Yes, a true love for the great Book will bring us great peace from the great God and be a great protection to us. Let us live constantly in the society of the law of the LORD, and it will breed in our hearts a restfulness such as nothing else can. The Holy Spirit acts as a Comforter through the Word and sheds abroad those benign influences which calm the tempests of the soul.

No rainbow of promise in the "dark and cloudy day" shines more radiantly than this. God, my God, the God who gave Jesus, orders all events, and overrules all for my good! "When I," says He, "send clouds over the earth." He has no wish to conceal the hand which shadows for a time earth's brightest prospects. It is He alike who "brings the cloud", who brings us into it, and in mercy leads us through it! His kingdom rules over all. "The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." He puts the burden on, and keeps it on, and at His own time will remove it!
Beware of brooding over second causes. It is the worst form of atheism! When our most fondly cherished gourds are smitten; our fairest flowers lie withered in our bosom; this is the silencer of all reflections– "The Lord prepared the worm!" When the temple of the soul is smitten with lightning, and its pillars rent: "The Lord is in His holy temple!" Accident, chance, fate, destiny, have no place in the Christian's creed. He is no unpiloted vessel left to the mercy of the storm. "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters!" There is but one explanation of all that befalls him: "I will be dumb, I will open not my mouth, because You did it."
Death seems to the human spectator, the most capricious and severe of all events. But not so. The keys of death and Hades are in the hands of this same reigning God! Look at the parable of the fig-tree. Its prolonged existence, or its doom as a cumberer, forms matter of conversation in heaven; the axe cannot be laid at its root until God gives the warrant! How much more will this be the case regarding every "Tree of Righteousness, the planting of the Lord?" It will be watched over by Him, "Lest anyone hurt it." Every trembling fiber He will care for; and if made early to succumb to the inevitable stroke, "Who knows not in all these things, that the hand of the Lord has wrought this." Be it mine to merge my own will in His; not to cavil at His ways, or to seek to have one jot or tittle of His will altered; but to lie passive in His hands; to take the bitter as well as the sweet, knowing that the bitter cup is mingled by One who loves me too well to add one ingredient that might have been spared!
Who can wonder that the sweet Psalmist of Israel should seek, as he sees it spanning the lower heavens, to fix the arrested gaze of a whole world on the softened tints of this Rainbow of Comfort, "The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice."

Junior & Edna Potts – April 10^th (Anniversary) - Left off of last week’s newsletter, sorry folks.

Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul says, For our sakes He (God) made Him to be sin who Himself knew nothing of sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. In a word, Paul is saying that God the Father treated Jesus Christ, the Son, as a sinner or unrighteous person, so that we sinners might be treated as righteous persons.

A missionary was once preaching from this text to a group of natives in a foreign land. When he had finished his message, he was desirous to know whether they had understood it or not. So, he asked them to tell him in their own words just what it all meant to them. The chief of the tribe spoke up and said, "It means that the Lord Jesus swapped with me." And I might say that this puts the way of salvation just about as plain as human language can put it. He Who was without sin took the place of sinners under God's Holy Law, so that sinners might have the place of sons before God the Father. Christ, the righteous Son of God, took the place of the guilty and bore their sins in His own body on the tree of the cross. He Who was rich became poor for our sakes, that through His poverty, we might become rich. Christ died as the just One for the unjust ones, that He might bring us into God's favor.

A man was once asked if he would like to be saved. He replied, "Yes, if God can save me without doing wrong." This man was a thinker. He saw a problem in a just God saving unjust people. He realized that a just God must punish sin. He confessed that he was a sinner, and that if God was just in dealing with him, He would have to punish him for his sins. This was Job's problem in the long ago when he cried out, "How then can man be justified with God?" Their reasoning is after this fashion: "If God is holy and righteous, and all men are sinners and deserve punishment, how can they justly go unpunished?" The answer is in the blessed and glorious gospel truth that the Son of God swapped places with sinful men and redeemed them from the curse of the law by being made a curse for them.

Yes, blessed be His name, He took our place as sinners that we might have the place of sons in the Father's house. He took our guilt that we might have right standing with God. Yes, He swapped places with us!