CALL TO WORSHIP

Tune: "When I Can Read My Title Clear"

O, God, my heart is fixed on Thee, to sing and give Thee praise;

I'll praise Thee, Lord, among Thy saints, as we our anthems raise.

As we our anthems raise; as we our anthems raise.

I'll praise Thee, Lord, among Thy saints, as we our anthems raise.

I'll praise Thee for Thy mercy great, that reaches down to me

In Christ my Savior, I am blessed with all salvation free.

With all salvation free; with all salvation free.

In Christ my Savior, I am blessed with all salvation free.

I'll praise Thee for Thy righteousness as sent from Thee above;

Thy law and justice satisfied in union with Thy love.

In union with Thy love; in union with Thy love;

Thy law and justice satisfied in union with Thy love.

I'll praise Thee for Thy cleansing Word that sanctifies my soul;

As in my heart Thou art glorified in Christ who makes me whole;

In Christ who makes me whole; in Christ who makes me whole;

As in my Thou art glorified in Christ who makes me whole.

Bible Study: "Grace, Wisdom and Life in Christ" 1 Sam. 18:5-16

TODAY'S SPEAKER: Brother Jim Casey will conduct the 11:00 am service today. Pray for him as he delivers God's word.

Radio Broadcast: Sunday morning at 9:30am on 98.7 FM -WISK. You can also hear the sermons on your computer. Just click on http://www.americusradio.com/

Birthdays: Jermaine Harpe - Aug. 1^st. - Alisha Jackson - Aug. 7^th.

CHRIST BEARING OUR SINS IN HIS OWN BODY

"Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." (1 Peter 2:24)

Some today claim this verse teaches that the corruption of our sins was imparted or infused into the body of Christ. They insist that the phrase "IN His own body" means that our sins were somehow "placed" or "put inside" His body. This is not only ridiculous but heretical. The word "in" here does not mean "inside" His body, but that He Himself as Godman bore our sins through the sacrifice of His human body. It was not an animal sacrifice that suffered and died only as a picture and type as in the Old Testament, but it was Christ who suffered and died in His own human body for our sins. He taught His disciples this when He gave them the ordinance of the Lord's Supper -- "And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me" (1 Cor. 11:24). It is stated in the book of Hebrews - "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared Me:" (Heb. 10:4-5). It was in His own human body, and not another's. It was in that body which His Father prepared for Him, that sinless body conceived in the womb of the virgin by the Holy Spirit. It was His human body which was made an offering for sin and which endured great pain and sorrows for our sins imputed to Him. No corruption of sin was imparted or infused into His body. The corruption of sin is not a substance or mass of matter that can be removed from one person and placed on or into another. The corruption of sin is our depravity evidenced in unbelief, self-love, self-righteousness, hatred, idolatry, all the works of the flesh listed in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Galatians 5:19-21. These were not placed inside of Christ's body, but He did bear the full responsibility of all the sins and all the corruption of the sins of all His people. He did in His body bear the full measure of the wrath of God against each and every one of these sins as they were charged to Him in the stead of His people.

Pastor Bill Parker - Pastor of 13^th. Street Baptist Church, Ashland, Ky.

THE LOST SHEEP RESTORED

Our first view of this peculiar people shall be in the place where God finds them. "My people," He says, "have been lost sheep." They do not become sheep by being found, nor do they cease to be sheep by being lost. They were sheep eternally in the mind of God; and their becoming lost did not alter nor destroy their character of being sheep any more than the wandering of a sheep literally and naturally from the fold turns it into a goat. It may be lame, sick, or diseased; it may stray away miles from the fold; its fleece may be torn with briars or soiled with mud, and its whole appearance so altered that the shepherd can scarcely recognize it; but it is a sheep still, and ever will be a sheep while it continues to exist. And thus the elect being sheep eternally in the mind of God, and as such possessing an eternal union with the Son of God, could not cease to be sheep by falling in Adam, nor do their personal, individual falls, slips, and transgressions destroy their original, unalterable character

Preached in 1841 by J. C. Philpot

THE BELIEVER'S SCAPEGOAT

Christ is our spiritual scapegoat on whom all the sins of His people were laid, and He carried them into the land of forgetfulness, never more to return (Lev. 16:21,22). "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all... He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors" (Isaiah 53:6,12). "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin (by nature or practice, being holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sin) that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).