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The Lord our God is solitary in his majesty, unique in his excellency, and peerless in his perfections. He sustains all but is himself independent of all. He gives to all and is enriched by none.

Daily Readings for the Week of September 16-23, 2018

Sunday Obadiah 1-Jonah 4 Thursday Zeph. 1-Haggai 1

Monday Micah 1-5 Friday Haggai 2- Zech. 4

Tuesday Micah 6-Nahum 2 Saturday Zechariah 5-9

Wednesday Nahum 3-Habakkuk 3 Sunday Zechariah 10-14

· I am scheduled to preach — Wednesday night for Todds Road Grace Church in Lexington, KY, where Bro. Todd Nibert is pastor — Thursday night for Zebulon Baptist Church in Pikeville, KY, where Bro. Tom Harding is pastor — Friday night and Saturday morning for Grace Baptist Church in Dingess, WV, where Bro. Gary Vance is pastor.

Happy Birthday! Regina Henson-20^th

Nursery Duty Today: Jayalita McCormack (AM) — Ruth Wall (PM)

This is God’s Word to His Elect — Don Fortner

(Tune: #497 — When I Can Read My Title Clear —CM)

1. This is God’s word to His elect,

Who on His grace rely, —

“I will uphold and will protect,

And all your needs supply.

2. I will in providence appear,

My faithfulness to prove;

And you shall find Me always near

The objects of My love.

3. I will your countless sins forgive

And keep you day and night.

You shall upon my fulness live

And in your God delight.

4. 1 will complete what 1’ve begun,

My work I’ll not forsake,

Til you’ve the prize of glory won

And of My bliss partake!”

Boasting Excluded

Romans 3:27

There is only one doctrine by which man’s boasting is excluded. It is the doctrine of faith. God justified his people, making us righteous by Christ’s finished work on the cross. When God brings his child to believe on Christ, God imputes the righteousness of Christ to the believer because that is what Christ made us by his obedience unto the death of the cross. — Pastor Clay Curtis

“Canst thou by searching find out God?”

Job 11:7

He who alone is God, the great, solitary God can only be known by revelation. I offer no arguments to prove the existence of God because he gives no arguments to prove it. God’s Being is such a self-evident truth of creation and providence that all men and women are without excuse before him (Romans 1:20). But no man will ever come to know the living God by the light of nature (Job 11:7-8; 26:14). A savage might find a watch in the sand and conclude that there was a watchmaker. But he would never be able to know the watchmaker by the watch. Even so, a man may and does know that God is by the light of nature. But he can never come to know God by the light of nature.

God’s Self-revelation

God cannot be known by man, except as God is pleased to reveal himself to man (John 3:3; 1 Corinthians 2:14). God has revealed himself to men in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:18; Hebrews 1:1-3). God has revealed himself to men in the Inspired Volume of Holy Scripture (2 Timothy 3:15-17). God reveals himself to men through the preaching of the gospel (Romans 1:16-17). Yet, no sinner will ever see and know the living God until God reveals himself in the sinner’s heart by the irresistible grace and power of the Holy Ghost (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Everything depends upon God! God depends on nothing! And even when we have been made to see and know the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, our spiritual knowledge, at best, is a fragmentary knowledge. We need ever to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, “that (we) might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10).

God’s Forgiveness

Here is the crowning glory of our God’s solitariness as God. — He alone is God who forgives sin freely, without any reparations being made by the one forgiven. We are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24; Micah 7:18-20). Oh, how we ought to thank God for so arranging the affairs of the universe that he might make himself known to sinners in redemption by Christ (Romans 6:17-18; 2 Corinthians 4:6).

Sinful man is brought into a nearer union with God in the Person of Christ our Substitute than we could ever have enjoyed had we not known sin. Had we never sinned, Christ would not be our Surety and Substitute. But now God has assumed our nature in the Person of his Son. We are members of his body (Ephesians 5:30). Christ is our Brother and our Husband. And we are the Sons of God (1 John 3:1). Our temporary separation from God, by sin, has been made the means of our eternal union with God in Christ by redemption (John 17:20-23). The saved sinner, by reason of his sin, has greater and fuller knowledge of God, his glory, his grace, his justice, his holiness, and his love than he could ever have possessed had he never sinned. We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ our dying Substitute (2 Corinthians 4:6). And in his death, we have the love of God commended to us (Romans 5:8). This will be the theme of our heavenly praise forever and ever (Revelation 1:5-6).

“Lo, this is our God!”

Isaiah 25:9

There is no possibility of salvation, no possibility of eternal life, no possibility of true Christianity apart from knowing God in his true character as he is revealed in Holy Scripture. It is of utmost importance that we have some knowledge and understanding of the Divine character, that we know something of the attributes of God’s Being, the perfections of his nature. This is essential to saving faith. That person who claims to believe God, but has no idea what his character is, is deluded with a false faith. Our Lord Jesus tells us plainly, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” A knowledge of God’s character, his attributes, lies at the very foundation of true religion.

Knowledge Essential to Faith

It is impossible to trust and love God until we know who he is, until we know the character of his Being. Indeed, it is impossible for us to know our need of such a Savior as Christ is until we have some concept of the infinitely holy character of God. We may be terrified by the fear of wrath to come and of eternal judgment; and we may be delighted by the hope of escaping the wrath of God in hell through Christ; but that is not salvation. Jesus Christ is not a fire-escape from hell. He is the revelation of and way to the living God. Eternal life, true Christianity, true salvation is a knowledge of God as God, faith in God as God, and love for God as God. Because God is Spirit (John 4:24), he cannot be known by natural senses and abilities. He can be known by us only as he is pleased to reveal himself to us in his Word and works, through the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:1-3, 14-18).

Divine Attributes?

The attributes of God are the perfections of his nature, the characteristics of his Being as God. God’s attributes are those traits of character essential to divinity. If even one of these attributes did not belong to him, he would not and could not be God. These are the things which are essential to godhood.

Theologians have many ways of classifying the divine attributes. Some have classified them as communicable and incommunicable. Communicable attributes are those which are communicated to rational creatures (angels and men). They would be wisdom, power, righteousness, love, and mercy. Incommunicable attributes are attributes belonging to God alone, such as infinity, immutability, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. Others have attempted to classify the attributes of God as natural and moral. They would, for example, say that infinity, eternality, and omnipotence are among God’s natural attributes, and that holiness, justice, and truth are moral attributes.

The Bible never makes such distinctions. Instead, Scripture simply declares who God is by revealing his whole character as God, by which he is distinguished from all his creatures. Beholding any or all of his glorious attributes with the reverent wander of simplicity, we say, “Lo, this is our God!”

The Grace Bulletin

September 16, 2018

Grace Baptist Church of Danville

2734 Old Stanford Road-Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438

Telephone (859) 576-3400 — 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