CALL TO WORSHIP

(Tune: "‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus")

God is holy, just, and righteous

When He saves us by His love;

He is so based on the merits

Of Christ's righteousness and blood.

Christ our Savior, Christ our Savior;

Look to Him and Him alone;

In His merits we find favor;

He our Lord is on the throne.

Christ has set us free from bondage;

We the debt no longer owe;

He has paid the fullest ransom,

Now the law must let us go.

Free in Jesus, free in Jesus;

Free to serve Him graciously;

He has bought our full salvation -

Pardon, peace, and liberty.

Bible Study: "The Fall of a King" - II Samuel 11

Today's Speaker: Brother Randy Wages will conduct the 11:00 am service today. Pray for him as he delivers God's word.

Television Broadcast: Our Reign of Grace Television program is being broadcast on WFXL Fox 31, Channel 4. The program will air every Sunday morning at 11 AM. Pray that God will use it for His glory.

Radio Broadcast: Sunday morning at 9:30am on 98.7 FM -WISK. You can also hear the sermons on your computer. Just click on http://www.americusradio.com/

Birthdays: Andrea Pannell - Feb. 15^th. , Tony Jones - Feb. 16^th.

Jarrett McKenzie - Feb. 16^th. , Sylvia Casey - Feb. 17^th.

Christ Condemned Sin in the Flesh

"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:..."
(Romans 8:3)

To say the preaching of the law could set a sinner free from sin is the equivalent of preaching "Thou shalt not kill" to a convicted murderer on death row. He is already guilty of the crime and has been tried, convicted, and sentenced under the law. The law cannot acquit and set a convicted sinner free. It is not because of any weakness in the law but in the sinner who is guilty.

How then can we who are sinners be set free?

God sent His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ to become incarnate, "the likeness of sinful flesh," yet He was and is without sin. "And FOR OUR SIN," as a substitute in our place having our sins imputed (accounted, charged) to Him, He "condemned sin in the flesh."

Christ, as GODMAN, suffered all the condemnation due unto all the sins of all of God's elect, and set us free by His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. Now, we who Christ has set free by His death on the cross (Romans 6:3-7) must be set free in our own experience in the new birth. (Romans 6:17-18)

This liberty comes through the preaching of the Gospel of God's grace in and by the Lord Jesus Christ and based on His blood and righteousness alone. The Gospel is the preaching of liberty to the captives. (Isaiah 61:1-3 And when we are born again by the Holy Spirit, we are set free from the bondage of legalism and dead, self-righteous works. (Galatians 5:1)

We are also set free to approach, commune with, worship, and serve the true and living God, not by obligation of law, but by compulsion of love, grace and gratitude. (Romans 7:4-6; 2 Corinthians 5:14; Galatians 5:6; Hebrews 10:19-22)

All this glorious freedom is because Christ condemned sin in the flesh.

Bill Parker

Defending the Truth

In these days of boasted liberality, it may appear critical and contentious to oppose with zeal the errors of men who have acquired a name in the Christian world. The mantle of charity, it will be said, ought to be thrown over mis­takes that have resulted from a free and impartial investigation of truth, and if not wholly overlooked, they should be noticed only with a slight expression of disapprov­al. Such, however, was not the conduct of the Apostle Paul.

He spared neither churches nor indi­viduals, when the doctrines they main­tained tended to the subversion of the Gos­pel; and the zeal with which he resisted their errors was not inferior to that with which he en­countered the open enemies of Christianity. He affirms that the doctrine introduced into the Galatian churches was "another gospel," and twice pronounced a curse against all by whom it was preached.

Instead of compliment­ing the authors of this corruption of the Gospel as only abusing in a slight degree the liberty of free examina­tion, he decides that they should be cut off as troublers of the churches. Let not be­lievers be more court­eous in expressing their views of the guilt and danger of cor­rupting the Gospel, than faithful and compas­sionate to the people of Christ who may be injured by false doc­trine. It is highly sinful to ex­change com­pliments at the expense of truth.

The awful responsibility of being acces­sory to the promotion of error is strongly expressed by the Apostle John also. "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doc­trine, receive him not into your house, nei­ther bid him God-speed; for he that bid­deth him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds."