CALL TO WORSHIP

(Tune: "All the Way My Savior Leads Me")

Jesus Christ, my sovereign Savior,

Prophet, Priest, and King, Thou art;

Trusting only in Thy merits,

Thou Who rules within my heart.

Righteousness, and peace, and glory,

All these blessings full and free;

And I know by sovereign mercy

In His presence I will be.

And I know by sovereign mercy

In His presence I will be.

Everlasting consolation,

Law and justice satisfied;

Righteousness has been established

By my Lord Who lived and died;

He is risen, let us glory

In His righteousness alone.

Saved and sure for heaven's glory

Based on what my Lord has done.

Saved and sure for heaven's glory

Based on what my Lord has done.

Today's Speaker: Brother Randy Wages 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: Greenlie Young - Oct 23^rd. Debra Riggins - Oct. 22^nd.

Mike Lee - Oct. 24^th.

When God is exceedingly displeased with a people, it is not necessary, in order to their punishment, that He should bury them alive by an earthquake, or destroy them by lightning. If He only leave them to themselves, withdraw His blessings from their counsels, and His restraint from their passions, their ruin follows of course, according to the necessary order and connection of causes and effects.
If God gives up a people to the way of their own hearts, they will, they must, perish! When a general corruption or morals takes place, when private interest extinguishes all sense of public virtue, when a profligate and venal spirit has infected every rank and order of the state, when presumptuous security and dissipation increase as danger approaches, when, after repeated disappointments, contempt for God, and vain confidence in imagined resources of their own, grow bolder and stronger, then there is reason to fear that the sentence has already gone forth, and that the execution of it is at hand.

John Newton, 1781

GOD'S THOUGHTS AND WAYS

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." (Isaiah 55:9).
Our thoughts are not God's thoughts, and our ways are not God's ways. This is evident in all things. But the primary reference here is concerning God's thoughts and God's way of redeeming sinners! Our thoughts and ways (which seem right to the natural mind) are the ways of deeds and works and will lead to death. Naaman, when confronted with God's way said, " I thought..."
Does anyone think that God can accept an imperfect righteousness or pardon a sinner without His justice being fully honored? Suppose He did? Suppose that without Christ's righteousness and blood God accepted us. What peace could we have? A god who can pardon without justice may one day condemn without reason. A god who can set aside His holiness may one day set aside his mercy. A god who can deny his law may one day deny his gospel. A god who can change his character may one day change his mind and his promises.
(copied)

Free grace! Unmerited mercy! Sovereign love!

No truth shines with clearer luster in the Bible than that salvation, from first to last, is of God. God is sovereign in salvation! He often selects . . . the poorest, the vilest, the most depraved, the most fallen, as if utterly to explode all idea of human merit, and to reflect the free grace of His heart in its richest luster. O precious truth! It stains the pride of human merit! It lays the axe at the root of self! It humbles and abases! It empties and lays low! It ascribes all the praise, honor and glory, might, majesty and dominion, of the new creation in the soul, to the Triune God! No worthiness of the creature allures Him to the sinner's heart! What worthiness can be supposed to exist--what merit can there be in . . . a guilty criminal, an outlawed rebel, a poor insolvent, one whose mind is enmity, one whose heart is swelling with treason against God, His government, and His Son? One who owes millions, but has 'nothing to pay'? None whatever! And that the eternal Spirit should enter the heart of such a one . . . convincing of sin; subduing the hatred; breaking down the rebellion; leading to Jesus, and sealing pardon and peace upon the conscience; oh! what but free grace, unmerited mercy, and sovereign love could thus have constrained Him? "Lord, what did You see in me," exclaims the converted soul, "that moved You with compassion, that drew You to my heart, and that constrained. You to make me Your child? Nothing on my part, but poverty, wretchedness, and misery! Nothing on Your part, nothing but love, sovereignty, and unmerited favor! " O the riches of His grace!