Please enjoy the July-August 2018 edition of The Central Alabama Newsletter.

MTZ Cast Episode 6 is available on Youtube.

Follow this link to watch: MTZ CAST | Episode 6 | The New Birth and Preservation

Explanation of Article 6 from our Statement of Faith: We believe that God's elect shall be effectually called, regenerated, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and shall be preserved in grace and never finally fall away.

Covered in this video are terms such as:

• The Effectual Call
• Regeneration
• Conversion
• Sanctification
• Preservation or Perseverance

“And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.” (John 19:19)

Pilate here, like so many events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, unwittingly declares a great spiritual and doctrinal truth, as he gives Jesus the title of “The King of the Jews”. Jesus was by and large rejected by his own natural kindred, the Jews, during his earthly ministry – “he came unto his own and his own received him not” (John 1:11). However, Jesus was and is the King of not the natural Jews (although some natural Jews are certainly included in the broader Israel of God) but rather Jesus is the only Potentate and King for those spiritual Jews who have received the inward circumcision of the heart and been adopted into God’s chosen family.

“And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.” – John 5:37

Jesus was speaking to men here in John 5 that had no desire for the true things of God, even though they gave the outward pretense of religion and piety. He tells these men that they had “neither heard [the Father’s] voice at any time, nor seen [the Father’s] shape”. It’s certainly true that the natural man cannot hear God’s voice or see God’s shape, but for the born-again child of God, we can hear the gentle voice of the Lord guiding us in our lives and we can also see the imprints of God’s shape in the world all around us.