Faith Bible Baptist Church

FBBC Devotional for Sunday April 4th, 2021: "He Is Risen!" Matthew 28:5-6: And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. The grim recollections of the violent scenes of Gethsemane, Gabbatha, and Golgotha loomed in the hearts and minds of the disciples, What a dramatic reversal of emotions it must have been for those mourning disciples whose thoughts were suffused w...Continue reading

FBBC Devotional for Friday, April 2, 2021: "Identification" Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Romans 6:3-5... There is great reason to celebrate the magnificent work of the Son of God in purchasing redemption for all who believe, through His unfathomable suffering and His glorious resurrection. Yet beyond celebration, when we have believed unto salvation, our text reminds us of the personal identification that becomes ours. The baptism described here has a two-fold application. It at once carries with it the symbolism of physical water baptism, but more significantly the counterpart of spiritual baptism. But the initiating baptism was His own, not only of symbolic water, but of His whole humanity into His passion. When we attempt to comprehend the immensity of His suffering, to pay our sin-debt and to satisfy righteousness, our humanity recognizes its limitations. Yet such an attempt of faith also stirs up a spirit of gratitude and love for such a Savior, that we can with the apostle express our desire to know the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. Then we can be willing to welcome the rejection of the world, as He promised would be the case for His disciples. We can also share in a love for Him that can answer with the apostle, twice in this chapter, God forbid! when confronted with the false notion that grace might allow us to sin. At the same time, the identification extends to the power of His resurrection, which we also long to know, not only in the grandeur of a promise for a blissful eternity in His presence, but also in our daily walk in newness of life, in the presence of His Spirit. Note that the apostle here makes the indivisible connection between the identification with both His death and life. As we own that newness of life with Him, the balance of this chapter reminds us of the power of His resurrection that enables us to live unto righteousness. Because He lives, we shall live also. And because death hath no more dominion over Him, so sin shall not have dominion over us; for He satisfied the righteousness of the law that would have condemned us, and empowers us to serve His righteousness. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life (Romans 6:22). Let us say with the hymn writer, Such love, such wondrous love!

FBBC Devotional for Thursday, April 1, 2021: "What Did They See?" And sitting down they watched him there; Matthew 27:36 When the Lord Jesus graced this world by walking in the form of a man, He was viewed in different ways by each person with whom He interacted. Many were riveted by His words of hope, while others thought He was mad. His miracles caused some to proclaim Him to be the Son of God; but others said His miracles were powered by the devil. Jesus’ words and deeds w...ere meant to penetrate the hearts and minds of men so that they might see the fulfillment of their deepest need in Him. Whether accepting, indifferent, or rejecting of Jesus’ words and actions, all would be accountable for what they witnessed. Crucifixions were a common mode of Roman capital punishment, so it was probably not the first assignment for the soldiers on that fateful day. After mocking Him, crowning Him with thorns, piercing His hands and feet with nails, and gambling over His garment, they sat down to watch Him slowly die. Though they had performed the evilest of deeds that day, God was providing for them the greatest opportunity in allowing them to observe the Son of God as He was completing His eternal plan. This event was foreordained before the foundation of the world, and would open heaven’s gates for all who would believe. This day would change the course of history, and would be the topic of countless books and songs. Lives that had been destined for misery and bondage in this current life as well as in their eternal life to come, could now have the opportunity to be miraculously changed for God’s glory. The apex of God’ plan was unfolding before their eyes. Consistent with how He had lived his earthly life, Jesus displayed love and forgiveness as His holy blood drained from His body. His words, sharper than a two-edged sword, penetrated their souls, doing that invisible work designed to bring spiritual life. After watching Him draw His last breath and experiencing the resulting earthquake, the soldiers were convinced and declared that Truly this was the Son of God. As believers, it is important for us to take time to sit at the foot of the cross, and gazing up and looking into the eyes of the lover of our soul, hear Him say Father forgive them. For these words we will be eternally grateful. ~J. Ekis

https://youtu.be/JGEPq0k_OwA

https://youtu.be/7BOCiCs0w5A

FBBC Devotional for Tuesday, December 8, 2020: "The Name Says It All" And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Matthew 1:21 Contained between the front and back cover of the Bible are 66 books, with a total of 1,189 chapters, 31,102 verses, and 783,139 words. It takes an average reader about fifteen minutes a day to read the Bible through in one year. Upon completion, the reader will have been informed... with a wide variety of topics and introduced to 3,237 different people. Some of the Bible’s truths are easily found while others require a level of diligent searching to uncover some of its hidden gems. Still, with all of its scope and volume there are some verses that summarize the whole Bible in a few words. Matthew 1:21 is one such verse. In the third chapter of Genesis, we find the record of the problem that would permeate and plague all of creation. Once sin entered the world its effects would be felt through all of history and it is the greatest problem in the world to this very day. Sin manifested in selfishness and rebellion would affect man’s relationship with God and also with his fellow man. Throughout all of history there have been great accomplishments, but it is apparent that man is still powerless to resolve the internal and external struggles that infect our world. Man needs to surrender to the fact that a savior is needed. God’s remedy for the plight of man would be embodied in the Christ child who was born at the appointed time. His name Jesus reveals who He is and His purpose for coming. Jesus can be interpreted as Jehovah Saves and that is what you have, God in the flesh come to be the Savior of a fallen race. He came into this world to seek and save that which was lost and He is still doing that today. From the woman at the well to Zacchaeus in the tree to all of mankind through the ages to anyone today--Jesus is still the only name under heaven given among men whereby we are saved. - J. Ekis

FBBC Devotional for Monday, December 7, 2020: "The Desire of All Nations" And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts. Haggai 2:7 We are all undoubtedly familiar with the text-book definition of nation. A nation is a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular territory. To this day, the family and the nation-state remain t...he fundamental building blocks of world order (which building blocks, incidentally, have been under an escalating assault in our generation by powerful and devilish global forces). The book of Genesis offers us a divine explanation of the birth as well as the purpose of nations. Genesis 10:32 tells us that after the Flood of Noah’s day, the nations found their origin in the bloodlines of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We are further informed in Genesis 11 that in the days of Nimrod, a descendent of Ham, despite the familial divisions, mankind was still of a singular language. Due to man’s rebellion at Babel, God added to the merely genealogical distinctions of nations, cementing those divisions linguistically as well as geographically. God’s purpose was one of mercy (Genesis 11:6). The disunion amongst the nations is meant to restrain man from amalgamating in Satanically inspired rebellion against his Creator which would hasten the cataclysmic and decimating wrath of the Almighty. The nations are thus God’s creation, serving to His ultimate purpose for mankind. Despite the national divisions throughout the millennia, each and every nation, made up of children of Adam, craves the same elusive goals peace and prosperity. Why are these goals elusive? Because they cannot be obtained in a fallen world. Sin and the curse dictate that in reaching for these ends, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Thus, every nation remains hopelessly imprisoned in a never-ending cyclic pursuit due to the sinful heart of man. Yet there is coming a day when the Desire of all Nations shall come. He came once already in the prophesied yet obscure location of Bethlehem of Judea. He was greeted by Wise Men from a distant people, but God’s own nation rejected Him. He is now reaching out to every individual of every nation to assemble to Himself a glorious Bride. When the nations finally blaspheme the work of His Spirit, uniting again in Babel-like rebellion against Heaven, He will shake all nations, destroying His enemies, and ushering in the dawn of a new and eternal Creation. Only at that time will they beat their swords into plowshares, and nation will no longer lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore. Come, Desire of Nations, come! -- D. Murcek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms8j5--AvtE

FBBC Devotional for Sunday December 6th, 2020: "Eternal Words" John 6:68: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. William Shakespeare was renown for the might of his pen. 400 years after his death multitudes continue to ponder his prolific works including 39 plays and 154 sonnets. Many hail him as a transcendent genius-a master wordsmith that employed the perfectly crafted couplet to express his intriguingly, profound thoughts.... Yet for all the effusive praise with which he was lauded, he spurned the notion of being coronated the Bard of Avon. In a scene from his most famous tragedy, Hamlet is found contemplatively perusing a book. Polonius asks him what he is reading to which Hamlet sardonically repliesWords!Words!Words! It was Shakespeare’s wry way of saying that words which are written by men are just that -words, words, words. In modern vernacular we might say blah, blah, blah. Was it not the sagacious Solomon that wrote of making many books there is no end? Library shelves abound with the musings of philosophers, poets, historians, and dramatists, but the Bible is the only book that can make the claim of divine origination. Embedded in its sacred pages are the answers to man’s most earnest interrogatories. Men’s words are the expression of the finite mind and heart of the writer and so appear trite and vapid. In contrast, God’s word is recondite and vivifying. Sir Walter Scott, a famed British novelist and poet, was also a committed Christian. On his deathbed Scott is reported to have said to his secretary, Bring me the Book. His secretary thought of the thousands of books in Scott’s library and inquired, Dr. Scott, which book? The Book, replied Scott. The Bible the only book for a dying man! And the committed Christian would have to add that the Bible is not just for a dying man, but it’s the only book for a living man, because it is the Word of God. Have a blessed week, Pastor

https://youtu.be/_PR_9ovUVdA

FBBC Devotional for Tuesday, November 10, 2020: "Experiential Faith" O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Psalms 34:8 ... There are many different ways of learning, but hands-on learning is probably the most commonly beneficial. Surely most of us can recall the experience of enduring a lesson via written or verbal instruction while anxiously waiting to personally apply that information. Remember turning sixteen and reading a driver’s manual? All the instruction, though useful, could not achieve what actually happened after placing our hands on the steering wheel and our foot on the gas pedal. This also applies to our faith. We are meant to personally experience God Himself and His ways! Many Christians prior to conversion have either a superficial form of religion or, at the very least, a general mental assent to the existence of God. Although these conditions may provide some basis by which the true gospel is able to penetrate hearts, it is not until the essence of the gospel is actually absorbed that the reality of God is manifest. True faith is supposed to take us beyond the factual knowledge of God into the realm of tasting and seeing His goodness through eyes of faith. The purpose of the Bible is not merely to give us spiritual information, but to inspire us to put God’s ways into application. In Matthew 6, we can read the Lord’s instruction on how to pray, but if we never pray, we will be deprived of experiencing intimacy with God through prayer. The Bible tells us to wait on the Lord and He will strengthen our heart, and yet if we become impatient and give up, we will stop short of appreciating the valuable beauty of watching God work through a situation in His time. We will understand that the Lord is good when we put His kingdom first and then see how He adds the things to our life that we truly need. By practicing forgiveness, we have the opportunity to comprehend a little more about the depth of His forgiveness. When we apply God’s ways to our life, we not only profit from the results, but it helps to motivate us to trust Him more. Each day presents more and varied life situations to taste and see the goodness of the Lord so that our faith may be strengthened through experience. ~J. Ekis

FBBC Devotional for Monday, November 9, 2020: "Freedom - A Reminder" If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. John 8:36 We are living in historic times. A strange alliance of entities line both the left and the right of the nation’s political spectrum, while a league of devilish forces is tearing at the country’s fabric. Many of us had fathers, grandfathers, siblings, and the like that have fought to preserve the way of life we have enjoyed for g...enerations, and we may feel as though the era of that way of life may be drawing to a sad close. As Christians, we must take a conscious and prayerful step back. We can and should love the American ideal. The Gospel itself birthed Western Civilization, and the United States became that civilization’s apex, vanguard, and beacon. Founded upon a bedrock of biblical principle, the nation has thrived for over two centuries, and we have been her beneficiaries. Yet we must also keep in mind that this world is not our true home. We are citizens of another country. God’s purpose for the nations is subservient to His purpose for the Church of Jesus Christ. The nations were created by God after man’s rebellion at Babel. God’s intention was and remains to prevent mankind from globally unifying under fallen conditions and evil leaders. The Kingdom will eventually visibly come, at which time Christ will bring the necessary righteousness for mankind to live in global unity and peace. But until then, the nations serve at His order to curb man’s evil heart. He chose Israel as His national witness to mankind and, upon her rejection of Her Messiah, He sanctioned His glorious Church comprised of people from every kindred and tribe and nation and tongue to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. In America, we have enjoyed something that most of our spiritual brothers and sisters through the ages have not political and religious liberty. And yet this liberty, as precious as it is, is temporary, imperfect, and transient. It is not the liberty that Christ’s salvation promises the liberty of spirit bestowed upon us when He saved our souls. We have unfortunately mistaken our comfort for our peace, our prosperity for our fulfillment, and our vocation for our purpose. It is perhaps time that we recall that we are the freest of men not because we are Americans, but because we are Christians. By doing so, we will rediscover that our trust is wholly in Heaven, not in men or nations. If Jesus tarries, the next chapters of history may be volatile. Yet our position as His property forbids us to despair. We do not shrink from darkness we dispel it by virtue of the light within us. After all, the nations are a drop in the bucket to the God that we know, the Christ that we serve, and the Spirit that we obey. Let us not be entangled with the affairs of this life, that we may please Him who hath chosen us to be soldiers. -- D. Murcek

https://youtu.be/x18TC6bWWgE