Devotional Guide
For the week of September 19, 2004
LET'S NOT RETREAT
How God is in the rescue business
To Read: Psalms 85-87
To Know:
"...who frustrates the omens of liars, and makes fools of diviners;
who turns wise men back, and makes their knowledge foolish.;" (Isaiah 44:25)
By the late 1960's some predicted the death of the Byfield Parish
Church. This congregation, so important to the nation's history, was waiting
to be buried. The times were desperate. Attendance was down to single
figures. Wednesday night worship replaced Sunday services. Giving had all
but dried up and the few who remained were burned out. Humanly speaking,
hope seemed gone, but those who feared that the congregation was lost were
wrong.
God has always been in the rescue business. He enjoys confounding us.
The Lord had plans for the Byfield congregation. He restored the Byfield
Parish Church, using the same gospel message that transformed the Roman
empire two thousand years ago. That same gospel made Abraham a new man four
thousand years ago. The Christ Abraham followed calls to us to follow him
today. When faith in the Jesus Christ who died for our sins and rose from
the dead was preached at Byfield, people returned to the pews, budgets were
met, and members revived their zeal to spread the good news near and far.
Those who prophesied the death of the church were proved false. God is still
in the business of frustrating the message of false prophets.
To Ask:
Father, thank you for delivering us from what might have been the end
for this church. Lead us from faith to faith as we seek to do your will more
and more.
09214$-09214
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