Salem Rd Baptist Church

Salem Rd Baptist Church Preaching the Old Time Gospel In a New Age World. Teaching Families to make a difference in their Community.

06/01/2026

June 1

Don’t Stay at Shiloh!

So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad. 1 Samuel 1:18.

Hannah had not been eating and she had been sad (v. 7). But now she had poured out her heart to God, and had entered into a covenant with Him, and she trusted Him for the answer to her prayer. Notice that she did not run up to Shiloh every day and “agonize” and pray the same prayer over and over. It would have looked very religious, but it would have been rankest unbelief. Instead she “went her way, and did eat,” and resumed a normal life, “and her countenance was no more sad.” She did not live in alternate hope and fear, she lived happily with a glad face. Some of us need sorely to learn a lesson from Hannah. It is no mark of piety to return to Shiloh every day fasting and weeping. Faith settles with God and then eats a good dinner and goes its way looking happy, not hoping but believing. Nervous, uncertain souls, forever begging God, are really unbelievers. Faith takes His Word for it and lives normally and happily.
Don’t stay at Shiloh! Go your way, eat, and smile!

Vance Havner, Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions (Baker Publishing Group, 1953), 117–118.

05/31/2026

May 31

Nearing Home

The time of my departure is at hand. 2 Timothy 4:6.

How often have I noticed when headed home from my travels a relief and release, a lessening of strain and tension. Nothing bothers me, I feel great, I am going home!
Should it not be so with us Christian pilgrims who seek a country? Why should earth’s cares pester us? We are on our way home, and nothing can stop us. Death itself but speeds the arrival and is a paying proposition, for “to depart and be with Christ is far better.” “To die is gain.”
“One sweetly solemn thought” daily reminds us that we are nearer home than we’ve ever been before. Let time and earth do their worst, they but quicken our heavenward pace! There is nothing to fear. No combination of men or devils can keep us from getting “home. Why should I not be hilarious with a song in my heart? I shall soon be beyond all that spoils my peace and joy. My Lord is over there, and more and more of those I love gather on that side. Nothing can hinder me from arriving. I feel like traveling on!
It is great to be nearing home!

Vance Havner, Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions (Baker Publishing Group, 1953), 117.

05/30/2026

May 30

Purposeful Pruning

Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. John 15:2.

“Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” The beloved child is chastised and the fruitful branch is pruned. Many a troubled soul in an hour of distress has fancied itself the object of God’s displeasure. But it is the fruitful branch that feels the knife. The unfruitful branch is taken away and burned. Many a saint in adversity has feared that he is perhaps a stranger to grace, forgetting that it is the bastards, not sons, who escape the Father’s discipline.
There is a purpose in the pruning, “that it may bring forth more fruit.” Not the feverish stepped-up production of this machine age but the natural, spontaneous fruitfulness of the branch that draws its life from the vine. Too much of our religious productivity is ground out by the methods of this age. The true Christian abides and abounds, and to him the Father-Husbandman’s pruning is part of the process.

Vance Havner, Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions (Baker Publishing Group, 1953), 116–117.

05/29/2026

May 29

Abiding and Obeying

If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. John 15:10.

This is only one of many verses that connect fellowship with Christ with obedience to Him. We are His friends if we do His commandments. If we do God’s will we are Jesus’ brother and sister. He that has and keeps His commandments, he it is that loves the Lord.
We are prone to make much of abiding, not much of obeying. We bask in the blessedness of being His friends, dwelling in Him, being hid with Christ in God. But Jesus always joins this holy estate with practical obedience. We hang up promises as mottoes but we are not so fond of commandments. Contemplation and adoration and mysticism have their place, but the friend of Jesus is the man who does what Christ commands him. To be sure, His commandment is that we love one another, but that includes a lot of other commandments and is as practical as the Thirteenth Chapter of First Corinthians.
A lot of people sing, “Oh, How I Love Jesus,” who are not keeping His commandments. And He said, “If a man love me, he will keep my words.”

Vance Havner, Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions (Baker Publishing Group, 1953), 115–116.

05/28/2026

May 28

Strategy for Victory

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21.

“Overcome evil with good”—here is a principle often overlooked. We do not master our sins and doubts and fears by direct frontal assault, taking them one by one. It is better to concentrate on the positive, become occupied with the Lord, and leave these evils to die from neglect. General MacArthur did not take each Japanese outpost on the way back to the Philippines. He concentrated on a few major objectives and left the other enemy garrisons to “rot on the vine.” If we become taken up with every temptation and difficulty we shall wear ourselves out on secondary skirmishes. Let us rather put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh. We can circumvent a lot of our worries by giving our attention to the good. Most of our ailments will die from neglect. We give them importance when we devote time and thought to them.
Make your life a major drive with Christ the objective—“This one thing I do”—and let the devil’s minor outposts starve to death.

Vance Havner, Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions (Baker Publishing Group, 1953), 115.

05/26/2026

May 26

Last God to Go

Lovers of their own selves. 2 Timothy 3:2.

Self-love takes many forms. Not only pride and vanity and worldly ambition, but a sickly preoccupation with one’s own troubles, physical or otherwise. Such self-centered, ingrown souls make themselves the center of their universe. Self thrives on attention. It grows as it is petted and coddled, until it becomes a colossus dominating one’s lives and all others it can by making friends and loved ones the slaves of such self-worshipers.
The best treatment is neglect by becoming preoccupied with something or someone else. Such ailments disappear when ignored. The supreme preoccupation is not a mere person or cause but Christ Himself. That is why He asked us to deny self, take up the cross, and follow Him. That is why He bade us lose our lives to find them. When he fills our minds and hearts and lives other gods vanish. And no god is harder to topple from its shrine than self. It will gladly give up all lesser idols if only it be allowed to retain the throne.

Vance Havner, Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions (Baker Publishing Group, 1953), 113–114.

05/25/2026

May 25

“An Holy Man of God”

I perceive that this is an holy man of God. 2 Kings 4:9.

How many of us modern prophets, do you suppose, ever convey such an impression to the Shunammites of today? The words “holy” and “holiness” have been joked about, and to not a few a holy man means a q***r fanatic with long hair, robe, and sandals. But we are in dire need of some “holy men of God” who may be out of style with earth but are in step with heaven. The modern variety of religious go-getter may dazzle us with brilliance and efficiency, but he does not make us think first either of holiness or God.
Said McCheyne: “Men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, whose life has been hid with Christ in God. These are of the old-time religion, hung to the nails of the cross.”
We are weary of the success and happiness school. We need holy men of God who are in touch with Headquarters, who remind us of another world than this.

Vance Havner, Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions (Baker Publishing Group, 1953), 113.

05/24/2026

May 24

Friends of God

And he was called the friend of God. James 2:23.

Of all the preachers and teachers and religious folk of our day, how few impress us that they know God! Able and successful, earnest and aggressive, we find in them much that is good. But can we not count on our fingers those who have gone far into the deeper things of the Spirit, who have learned those precious secrets of intimacy with God? To how few could we go in an hour of deepest trouble, to how few dare we tell our inmost problems!
This age of phenobarbital and psychoses does not lend itself to a closer walk with God. The price is great nowadays, and he who chooses to be God’s friend may be overlooked in the worship of celebrities. But in our better and needier moments we turn from heroes to seek some lowly soul who has learned those rare lessons of the school of Enoch who walked with God. Our efficient American Christianity is too busy putting things over to be interested in the quiet, slow saints who take time to be holy instead of just singing about it.
Give us more friends of God!

Vance Havner, Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions (Baker Publishing Group, 1953), 112.

05/23/2026

May 23

Living but Dead

I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Revelation 3:1.

The prodigal was dead but came alive (Lk. 15:24). So it is with all who believe (Rom. 6:13). The Sardis church was alive but dead. It had a name to live, but Jesus had another name for it. The name we have for ourselves is not always what our Lord calls us. You say you have eternal life. Does God say so? Not every one who calls Him Lord, Lord, is known of Him. Some Christians seem active enough, but it is not the vitality of the spirit, it is only the vivacity of religious flesh. And how many busy churches are called live churches, while the Lord looks on and says, “Thou art dead.” Does Jesus say that yours is a live church? How does it look to Him? Mere activity does not deceive Him.
“She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” She may be animated and really get around, but God says “dead.” And a lot of go-getter Christians and churches draw no better word from Him who looks on the heart.
Are you one who was once dead and now lives, or do you seem to live but are dead?

Vance Havner, Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions (Baker Publishing Group, 1953), 111–112.

05/22/2026

May 22

Call to America

Hear the word of the Lord. Isaiah 1:10.

We need to recover Isaiah’s thundering call from the mothballs where we have relegated it. The first chapter could be proclaimed, with a few names changed, to America and be strictly up to date. Surely our people “doth not consider.” Surely the moral putrefaction Isaiah portrayed (vs. 5, 6) smells just as bad in our land. And God hates our Sunday-morning religion without reality as much as He despised the sham formalities of Judah (vs. 11–15). Religion is popular nowadays, but we will not put away evil and learn to do well (vs. 16, 17). We want a religion that involves no break with the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Still, God invites us to reason with Him (v. 18). We reason within ourselves and among ourselves, but we do not want to accept God’s reasoning. We want to be saved on our terms, not His.
When America is willing to turn from sin to God and accept His provision, willing and obedient, we shall eat the good of the land. If not, we shall be devoured with the sword, for “the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”

Vance Havner, Day by Day: A Book of Bible Devotions (Baker Publishing Group, 1953), 110–111.

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1028 Salem Road
Rossville, GA
30741

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10:45am - 12pm

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