Month: June 2023

Alan Smith

“My husband andI were cleaning the church building
one evening and our three-year-old son was ‘helping’ us.
We walked up to the baptistry to make sure nothing was
in the water that shouldn’t be and our son said, ‘You
can’t drink that water.’ I asked him, ‘Why can’t we drink
the water? and he replied, ‘Because it has sins in it.””
(taken from “A Sunday Afternoon With the Preachers’
Wives”)

It does seem to make sense, doesn’t it? If all our sins
washed away at the point of baptism (Acts 22:16),
it’s easy to see how a child could mistakenly think they
just collect there in the water. If that were really true, it
would be important to drain the baptistry frequently!
I’m thankful, though, that those sins don’t collect in
the bottom of a pool of water. They don’t get piled up in
a closet somewhere ready to be pulled out at a later time
like a load of dirty laundry. They don’t get stored on a
hard drive in case a “‘search” needs to be made to find
them. No! Thank God, they are removed, blotted out,
wiped clean by the blood of Jesus Christ, and we are
able to rise from the water a new creature!

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he
removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:12)

Via Bulletin Gold

By David Bragg

On the evening of September 13, 1814 an American diplomat
found himself stuck on a British vessel watching a fierce
bombardment of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry. The state of affairs
looked grim. As he spent the night detained by the enemy,
Francis Scott Key looked out across the waters towards the
American fort. But with the dawn of a new day the American
cause found strength. The flag still waved above the fort. That
morning, on the back of a letter he happened to find in his pocket,
Key began to compose a poem that would be finalized within a
week. He called it The Defense of Fort McHenry.”

Over the space of many years the beloved song would grow in
popularity as it was sung in patriotic settings and, in 1862, at a
major sporting event. The patriotic tune would also be sung to
inaugurate the first World Series game in 1903 (www.pbs.org).
Many attempts were made to have it adopted as America’ s
official national anthem, but that would not happen until March
3, 1931 when President Herbert Hoover made “The Star-
Spangled Banner America’s song.

For Christians of every generation the familiar words penned
by Key have special meaning: “the land of the free and the home
of the brave.” We are citizens of a heavenly kingdom/nation
(Phil. 3:20). As such, our freedom is purchased with the precious
blood of Jesus (Acts 20:28). Our spiritual liberty demands
courage, the willingness to stand up for, and suffer if necessary
for, the cause of Christ. It requires courage to live faithfully in
the kingdom of the saved.

Via Bulletin Gold