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GOSPEL PREACHING
ONLINE Don
Fortner will preach at 6:00 P.M. tonight at Sovereign
Grace Church New
Castle, IN – Bruce Crabtree, Pastor Telephone
765-755-3355 – 529-6530 December 17, 2006 The death of
this body will be the death of all my sorrows and all my sins. —
Blessed anticipation! Daily
Readings for the Week of December 17-24 Sunday Hebrews
9-10 Thursday 1
Peter 2-5 Monday Hebrews
11-12 Friday 2
Peter 1-3 Tuesday Hebrews
13-James 2 Saturday 1
John 1-5 Wednesday James 3-1 Peter 1 Sunday 2
John -Jude ·
We will have our annual Christmas dinner following
the worship service this morning. There will be no service here tonight. Behold The
Christ of God and See — Don Fortner (Tune: #98 —
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day — LM) 1. Behold the Christ of
God and see The glory of the Godhead Three, The Father, Spirit,
and the Son Revealed in the incarnate One. 2. The fulness of the
Godhead dwells In Him who ransomed us from hell. We know the mighty God
above Through our Redeemer’s work of love. 3. Great, holy,
sovereign, just, and true, God’s merciful and gracious, too! In justice He has
slain His Son That He might save His chosen ones! 4. In Christ, the
Mediator man, God has fulfilled salvation’s plan. He magnified His holy law, Yet saves His people from the
fall! “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shalt be saved.”
— (Acts 16:31)
There is no other way to obtain eternal life. Conviction of sin,
repentance for sin, mourning over sin, and moral reformation of heart and
life are not to be looked for prior to faith. These things come as the result
of faith. When you look to Christ by faith, you will mourn over your sin
because of him, but not until then. The Scriptures lay down no conditions for
you to meet before you can trust the Lord Jesus Christ. The commandment of
God to you is that you “believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.” And the promise of God to all believers is that
they shall “not perish, but have eternal life.” Come,
ye weary, heavy laden, bruised and mangled by the fall; If
you tarry till you’re better, you will never come at all. Not
the righteous, not the righteous, — sinners Jesus came to call. 7 Are
You Worthy of Heaven? The Word of God
plainly declares that no one shall enter into the glory of heaven who is not
worthy to do so (Rev. 21:27; 22:11). “The
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9).
And all are by nature unrighteous. “There is not a just man upon earth,
that doeth good and sinneth not” (Eccles.
7:20). We are all sinners. We all deserve the wrath of God. Yet, Paul tells
us that there are some who have been made worthy to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints (Col. 1:12). How can that
be? How can a sinner be made worthy of heaven? Only God can do it! Grace
alone can make us worthy of heaven’s glory. Every believer, every sinner
saved by grace, everyone who trusts Christ alone as his Savior and Lord has
been made worthy of heaven by three mighty works of God: 2. By
Blood Atonement — The believer’s
sins have been fully paid for by Christ, so justice cannot require further
payment. 2. By
Imputed Righteousness — The
righteous obedience of Christ has been imputed to all who trust him, so that
the believer stands before God as one who is perfectly righteous, having
fulfilled all his holy law in the Person of Christ, our Substitute. 2. By
Regeneration — In the new birth,
God the Holy Spirit gives every chosen, ransomed sinner a holy nature. By
these three works of grace sinners are transformed into saints and made
worthy of heaven! ———————————————————— “My heart is
fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.” (Psalm 57:7)
— Pastor David Pledger It
is good to be able to say with David, that “my heart is fixed.” There are many who could never truly be described
by the word “fixed.” They are continually changing or, as the Scripture says, “carried
about with every wind of doctrine.”
The apostle Paul tells us that one
purpose of the Christian ministry is to do this very thing. In preaching the
gospel, we edify or build-up the saints of God so that we will all have a
fixed heart. Is your heart fixed in the knowledge that God is sovereign? We
are not able to explain everything that happens in this world, but we do know
for sure who is in control. Is your heart fixed in the knowledge of God’s
sovereign grace? That God has blessed a people with all spiritual blessings
in Christ before the world began, and that he has predestinated us to the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ? It is not good or merit in any man that
allows God to save sinners, but only the redemption that he wrought in his
Son? Is your heart fixed in the knowledge that all that the Father gave to
Christ shall come to him and be eternally saved? Is your heart fixed in the
knowledge that you have come to Christ? — No matter what some say or
think, that you have found Christ to be precious to you? Is your heart fixed
on Christ as being the only Mediator between God and men, and say with the
hymn writer, “Other refuge have I none?” If your heart is
fixed, then determine by the grace of God that you will join with David and
sing and give praise. “For of him, and through him, and to him, are
all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen”
(Romans 11:36). 8 A Bag, a Book, and a Bottle Isaiah 40:1 God takes great care to comfort
his people in their many trials and sorrows in this world. He commands his
preachers to have for one of their goals the comfort of his people. He says, “Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people.” Here are three
things described in the Word of God that should be of great comfort to every
believer. A Bag God has made a bag for our sins. Job said, “My transgression is sealed up in a
bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity” (Job 14:17). In ancient
times, when men died at sea, their bodies were placed in a weighted bag,
which was sewn together and sealed. Then they were cast into the depths of
the sea. That is what God has done with our sins. They are cast “into the
depths of the sea.” When Christ died, by
his one sacrifice for our sins, which were imputed to him, he put away all
our sins. They were buried in the sea of God’s infinite forgiveness, put
away, never to be brought up again. God almighty will never charge us with
sin, impute sin to us, remember our sins against us, or treat us any the less
graciously because of our sin. That is forgiveness! “Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” A Book The Lord has written a book for
our names. Take heart, child of God. Your name is written in the book of God!
Before the worlds were made, the Lord God inscribed the names of his elect in
the Lamb’s book of life. In that book, God has recorded, not only the names
of the chosen heirs of heaven, but also all things pertaining to them.
— “In the book all my members were written” (Psa. 139:16; Phil. 4:3; Rev. 13:8; 17:8). The
Lamb’s book of life is the book of God’s eternal purpose of grace,
predestination, and election. The fact that our names are written in that
book means that our salvation is a matter of absolute certainty and that all
things work together for our good by God’s arrangement to secure our
predestined end, which is perfect conformity to Christ (Rom. 8:28-30). When
our Lord says, “Rejoice because your names are written in heaven,” he is telling us that we have nothing to fear. All
is well for those whose names are written in heaven. A Bottle Moreover, the Lord God keeps a
bottle for our tears. — “Thou tellest all my wonderings: put thou my
tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?...This I know; for God is
for me” (Psa. 56:8-9). It was customary
at ancient Egyptian funerals for mourners to have a small cloth or sponge to
wipe away their tears. Then, they were squeezed into a small vial, a tear
bottle, and placed in the tomb with the dead, symbolizing the care the
mourners had for the one who had died. Even so, the Lord our God, our
heavenly Father, our almighty Savior, and our holy Comforter tenderly cares
for us. In all our afflictions he is afflicted. We are the very apple of his
eye. Could
anything be more comforting in this world of sin, sorrow, and death? The Lord
our God has put our sins in a bag and buried them, our names in a book to
remember them, and our tears into a bottle to show his tender care for us. 9 Grace Bulletin December
17, 2006 GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH of DANVILLE 2734 Old Stanford
Road-Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438 Telephone (859)
236-8235 - E-Mail don@donfortner.com Donald S.
Fortner, Pastor SCHEDULE OF
REGULAR SERVICES
Sunday 10:00 A.M.
Bible Classes 10:30 A.M.
Morning Worship Service 6:30 P.M. Evening Worship Service Tuesday 7:30 P.M.
Mid-Week Worship Service Television Broadcasts
Danville
Channel 6 -
Sunday Morning 8:00 A.M. Channel 6 -
Wednesday Evening 6:00 P.M. Channel 6 -
Friday Evening 7:00 P.M. Web Pages
http://www.donfortner.com http://www.sovereign-grace/gracechurch.htm http://www.freegrace.net/danville/default.asp Listen to sermons
at FreeGraceRadio.com |
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