The First Baptist Church of Morris

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We pause to reflect upon who God is,

We listen to the Scriptures,

We submit to the preached Word,

We encounter God's presence,

We respond in worship and wonder.

Pastor’s Ponderings……….. I was thinking of a verse the other day in the Gospel of Mark, chapter seven, verse 6…Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees and He says, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” The Pharisees and teachers of the law looked good on the outside, but on the inside they were only interested in pleasing themselves. They were fake…they were phony, and Jesus could see right through them to their very core. Those in agriculture have had a difficult time this year determining what is true. Let me explain.
The corn crop has been quite deceiving. It looked great coming out of the field last fall, or at Christmas time, or in January. (It was a looong harvest). The crop itself looked really good. But as people began to look closer, they found out it was not what it appeared to be. You see, corn has a test weight that it is measured by to determine the standard. The standard unit of measure for corn is a bushel. The standard weight for a bushel of corn is 56 pounds. Just because you fill a bushel basket with corn doesn’t necessarily mean you have a bushel of corn. This year a bushel of corn is only weighing 48 or 49 pounds in many cases. So even though you may have a bushel basket full of corn, you don’t have a bushel of corn because the test weight is so far under the standard. Therefore, the grain bin may be clear full, the semi going down the road with a load of corn, the barge going down the river full of corn, may all appear to be full, but they aren’t. They are all something less than what they appear to be. Every time that grain is put on the scales and its weight is measured against the standard, it comes up short. The Pharisees looked really good on the outside, but when Jesus came, He called them hypocrites and whitewashed tombs. They claimed to be all truth and the standard by which people should measure their own lives. But, as we read in John 1:14, when, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us”, the Pharisees did not measure up, and they certainly did not represent the truth, because they had no regard for Christ. So what is truth?...and how can we as Christians know it when we see it. Is it even possible to know truth in this day and age, or is everything relative? Maybe one man’s truth is as good as the next man’s, as long as you believe it. Sounds like college freshman orientation day. In John 8:31-32 Jesus says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus Christ is the Standard, and the Word of God is the Standard that all truth is to be measured against. When the Word of God is put up for debate and called into doubt as to whether or not it is truth, we lose our entire unit of measure for what truth really is. How can we know truth..how can we know what truth really is? Jesus says, “If you hold to my teaching.” If we hold to the Word of God, the Word of God will show us what truth is. But we must be in the Word in order to hold to the Word. When Jesus was praying for His disciples in John 17:17, He prayed, “Sanctify them by the truth; Your Word is truth.” There is protection for us in the truth of the Word of God. Yes, we can know truth, and it is found in the Word of God.
Let us press on together for Christ, preaching Christ crucified,