Central Grace Church
3596 Franklin Street Rocky Mount, Virginia
Website: www.centralgracechurch.com Email: centralgracechurch@gmail.com
June 23rd 2024
10:00 am -----------------------------------------------------------Home To Stay -- Philemon
We rejoice with our sister Kathy Trent upon her confession of faith in Christ by believer’s baptism last Sunday. This morning, her brother, Todd Trent will also confess Christ in believer’s baptism. We are thankful for Kathy and Todd and wholeheartedly receive them into the fellowship of this church.
Trembling At The Word--“To this man will I look, event to him that is poor
and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” – Isaiah 66:2
Do certain portions of God’s Word greatly trouble you? By that I mean, when you read them are you so convicted by them you almost wish to avoid them? Conviction from the Word is a wonderful thing. It is a good evidence that the Spirit of God is convincing you of sin. If the Word makes you feel guilty. . . GOOD! Because you are!
The unbelieving world has no such conviction from the Word. Far from being convicted by it, they scoff at and ridicule it, while the children of God tremble at His Word. To the child of God who is made alive by the Word of God, that Word is as a fire, hammer, and sword. The Word of God is often sent into the mind and heart of the believer so powerfully that he or she literally trembles at it. So to all who tremble at God’s Word, He saith,“to this man will I look.” The Lord looks upon that person in mercy, love, and grace. He looks upon them with pity and turns their trembling into thanksgiving and praise. How? By showing them Christ, the substitute for guilty sinners.
“Hear the Word of the Lord, ye that tremble at His Word. . . He shall appear to your joy”(v.5).
O, What Slow Learners! -- "So Jesus said, Do you also still not understand?" Matthew 15:16
What lessons we need day by day to teach us anything aright, and how it is for the most part, "line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little." O, what slow learners!—what dull, forgetful scholars!—what ignoramuses!—what stupid blockheads!—what stubborn pupils! Surely no scholar at a school, old or young, could learn so little of natural things as we seem to have learned of spiritual things after so many years instruction— so many chapters read—so many sermons heard—so many prayers put up—so much talking about religion. How small, how weak is the amount of growth, compared with all we have read and heard and talked about! But it is a mercy that the Lord saves whom He will save—and that we are saved by free grace—and free grace alone! – Philpot
Only Men at Best
If we would remember that we live among people who are imperfect, we would not be in such a fever when we discover one another's failings. Old cloth will tear and cracked pots will leak. Blessed is he who expects nothing of poor flesh and blood, for he will seldom be disappointed. The best of men are only men at the best. – C.H. Spurgeon
The Only Way to Know God
CHRIST Jesus is the only way anyone can obtain a saving knowledge of God! The greatest scholars and religious thinkers of the world merely grope in the darkness of their limited human understanding – as a flash of lightening on a dark night dazzles the eye, and is impressive, and is a powerful display of God’s power, but will not show the traveler the way nor provide him with continual light to walk in the way! This only Christ can do! The light of the glory of God and the saving knowledge of God is revealed to our hearts in the face of Jesus Christ. This is where we behold it first and continually until we awake with His Likeness.
No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter, who doth not in some measure behold it by faith here in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory, and faith for sight. Where the soul is not previously seasoned with grace and faith, it is not capable of glory or vision. Nay, persons not disposed hereby unto it cannot desire it, whatever they pretend; they only deceive their own souls in supposing that they do so. Most men will say with confidence, living or dying, that they desire to be with Christ and to behold His glory; but they can give no reason why they should desire any such thing – only they think that it is somewhat better than to be in that evil condition which otherwise they must be cast into forever, when they can be here no more. If a man pretend himself to be enamoured on, or greatly to desire, what he never saw, nor was ever represented unto him, he doth but dote on his own imaginations. And the pretended desires of many to behold the glory of Christ in heaven, who have no view of it by faith whilst they were here in this world, are nothing but self-deceiving imaginations. - John Owen