GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH of DANVILLE February 20, 2011
“Mercy Seatward” — As the cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat were made facing “mercy seatward” (Exodus 39:7), so every messenger of God faces “mercy seatward” as he preaches. Every true Gospel sermon directs eternity bound sinners “mercy seatward,” setting forth Jesus Christ and Him crucified. ______________________________
All Hail! Atoning Lamb — Don Fortner (Tune: #405 — My Soul, Be on Thy Guard — SM) 1. All hail! Atoning Lamb, Whose off’ring once for all, Appointed by the great I AM, Redeemed us from the fall.
2. Your efficacious blood, By pow’r Divine applied, Makes perfect all the Church of God, — By free grace sanctified.
3. No condemnation now, Against the chosen race, Perfect, forever, Lord we bow, And triumph in Your grace.
4. Here then my soul shall rest, With Jesus’ blood applied, Redeemed and perfect, ever blest, In Him I’m satisfied.
5. So I will make my boast In Jesus crucified: — Perfected with the heav’nly host, I shall be glorified! ____________________________
Jehoshua — Jehovah Is Salvation
“Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua.” (Numbers 13:16)
When Moses changed the name of Oshea, the son of Nun, to Jehoshua, he was making a declaration. The name Jehoshua means, “Jehovah is salvation!” And that is the essence of all that is taught in the Book of God. I cannot find any other doctrine taught in Holy Scripture.
When Moses stood before the unbelieving children of Israel at the Red Sea, he cried, “Stand still and see the salvation of the LORD!” The entire Book of Jonah is a declaration of what he said while he was yet in the whale’s belly: “Salvation is of the LORD!” David, in his Psalms of praise declares this over and over again. He sang, “The salvation of the righteous is of the LORD!” “In God is my salvation and glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.” These were his last words, “Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire!”
As this was the message of the Prophets in the Old Testament, it is the message of the Apostles in the New. — “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” — “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.”
If this is the message of all the Prophets and all the Apostles who spoke for God in the past, it is the message of every preacher who speaks for God today. Any doctrine that departs from this message departs from the Scriptures, departs from the Gospel, and is heresy. All heresy has its’ beginning with the addition of something man does to the work of Christ. All heresy either adds to or in some way diminishes this fact: — “Jehovah is salvation!”
This is my doctrine. This is my hope. This is my message. “Jehovah is salvation!” The whole of the work whereby a son of Adam is delivered from the power of sin, the kingdom of darkness, the guilt of transgression, the curse of the law, and the bondage of iniquity into the glorious liberty of the sons of God is of the Lord. Salvation is God’s work alone! ______________________________
Audio Books
Two of Pastor Fortner’s books are available as audio books: Discovering Christ in Genesis (read by Don Johnson) and Discovering Christ in Ruth (read by Joseph Blakely). These audio books may be ordered in MP3 format on a single DVD from our church offices. The cost is $5.00 each. ____________________________
God Sees No Sin In His People
“He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel.” Numbers 23:21
These words do not suggest that there was no sin or perverseness in Israel. There was an abundance of perverseness among them; but the Lord God did not mark the sins of His people against them. He did not impute sin to His chosen. He did not look upon their sins with the eye of His justice, but hid His face from them and forgave them. That which God did for His elect among the children of Israel, He has done for all His elect in Christ, His true Israel, “the Israel of God.”
Though there is much sin in us and done by us, as every true believer readily acknowledges and confesses (1 John 1:8, 10), yet God sees no sin in His people. The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to destroy, purge, remove, and take away the sins of His people; and He has done it (John 1:29; Hebrews 1:3; 9:26; 1 John 3:5). All the sins of God’s elect were laid upon Christ. He bore them in His own body on the tree, endured and satisfied the wrath of God for them, and bore them away. The Son of God redeemed us from the curse of the law, made an end of our sins, and justified and sanctified us by His blood. God almighty has, through the effectual atonement of Christ, so thoroughly blotted out our sins that He does not behold them. He has cast our sins into the blessed, deep sea of Divine forgetfulness. He has cast our sins behind His back. He has removed them from us as far as the east is from the west, and remembers them no more. Therefore, God sees no sin in His people!
I am fully aware that this doctrine is commonly rejected and despised by men. It has been described by some as “a freak doctrine of perverted minds that leads to licentiousness and sin.” Why? I simply do not know. I cannot imagine anyone, who has tasted the bitterness of his own depravity and sin and has experienced the blessed forgiveness of sin by the grace of God through the blood of Christ, objecting to the fact that God “hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel.” The fact that God sees no sin in His people is a most glorious, comforting doctrine of the Gospel, “without which,” John Gill appropriately declared, “the gospel must cease to be good news and glad tidings to the sons of men.”
Would you have this forgiveness? What would you give to go to bed tonight knowing that God almighty does not behold sin in you and will never charge sin to you, to lay your head upon your pillow tonight with these words ringing in your heart: — “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin”? If you are a sinner in need of such forgiveness, come now to the Son of God. Confess your sin to God, trusting Christ, and go your way, like the publican of old, justified. It is written in the Scriptures, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Both God’s faithfulness and his justice demand the forgiveness of all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. ______________________________
THE GRACE BULLETIN February 20, 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
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