11:00 Service: Speaker Mark Pannell, Eager Ave. Grace Church
Birthdays: Kristen Fuller - Dec. 17th.
Radio Broadcast: Sunday morning at 9:30am on 98.7 FM -WISK
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ."
God has blessed his people from the beginning with every needful new covenant blessing, treasured up in Christ Jesus their covenant Head. There is not a single blessing of grace and salvation which is not secured and deposited in him. Ah, my friends, it is well for us they are treasured up in Christ Jesus, because in him they are safe and secure. The Holy Spirit, in his appointed time, convinces the heart of the poor sinner of the need of these spiritual blessings; he gives him deeply to feel his need, and puts a cry in his heart after them. The Lord says, "I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." The poor sinner will never come to Christ, bow down before him and seek the Lord's blessing, until he is brought into poverty, destitution and indigent circumstances. He will never flee to Christ for refuge until every other resource fails him, and he is at his wits' end and knows not what to do. But, blessed be his name, Christ is a refuge for the helpless and the destitute.
John Kershaw at Zoar Chapel London, on April 18th, 1848
SALVATION IS OF THE LORD!
Brethren, there is only one system of truth in the entire universe, that glorifies God for salvation from beginning to end. It is this, that God has elected a people, and He sent His Son into this world, and Christ actually saved those people there at the cross. The Father took that effectual work and charged it to their accounts. In time and in life, God by the proclamation of this Gospel teaches it to them, and shows them what He has already done, and gives those people faith to believe it, to rest in it, and to enjoy it. May God make us wise unto salvation and cause us to rejoice in this full and free salvation!
There are some in our day who in their zeal to show the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit within us, do so by diminishing and devaluing the blessed work of Christ for us on the cross. Let us never fall prey to such deception. We preach, emphasize, and recognize the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit's work within us in the new birth (John 3:3-7). No sinner is saved who is not born again by the Holy Spirit. However, this in no way diminishes the completeness, efficacy, and power of Christ's work on the cross to redeem and justify His people by His blood and righteousness imputed. It is just the opposite - Christ's redemptive work on the cross demands and insures the blessed work of the Holy Spirit in the new birth for each and every one of God's elect in each successive generation. The way we are brought into fellowship with the Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is through Christ, the Son of God incarnate on the cross and by the Holy Spirit who gives light and life from Him (Col. 2:9-10; 2 Pet. 1:1-4).
Bill Parker - Pastor of 13th. Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Ky.
"THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD"
One of the most blessed truths we can ever grasp as God's children is what David so confidently expressed in Psalm 23:1 -- "The Lord is my Shepherd." It is hard to imagine Jehovah, the infinite, omniscient, sovereign King of the universe condescending to be my Shepherd. The thing we must realize is that Christ is our Shepherd by virtue of our being made one with Him through the blood of the everlasting covenant of grace (Heb. 13:20-21). Christ has never and shall never be the Shepherd of any but those who were given to Him in the covenant of grace made before the foundation of the world. As our Shepherd, Christ, by His perfect, obedient life and atoning death as our Representative and Substitute, fulfilled all the righteousness God's holiness and justice required. By His righteousness alone God the Father, a righteous Judge, is enabled to be both a just God and a Savior. Christ is the chief Shepherd, the good Shepherd, and the great Shepherd because "He loved us and gave Himself for us." And this makes Him my Shepherd. Therefore, "I shall not want," i.e., I shall not lack for all the righteousness and redemption I need to be delivered safely and perfectly into His blessed presence eternally.
Richard Warmack, Pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Ruston, LA