Central Grace Church
3596 Franklin Street Rocky Mount, Virginia
Website: www.centralgracechurch.com Email: pedm55@gmail.com
December 3rd 2023
9:30 am -------------------------------Paul’s Prayer & Mine – Ephesians 3:14-21
10:00 am--------------------------------Jehovah Nissi: Christ Our Banner – Exodus 17:15
Our Lord Came on Purpose
Our Lord came on purpose, to save a particular people, and He accomplished what He came to do! If you are one of those particular people, and if He accomplished salvation for you, then He will notify you of it through the preaching of His Word. In His notification, He will convince you of the fact that you are a sinner; the worst sinner you’ve ever known! That is the very reason why He had to die. It was to save you from your sins. His death was God the Father’s free gift to you. And in His free gift, you are completely redeemed! It was all appointed by the Father, and obtained by the Son. To Him be glory forever! -- Gabe Stalnaker
The Short History Of Humanity
“The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed”Gen.2:8
“Joseph died...and he was put in a coffin in Egypt”Gen.5:26.
The book of Genesis gives us the glorious beginning and the sad ending of humanity. God made him holy and happy, and put him in a beautiful garden. Man made himself a sinner, and sin put him in a coffin.
God formed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed unto his nostrils the breath of life (Gen.2:7), sin took the breath away, and put man back into the ground from whence he came -the wages of sin is death.
Man had paradise, the very presence of God. Of all the earth it was the choice place for man. A place near to God's heart; a place of God's own planting - 'A garden in Eden.' Sin entered and sent man into a foreign contrary -a strange country, away from God.
God made us good, sin made us sinners. We're not what we once were -friends of God, alive and lively; now strangers and foreigners. As dead spiritually as Joseph was physically.
But thank God, he has not left us to ourselves to decay without hope. God's own dear Son left the true paradise, heaven itself, and came to this foreign world and paid the dreadful price for sin -laid in a tomb, but now is risen and ascended to paradise again. God puts us in him, the source of eternal life and everlasting righteousness -paradise restored! – Bruce Crabtree
The Believer’s Standing in Christ – by C.H. Mackintosh, Ireland, 1820-1896
The believer’s standing is in Christ, and if in Christ for one thing, he is in Christ for all. I am not in Christ for righteousness, and out of Christ for sanctification. If I am a debtor to Christ for righteousness, I am equally a debtor to Him for sanctification. I am not a debtor to legalism for either the one or the other. I get both by grace, through faith, and all in Christ. Yes, all . . . all in Christ. The moment the sinner comes to Christ, and believes on Him, he is taken completely off the old ground of nature; he loses his old legal standing and all its belongings, and is looked at as in Christ. He is no longer “in the flesh” but “in the Spirit” (Rom 8:9). God only sees him in Christ, and as Christ. He becomes one with Christ forever. “As he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4). Such is the absolute standing, the settled and eternal position, of the very feeblest babe in the family of God. There is but one standing for every child of God, every member of Christ. Their knowledge, experience, power, gift, and intelligence, may vary; but their standing is one. Whatever of righteousness or sanctification they possess, they owe it all to their being in Christ; consequently, if they have not gotten a perfect sanctification, neither have they gotten a perfect righteousness. But 1 Corinthians 1:30 distinctly teaches that Christ “is made” both the one and the other to all believers. It does not say that we have righteousness and “a measure of sanctification.” We have just as much scriptural authority for putting the word “measure” before righteousness as before sanctification. The Spirit of God does not put it before either. Both are perfect, and we have both in Christ. God never does anything by halves. There is no such thing as a half justification. Neither is there such a thing as a half sanctification. The idea of a member of the family of God, or of the body of Christ, wholly justified, but only half sanctified, is at once opposed to Scripture, and revolting to all sensibilities of the divine nature.
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