GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH of DANVILLE
January 16, 2011
"Jesus Christ is no security against storms, but He is a perfect security in storms." -- William Romaine
Lord, Set Your Seal in Me -- Don Fortner
(Tune: #188 -- I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord -- SM)
1. It is the Lord reveals to sinners, what they are,
And all the souls His Spirit seals, His cov'nant mercies share.
2. When He this work performs, He melts the sinner's heart;
Creates anew His chosen worms, and never shall depart.
3. This sacred seal once wrought, sprinkled with Jesus' blood,
The ransomed shall to heav'n be brought in holiness to God.
4. Lord set Your seal in me; let me Your image bear,
That when Your saints Your glory see, I may be with them there.
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Substitution
We are told that "our sins were laid upon" Christ; that "He was made sin," that "He suffered the just for the unjust," "that God might be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly"; that "the chastisement of our peace was upon Him," and so on. (Isaiah 53:5-11; Romans 3:24-26; Galatians 3:13, 14; 1 Peter 3:18, and so on.). Now, if Christ only suffered to make a governmental display of the mischievous consequences of sin, then sin itself was not punished in Him, and all the sins of the pardoned remain forever unpunished, in express contradiction to these Scriptures. Moreover, the transaction at Calvary, instead of being a sublime exhibition of God's righteousness, was only an immoral farce. And finally, not only is God not immutably just, but He is capable of being positively unjust, in that the only innocent man since Adam was made to suffer most of all men! R. L. Dabney
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Christ Our Priest and Our Sacrifice
Genesis 14:18-20
The Book of God often reveals the sinful deeds of righteous people, teaching us plainly and repeatedly that God's elect in this world, though washed in the blood of Christ, though robed in his righteousness, though forgiven of all sin, though born of His Spirit, are all sinners still (1 John 1:8-10). Abraham, called of God and brought out of Ur, in time of trial went down to Egypt for help. There he shamed himself greatly. No sooner did he come back to Bethel and worship God for His goodness than a strife arose between his herdsmen and Lot's. It was a strife between brethren, -- a strife about cattle! Righteous Lot "pitched his tent toward Sodom!"
Our Melchizedek
In Genesis 14 we see Melchizedek coming to Abraham. This man, Melchizedek, was the king of Salem and "the priest of the most high God." This Melchizedek is, at least typically, the Lord Jesus Christ, our great High Priest (Hebrews 6:20).
Let us, this day, meditate upon this blessed, glorious, soul-cheering fact. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is our great High Priest. He is the sinner's Advocate in heaven (1 John 2:1-2).
"Arise, my soul, arise!
Shake off thy guilty fears!
The bleeding sacrifice
In thy behalf appears!"
The bread and wine Melchizedek brought to Abraham speak of the body and blood of our dear Savior. His body (his humanity) was especially prepared of God, so that He could come into this world to obey God for us and die in our stead at Calvary. His righteousness, (His obedience to the law), and His blood, (His satisfaction of justice), our great Melchizedek pleads for us in heaven. -- "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!"
Justified By Faith
In Genesis 15 we see Abraham, a man to whom God revealed Himself, to whom God promised a Savior, believing God. Standing in the midst of the sacrifice (looking to Christ), God made a covenant with him. Abraham was justified, declared righteous before God. The righteousness of Christ was imputed to him. So it is with all God's elect. Our only righteousness before God is that which God himself gives to all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We are made the righteousness of God in Christ. It is righteousness, without works, received by faith. Let us ever give thanks to God for his grace. Believing sinners are "justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ."
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"Behold, a Ladder Set Up on the Earth!
Genesis 28:12
The ladder Jacob saw in his dream was our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:51). When the Lord God revealed His Son to Jacob, He revealed Him as a ladder. What an instructive and helpful representation that is of our Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ is made of God unto us a ladder!
Here is a Ladder reaching from earth to heaven. Jacob saw the foot of it upon the earth, "and the top of it reached to heaven!" This represents the two natures of our Redeemer. He is both God and man in one glorious Person, as fully God as though He were not man and as fully man as though He were not God. Though He stood upon the earth as a man, He never ceased to be God. He never left the bosom of the Father (John 1:18; 3:13).
As a man, He was set up on the earth (Galatians 4:4-5). As God, He was always in heaven, the eternally begotten Son of the Father, infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, and unchangeable (John 1:14; 3:13; 1:18). The union of these two natures, God and man, in one Person is the mystery of all mysteries (1 Timothy 3:16). That the glory of Christ's Godhead did not destroy the weakness of His manhood, nor the weakness of His manhood destroy the glory of His Godhead is incomprehensibly mysterious. If Christ would redeem us, He had to have a body in which to bear our sins to suffer and die as our Substitute. He had to have a body and nature like ours. A man He must be who would redeem man, because it was man who sinned. Because man sinned, man must suffer for sin. For this reason, God the Holy Spirit prepared a body for God the Son in the womb of the virgin (Hebrews 10:5).
It was our Savior's Godhood which gave infinite merit, virtue, and efficacy to the sufferings of His manhood. Someone said, "Christ is both God and man, because God could not suffer and man could not satisfy; but the God-man both suffered the wrath of God and satisfied the justice of God when He bled and died as the sinners' Substitute upon the cursed tree." Moreover, it was Christ's Godhood which supported and sustained His manhood in all His sufferings. Manhood could never have born the agony of Gethsemane and the torments of Calvary had it not been that the man who suffered is also the eternal God.
Our Mediator must be both God and man so that He might bring God and man together. He must be God that He might deal with God, which man, as man, is not fit to do. He must be man that He might deal with man, which God in His holiness could not do without consuming the sinful creature. "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!" This is the meaning of our Savior's incarnation. Immanuel is God with us, God in our nature. Were He not both God and man, He could not be Jesus our Savior (Matthew 1:21-23).
The angels of God went up and down on the ladder which Jacob saw. Even so, we are able to ascend to God in heaven only by the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6); and it is by and through Christ that God comes down to us. God almighty meets with, deals with, and blesses sinners only in Christ. The Lord God stood above the ladder and made all his promises of grace to Jacob. So all the promises of God's grace come to sinners through Christ. All spiritual blessings, all the promises of eternal life, all the glory of heaven is in Christ. All things come to chosen sinners through Christ, the Mediator, our Ladder (Ephesians 1:3-14).
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THE GRACE BULLETIN
January 16, 2011
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 in 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.
Television Broadcasts in Harrodsburg
Channel 6 - Sunday Afternoon 3:00 P.M.
Channel 6 - Friday Evening 6:00 P.M.
Web Pages
http://www.DonFortner.com
http://www.FreegraceRadio.com
http://www.Grace-eBooks.com |
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