martyr burned at the stake he would have gained nothing.

Wow, doesn’t this pretty much wipe out much of what modern religion is? I mean, isn’t the things he mentions what we strive for to a large degree?

We better start Loving!

Jesus, when asked “What is the greatest commandment?” answered this.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
(Matthew 22:37-40)

Do you love theology? I do. Have you spent many years learning the Bible, exploring the richness of its treasures? I have. It’s a waste of time without being a good lover. The Law and the Prophets have no meaning without love.

Paul ends the great chapter on love with these words.

“Love never ends”

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:8a, 13)

You and I have a lot of loving to do don’t we? Where is the next object of your love? Someone at work, a neighbor, a relative, a friend?

Remember God “so loved“. Unless love is a verb it is nothing more than a sham, some warm emotion that is fleeting and will never make any sacrifice for another, including God. We too, you and I, must “so love” that others can tell it. And when we do we will have in that act loved God.

Be a somebody, go love someone!

Because God so loved,

Royce