“The Gospel is not to be preserved like the Crown Jewels, locked in our ecclesiastical strong room. It is to be spread locally, and to the ends of the earth.” — Pastor Herbert M. Carson
• The Lord willing, Bro. Mike Walker will be here to preach for us on Tuesday, February 10. Bro Walker is pastor of El-shaddai Baptist Church in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina.
“There are three things that tug at the heart of every true believer concerning the sin he sees in himself. — Justification that it may not condemn, — Sanctification that it may not reign, and — Glorification that it may not be at all.” Pastor Darvin Pruitt
Since God my Father Reigns — Don Fortner (Tune: #46 — O for a Thousand Tongues — CM)
1. Who dares dispute Jehovah’s right To universal sway? It is our comfort and delight To know God has His way.
2. Rejoice, my soul, my Father reigns! Let all creation know That what His sov’reign will ordains, No pow’r can overthrow!
3. All worlds obey my Father’s nod, And His decrees fulfil; Our strong, eternal, cov’nant God, Performs His sov’reign will!
4. Forgive, O Lord, my base complaints, Of ignorance and pride! I should, since God my Father reigns, In joyful peace abide!
What great mercy the Lord our God bestows upon such wretches as we are, to both save us by his free grace in Christ and constantly remind us of his faithfulness in the free exercise of that grace!
“Is the Church Under the Judgment of God?”
Matthew 16:18
I received a note yesterday from a man who has been confused by the teaching of a self-appointed, free-lance radio preacher, who urges people to quit “attending church,” asserting that “the Church Age is now over and the church is under the judgment of God.” So my confused correspondent asked me, “Is the church under the judgment of God?”
What an absurd thought! How can anyone imagine such a thing? Did not the Son of God assert, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”? It is written of him, “He shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it” (Zechariah 4:7). Of his church, the psalmist sang, “God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early” (Psalm 46:5).
To declare that the church is under the judgment of God is to declare that those who make up the church, God’s elect, to whom no condemnation (judgment) can come (Romans 8:1), are under the judgment of God. It is to assert that the redeemed of the Lord, the church he purchased with his own blood (Acts 20:28), are under the judgment of God. It is to insist that the Bride of Christ, loved by him with an everlasting love and espoused by him to himself from eternity, to whom the Son of God wed himself from everlasting, is under the judgment of God. And to teach that the church is under the judgment of God is to teach that the Lord Jesus Christ himself, (who is the Head of his body the church), is under the judgment of God!
No, the church is not under the judgment of God, never has been, and never can be. The church is redeemed, justified and sanctified in and by Christ Jesus. The church is the Family of God. The church is under the blessing of God from everlasting to everlasting!
Babylon is under the judgment of God. Babylon is the false church that is married to Satan, the great whore of freewill, works religion. She wears many names and dresses to suit her hired lovers. She may call herself Buddhist or Baptist, Mohammedan or Methodist, Papist or Protestant; but her doctrine is always the same. She asserts that salvation ultimately depends upon and ultimately is determined by man, not by God. All who dwell in her house and sleep in her bed are “will-worshippers,” not worshippers of Jehovah!
The Lord God speaks plainly to his people about Babylon. — “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4). Compare this with Isaiah 48:20, 52:11, Jeremiah 50:8, 51:6, 45 and 2 Corinthians 6:14-71; and you will see that this is God’s command to his people in every age. If we would walk with God, worship and serve him, we must make an absolute, unmistakable, clean break with Babylon. If we would be Christ pure virgin, we must not identify ourselves with the great whore of the world.
Let us utterly abandon every form of false religion, giving no credibility to the will-worship religion of Babylon. But let none who seek the honor of God abandon the assembling of his saints for public worship (Hebrews 10:25).
“Accepted in the Beloved”
Ephesians 1:6
The believer’s acceptance in Christ is the work of God alone. Grace is stamped upon the whole thing. From beginning to end, the work of our acceptance is God’s operation. Ephesians 1:6 echoes Jonah 2:9, declaring that which is the universal testimony of Holy Scripture: — “Salvation is of the Lord!” Our being in Christ and accepted in Christ must be the work of God alone because no one else existed when it was done. It is a work finished from eternity!
God the Father put us in Christ, the Beloved, by his sovereign decree because of his everlasting love for us. All who believe on Christ in time were put in Christ in eternity by the choice and decree of God. Our names were written with his in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). The Father put us into the hands of his Son, trusting him (Ephesians 1:12) for our everlasting salvation, as sheep are put into the hands of a shepherd (John 6:37-40). Just as the shepherd is responsible for the sheep trusted to his care, so the Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily became responsible for the salvation of his sheep in the covenant of grace. And the Father put us in the loins of his Son, making us his seed and him our Representative before him in all things.
God the Son made us acceptable and accepted. The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world in human flesh to fulfill all the will of God and glorify his Father in the salvation of his people (Matthew 1:21; Hebrews 10:5-14). By his obedience to the Father as a man in the life that he lived, the Son of God fulfilled all righteousness, magnified the law and made it honorable as our Representative. We could never do that ourselves; but we have done it perfectly in Christ. By his obedience in death, our glorious Surety paid the debt of our sins to the full satisfaction of divine justice, the debt we could never pay. Yet, because he is our Surety, his payment was our payment. Thus, in him every believing sinner has perfectly fulfilled all the law of God. Now, believing on him, by our faith in Christ, we establish the law (Romans 3:31).
God the Holy Spirit made our acceptance manifest to us. He does not make us more acceptable to God. He adds nothing to the work of Christ. He simply applies the work of Christ to the hearts of chosen sinners by his almighty, irresistible grace, bringing life and immortality to light by the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10). In sovereign regeneration he gave us life in Christ, by virtue of our everlasting union with him. He created faith in our hearts, giving us a blessed manifestation and assurance of our eternal union with and acceptance in the Son of God, by giving us faith in him.
If this day you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord God has made you “accepted in the Beloved.” Your faith in Christ is the gift of his grace, the fruit of being “accepted in the Beloved.” Your faith in him is the evidence of your being “accepted in the Beloved.” Your faith in Christ is the assurance of your being “accepted in the Beloved.”
GRACE BULLETIN
February 1, 2009
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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