MORNING WORSHIP – 11:00 a.m – Brother Mark Pannell
OPENING – Psalm 22:30-31
CALL TO WORSHIP (above)
HYMN – The Solid Rock – p. 272
READING – 2 Corinthians 5:1-16
MESSAGE – Convinced of Righteousness – John 16:7-11
CLOSING HYMN – Jesus Paid It All – p. 125
Birthdays: Jake McMillan – May 20th | Melissa Riggins – May 22nd
I am preaching today at Grace Baptist Church in Ruston, LA, where Brother Richard Warmack is pastor. Brothers Jim Casey and Mark Pannell are preaching here in my absence. Debbie and I plan to spend a few days of vacation this week in Destin, FL. The Lord willing, we will return home this Friday, and I will be preaching here on Sunday, May 27. We appreciate your prayers for us.
God’s Word tells us that, because of our sins, we all deserve and can earn nothing from God but His just wrath against us. Until we learn this by God’s revelation, we will never learn to trust, rest in, appreciate, love, and follow the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord our Righteousness. Until the Holy Spirit implants this conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment upon our hearts, we will never see our need of God’s mercy, grace, and undeserved love in Christ. —Pastor Bill Parker
“For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” (Galatians 6:3)
According to God’s Word, man by nature thinks more highly of himself than he ought. This self-righteous attitude oozes out more in unregenerate man’s natural thoughts concerning religion and salvation more than in any other are of life. Unregenerate man naturally believes salvation and a right relationship with God is conditioned either on his works or his “free-will” decision rather than on the Lord Jesus Christ according to the sovereign will of God and the merits of Christ’s finished work alone (Rom. 9:15-16). The Bible says that when aimed towards attaining and maintaining salvation, man’s works are not enough. In fact, such works are evil deeds because they are opposed to the glory of God in Christ, the product of unbelief and self-righteousness, and an open denial of Christ and His righteousness imputed alone as the ground of salvation. The Bible also says that if left to ourselves, none of us, of our own wills, would choose salvation God’s way by His grace through Christ (Rom. 3:10-12; 1 Cor. 2:14). When we imagine that we make the difference between saved and lost we deny what God’s Word says of us, and we insist on thinking much too much of ourselves. The fact is this – When it comes to salvation, we are nothing (less than nothing) and Christ is everything! When God the Holy Spirit brings us to see our sinfulness and Christ’s righteousness, we will see that it is impossible for us to think too lowly of ourselves and our works and too highly of Him and His righteousness. —Pastor Bill Parker
When John the Baptist “saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matt. 3:7). To where, or better yet, to whom should we as sinners flee? John preached the only safety from God’s wrath in the glorious Person and finished work of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ – “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The Lord Jesus Christ is the one and only Lamb of God Who by Himself took away the sins of all His people (God’s elect) all over this world. In taking away their sins, He took away God’s wrath against them. Now, “flee from the wrath to come” by fleeing to Him Who took upon Himself the whole wrath of God for His people. —Copied
THE WRATH OF GOD
The Bible has a lot to say about the wrath and anger of God. His anger is not like that of a quick-tempered hothead, flying off the handle. It is not God throwing a temper-tantrum. His anger is righteous indignation against the one who commits sin, to whom sin is imputed. This is one of God’s attributes that make Him “God over all. Blessed forever.” He would not be perfect God without His anger and wrath against all sin. His wrath was seen in measure by the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden. It was seen in measure in the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha, and in the plagues against Egypt. It was also seen in measure in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. But the full measure of God’s just wrath is most clearly seen in all of its righteous justice when He poured His wrath out upon His only-begotten and well-beloved Son when the sins of the elect were borne by Him in His suffering unto death on the cross as the Surety and Substitute of God’s chosen people. Having the sin-debt of all whom the Father had given Him before the foundation of the world imputed to Him, the Lord Jesus Christ drank the cup of damnation fully dry in their place and secured for them the righteousness which God had imputed to them for their justification and from which they receive spiritual and eternal life from Him. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believth” (Rom. 10:4). He is the “propitiation” (sin-bearing sacrifice that brings satisfaction) for their sins. And “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1). And so, while we fear the wrath of God, we know there is no wrath for those in Christ, and we realize the wrath of God is one of His attributes that makes Him the altogether lovely God. —Copied
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