Hymns for service: Grace Greater Than Our Sin – p. 209 Rock of Ages – p. 126
Debbie and I will be leaving to go to Ashland, KY, to spend time with our family and to attend the Bible conference at Thirteenth Street Baptist Church (Oct. 14-16). Pastors Tim James and Gary Shepard are the scheduled speakers. Please pray for us. –The Pastor
IMPUTATION
“Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works” (Romans 4:6). Every believer rejoices in the glorious truth that our sins were imputed to Christ and His righteousness has been imputed to us. Daniel prophesied of the coming of the Savior and said of Him, “Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself” (Daniel 9:25). The meaning is that the promised Redeemer would die for sins which were not His own except in the sense that they were imputed, charged or reckoned to Him. Christ was without sin in His birth and so we read in 1 John 3:5, “He was manifest to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin.” Christ was without sin in His life and so we read in 1 Peter 2:22, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.” Christ was without sin in His death and so we read in 1 Peter 1:19, “But with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” The Savior was not defiled by the sin imputed to Him otherwise His death would not have been “a sweet smelling savour unto God” (Ephesians 5:2). “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). He bore our sins, but He was not corrupted by them. Our sins were imputed to Him, but not imparted, infused or put into Him. He was numbered with the transgressors, but He did not become a transgressor. He died for sinners, but He was not a sinner, for one sinner cannot redeem another sinner. He laid down His life for the ungodly, but He was not ungodly. Just as Christ bore the burden of our guilt, though in Himself He was not guilty of sin, so we are made the righteousness of God in Him, though in ourselves we are not righteous. As sin was imputed to Him yet He remained righteous, so righteousness is imputed to those for whom He died though, in ourselves, we are still sinners. —Pastor Jim Byrd
The natural, unregenerate man has natural desires for purpose, meaning, and even for salvation and eternal life. But these natural desires have no understanding or interest in the glory of God, and that makes all his natural desires to be sinful. Unregenerate man seeks these things within himself and in his own way. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12). The Lord described all of man’s devised ways (including man’s way of religion) as the broad way “that leadeth to destruction” (Matthew 7:13). All of man’s natural ways are efforts to find God without God. God’s way is the way of His glory found only in the glorious Person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the way of justice satisfied by the blood of Christ. It is the way of righteousness by the cross wherein God is honored in all His attributes, wherein Christ receives all the glory, and wherein man receives no glory. But in God’s way men do receive all blessings of purpose, meaning, salvation, and eternal life in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). In God’s way men do stand eternally righteous before Him because they stand in Christ having His righteousness imputed to them. In God’s way men do receive the gift of spiritual life so as to enjoy forever the blessings they have freely been given in and by Christ. Outside of God’s way, all meaning and purpose, all pursuit of salvation and eternal life become vanity of vanities. Sinner, do you desire meaning, purpose, salvation, and eternal life? LOOK FOR THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST. He is God’s way. –Pastor Bill Parker
No man has a true desire for the salvation of men's souls who does not first have a desire for God to be honored and glorified above all things. The individual who believes or preaches a gospel in which God is not glorified, one in which His justice is not fully satisfied as His grace is shown, not only doesn't truly desire to see men's souls saved but most likely is not saved himself. A salvation which does not begin with God, which is not provided for altogether by God, which does not save all whom He purposes to save and which does not keep all He saves, does not glorify God. The chief end of all things in salvation as well as in general is the glory of God. – Pastor Gary Shepard
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