After careful reassessment, Landmark Missionary Baptist Church has concluded that to purchase property in Downers Grove, at this time, is not the best way to assure the establishment of a work there. We have NOT abandoned our desire to see a New Testament church in that area, and would appreciate your prayers that a work may be started there.
    If any of you have sent funds toward the purchase of this property, it will be returned with our deep appreciation for your love and desire to help. And we covet your continuing prayers that our hearts may be united in a mutuality of Christian love as we face the challenges and opportunities of the future together.


    "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and an contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise", (Psa. 51:17).

    If God's people would be used of Him and experience His boundless power in their hearts and lives and service, we must be broken before Him. If we would enjoy a right

    ". . .having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind", (Phil. 2:2b).
    Paul's cup of joy would indeed be full if the Philippians respond to his appeal for unity. There is real joy in having our own way, but that is not Paul's feeling. His word for "make full" is the original meaning of the word so often translated "fulfil". John the Baptist used it of his joy in the joy of Jesus, the Bridegroom: "This my joy therefore is made full", (Jn. 3:29). The thrust of Paul's plea is that the Philippians exhibit the unity of the spirit. He could not rest content while the spirit of faction existed in this generous, glorious church.
    There is first the unity of THOUGHT ("think the same thing"), even IDENTITY of thought (of one mind", "thinking the one thing"). This is not an easy thing to do - especially where people have active minds and independent spirits. Only where minds are IN TUNE do two minds think as one. It is true that one may be acquiescent without thinking and, parrot-like repeal what he hears. This is a mechanical echo and NOT real harmony of think-

ing - rooted in conviction and sympathy.
    There should also be unison of affection: "having the same love". If the hearts of God's people all beat as one, preachers would remain longer in their pastorates, churches would be more fruitful in their labors and there would be far fewer losses in their membership.
    There should also be harmony in feeling, "of one accord". A common disposition will ensue where there is unity of thought and affection. The word "accord" (heart-to-heart, "ad" plus "cor") suggests two hearts in perfect key - a symphony of the spirit. There would certainly be fewer divorces if husbands and wives never got out of tune. There is a music of the spheres. When in tune the same note struck on different instruments will respond in perfect harmony.
    The church may be likened to a choir. The multiple voices of that choir must be kept in tune.

Sensitive and high-strung, musical natures readily get out of tune. But, if each of us is conscientious in keeping our lives in tune with God, in tune with the Infinite, we will stay in tune with each other. No discordant note will spoil the mighty chorus that blends in joyful praise and adoration of our God!
    Such a church will have plenty of variety; but it will be a harmonious variety - not a single discordant note that is out of tune with the rest! This is the kind of "unity of the spirit" that all of us should desire in the body of which we are members.

GOD USES ..... Continued
relationship with Christ and be filled to overflowing with His victorious life, we must be broken before Him. Before we can ever be fruitful, joyful and victorious Christians, our wills must be broken to His will. Such brokenness is painful; it is humiliating, but it is the only way. It is being brought to the solemn realization that it is "Not I, but Christ". Christ is ALL; I am nothing.
   Our blessed Lord cannot fully live in us and reveal Himself through us until the proud self within us is broken. This simply means that the hard, unyielding self, which justifies itself, wants its own way, stands up for its rights, and seeks its own glory, must be brought to the place where it finally bows its head and bends its knee to God's will, admits its

    Throughout the New Testament one may observe an insistence on the TEMPORARY NATURE of the Mosaic Law. Instead of supplanting the Abrahamic Covenant, it was a NECESSARY (if temporary) INSERTION - designed to bring Israel to such recognition of her carnality, and submission to the authority of Jehovah, her God, as would permit God - consistent with His own justice and holiness - to fulfil the purposes expressed to Abraham.
    That it was not given to Gentiles is clear from Romans 2:14. And Paul everywhere rejected every attempt, on the part of his Jewish brethren, to subject his Gentile brethren to the requirements of the law! And our Lord Himself said that "The law and the prophets WERE until John: since that time the KINGDOM OF GOD is preached, (Luke 16:16) - indicating that the new order, and the new emphasis, would be violently resisted.
    Jesus, further, rejected the idea that He had come to DESTROY the law. Rather, He had come to FULFIL its righteous demands! 'Til heaven and earth pass, He declared that "one jot or tittle shall IN NO WISE PASS from the law, till ALL BE FULFILLED!" (Matt. 5:17-18: comp. Rom. 10:4; 8:3-4).
    The Law was temporarily incorporated into God's program with a design to bring Israel, His covenant people, to recognize the exceeding sinfulness of her rebellion against her divine Maker and Husband! It was designed to LEAD HER TO CHRIST - her Saviour, Redeemer and Lord!

    It was not possible that the law should give life; nor was it designed to do so. Its ministry was one of CONDEMNATION and DEATH, (2 Cor. 3:6-11). As the righteousness of the law has been fulfilled in the holy living and substitutionary sacrifice of the Son of Man; so, the ministry of the Law IS DONE AWAY; it has faded, passed, vanished and been cut off. The people of God, in this age, live under THE MINISTRATION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS - through the Holy Spirit. The law has NO CLAIM upon those who are IN CHRIST JESUS! We have been joined to another! (Rom. 7:4, 6).
    The very HIGH PRIESTHOOD OF JESUS CHRIST requires a recognition of the Mosaic Law as having been fulfilled and supplanted by a higher order, (Heb. 7:l1-19, 22, 28; 8:6, 13; 10:1-31).
    God's pattern for Christian living is not to be found in searching the precepts of the law. Rather, it is set forth in the New Testament, wherein it is revealed that God has chosen a NEW INSTRUMENT through which He designs to carry out His covenant purpose in this age - a NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH, over which His Son is High Priest (Heb. 10:21; 1 Tim. 3:15), in which the Holy Spirit has chosen to dwell, (Eph. 2:22) and to which has been given a divine commission to proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom to the ends of the earth and to the consummation of the age - our Lord promising His age-long presence as we: 1) make disciples, 2) baptize disciples, and 3) Instruct disciples in the way of His commandments. AMEN! E.G.

God USES ..... Continued

wrong, gives up its own way to the Lord Jesus, surrenders its rights and discards its own glory. This it does that the Lord Jesus might save all and be all.
    We need to look honestly at our Christian lives; as we do so we will see how much of SELF there is in each of us. It is too often self who is trying to live the Christian life and do the Lord's work. Self always fails in such an attempt. It is always self that is irritable, resentful, critical, envious, jealous and worried. It is self that is hard, unyielding and unforgiving in our attitudes toward others. It is self that is timid, self-conscious and reserved.
0, HOW WE NEED BREAKING!
    If you would be broken, so that

you would be used of God, you must take your place at the cross of the Lord Jesus. The willingness of Christ to be broken FOR US is the all-compelling motive in our being broken too. We see Him willing to give up His glory and take upon Himself the form of a servant. We see Him willing to have no home, no possessions of His own, no rights of His own - willing to be reviled of men, and not revile again; willing to be mistreated by men and not retaliate or defend Himself. Above all, we see Him broken as He goes meekly to Calvary to die for His people, even while they were enemies and rebels. Now He calls us to take our rightful place with Him in His brokenness, and only the vision of the love that was willing to be broken for us can constrain us to do that.

"Lord, bend that proud and stiff-
      necked I,
   Help me to bow the head and die; Beholding Him on Calvary,
   Who bowed His head for me!"

    But dying to self is not something we do once-for-all. It is dying which must be experienced daily, for only by this brokenness can Christ be revealed constantly through us.
    The only life that pleases God and that can be victorious is HIS LIFE - never OUR life, no matter how hard we may try. And in-as-much as our life is self-centered and the opposite of His, if we are not broken, we can NEVER be filled with HIS LIFE of victorious power, peace and fruitfulness.