Like the mass of the papists, the blasphemy of universal redemption asserts that Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary really accomplished nothing.
The Lord Waits to be gracious Still — Don Fortner (Tune: #497 — When I can Read My Title Clear — CM )
1. So great the love, so rich the grace Of our great cov’nant God, — He waits to save His chosen race Through Christ’s atoning blood.
2. He waits, while they His grace defy ‘Til the appointed hour, Fixed by His own decree on high, To show His saving pow’r.
3. God waits to magnify His name, And make His mercy known, The sheep He scattered to reclaim, And gather in His own!
4. My God, did You thus wait for me, To show in me Your grace? O give me grace to wait on Thee, In patient faith with peace.
5. The Lord waits to be gracious still, Though clouds oft hide His face: — So wait the wonders of His will, And sing of His free grace!
Two Blessed Ordinances
The Lord Jesus has given his church two blessed, highly symbolic, perpetual ordinances that are to be observed by every believer until he comes. By believer’s immersion (baptism), the heaven born soul confesses Christ and identifies himself with his people. By the observance of the Lord’s Supper, eating the bread and drinking the wine, holding communion with him and one another, we remember Christ. In both, we show forth the Lord’s death and our confident faith in its efficacy to the saving of our souls.
Christ in You — Righteousness Imparted
“To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27)
In regeneration we are sanctified, made holy, by Christ being formed in us; that is what is meant by the expression, “imparted righteousness.” In the new birth righteousness is imparted to us by the Spirit of God creating a new, righteous, holy nature in us that was not there before (Galatians 5:23-24; 2 Peter 1:4; Colossians 1:27; 1 John 3:5-9). The new birth is nothing less than Christ taking up residence in the chosen sinner, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” In the new birth we are made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Believers are people with two natures (Romans 7:14-24): that holy seed which is born of God and cannot sin (1 John 3:9), and the flesh which is nothing but sin (Romans 7:18). These two natures, the flesh and the spirit, are constantly at war with one another so long as we live in this world.
When God saves a sinner, he does not renovate, repair and renew the old nature. He creates a new nature in his elect. Our old, Adamic, fallen, sinful nature is not changed. The flesh is subdued by the spirit; but it will never surrender to the spirit. The spirit wars against the flesh; but it will never conquer or improve the flesh. The flesh is sinful. The flesh is cursed. Thank God, the flesh must die! But it will never be improved.
Taught in Scripture
This dual nature of the believer is plainly taught in the Word of God. It is utterly impossible to honestly interpret Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, the 7th chapter of Romans and 1 John 3 without concluding that both Paul and John teach that there is within every believer, so long as he lives in this world, both an old Adamic nature that can do nothing but sin, and a new righteous nature, that which is born of God, that cannot sin, that can only do righteousness. The Holy Spirit’s work in sanctification is not the improvement of our old nature, but the giving of a new nature and maturing it, steadily causing the believer to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ and bring forth fruit unto God.
Known by Experience
Every believer knows the duality of his nature by painful, bitterly painful experience. Ask any child of God what he desires above all things and he will quickly reply, “That I may live without sin in perfect conformity to Christ, perfectly obeying the will of God in all things.” But that which he most greatly desires is an utter impossibility in this life.
Is it not so with you? Though you delight in the law of God after the inward man, there is another law of evil in your members, warring against you.
You would do good; but evil is always present with you, so that you cannot do the things that you would. Even your best, noblest, most sincere acts of good, when honestly evaluated, are so marred by sin in motive and in execution that you must confess, “All my righteousnesses are filthy rags!”
It is this warfare between the flesh and the spirit, more than anything else, that keeps the believer from being satisfied with life in this world. Blessed be God, we shall soon be free! When we have dropped this robe of flesh, we shall be perfectly conformed to the image of him who loved us and gave himself for us!
New Nature
This conflict is caused by and begins in regeneration, because the righteousness of Christ is imparted to us in the new birth. C. H. Spurgeon said, “The reigning power of sin falls dead the moment a man is converted, but the struggling power of sin does not die until the man dies.” A new nature has been planted within us; but the old nature is not eradicated.
Do not think for a moment that the old nature dies in regeneration, or even that it gets better. Flesh is flesh, and will never be anything but flesh. Noah, Lot, Moses, David and Peter, like all other believers, had to struggle with this fact.
We need no proof of the fact that God’s people in this world have two warring natures within, beyond an honest examination of our own hearts and lives. Our best thoughts are corrupted with sin. Our most fervent prayers are defiled by lusts of the flesh. Our reading of Holy Scripture is corrupted by carnal passions. Our most spiritual worship is marred by the blackness within. Our most holy aspirations are vile. Our purest love for our Savior is so corrupted by our love of self and love for this world that we can hardly call our love for Christ love. From time to time we have all found, by bitter experience, the truthfulness of the hymn…
“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it! Prone to leave the God I love: Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.”
“Noah Found Grace in the Eyes of the LORD.”
Genesis 6:8
Noah had many brothers and sisters, however, it is written, “ Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” God saves whom he will and passes by whom He will and is just in doing so. Salvation is not by family inheritance but by grace. There was nothing about Noah that was more commendable than the rest of his brothers and sisters; Noah’s salvation was all of grace. Noah was chosen by grace, called by grace, justified by grace, made righteous by grace and kept by the grace of God through faith; by grace Noah believed God. Every thing concerning Noah was owed to the grace of God. The same is said of all whom God saves in Christ. “O to grace how great a debtor I am daily constrained to be!” Pastor John Chapman
GRACE BULLETIN
February 8, 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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