GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH of DANVILLE
May 29, 2011
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“Christ Himself is the one glorious object of delight for the infinite mind of Jehovah (in His three-fold character of persons) to behold, with unceasing complacency from one eternity to another.” — Robert Hawker
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The Horrid Load of All My Guilt — Don Fortner
(Tune: #110 — Alas! And did My Savior Bleed — CM)
The horrid load of all my guilt
Was on my Savior laid;
He loved me so that, for my life,
My sin His own He made!
Forsaken, there, by God in death,
His heart was fixed on me!
His love embraced my guilty soul,
Nailed to the curs-ed tree!
For me He took the cup of wrath,
And drank damnation dry!
His love sustained His soul in death, —
That I might never die!
Oh, love amazing! Love beyond
The reach of human thought!
That love shall be my endless song,
Which my salvation bought!
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“They made their hearts as an adamant stone.”
Zechariah 7:12
The Lord God declares that the heart of fallen man is as obstinate and hard “as an adamant stone.” The adamant stone is a legendary stone of impenetrable hardness. It was thought to be harder than flint (Ezekiel 3:9). How hard, how impenetrable, how unbreakable the heart of man must be, if the Lord God compares it to an adamant stone!
Obdurate Hardness
The obdurate hardness of the heart of man is displayed throughout the Scriptures; but it is nowhere displayed more fully than in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night our dear Savior was arrested and led away to the judgment hall. There were among those who “took Jesus, and bound Him, and led Him away” (John 18:12-13) a great mixture of people. Some of them were Roman soldiers. Some were servants of the priests and Pharisees. Among them were Judas and the Pharisees.
But in one thing they were all alike. They all “made their hearts as an adamant stone.” They all saw our Savior’s Divine power forcefully exhibited. The soldiers were compelled, by the mere force of our Savior’s name, “I AM,” to fall backward as dead men to the ground. All saw the miracle our Lord performed when He touched Malchus’ ear and healed him. Yet all remained unmoved, cold, indifferent, insensible, and hard.
Don’t you find that astonishing? They all acted as if they had seen nothing out of the ordinary. — “They made their hearts as an adamant stone!” They saw these things and hardened their hearts, like Pharaoh, and went on coolly with their callous business. — “They took Jesus, bound Him, and led Him away!”
Goat’s Blood
Oh, how hard the heart of man is! Nothing can break it! Nothing can penetrate it! — Nothing but omnipotent grace! Bless God, there is hope for such hard hearts! The legendary adamant stone was thought the hardest of all stones, harder than flint (Ezekiel 3:9), harder than the nether millstone (Job 41:24). Fire could not burn it, or even cause it to be heated, except on its very surface. The adamant stone could not be broken by a hammer. Yet, this hardest of all stones, when soaked in a goat’s blood, was melted, dissolved, and broken, like an aspirin in water. So the hardest heart of the most obstinate sinner is melted, dissolved, and broken when sprinkled with the precious blood of Christ, the sinner’s Scapegoat.
Nothing can break the heart but the almighty, efficacious, irresistible grace of God. Nothing can soften the stony, adamant heart except the precious blood of Christ sprinkled upon it by the Spirit of God, declaring the forgiveness of sin.
Sinner’s Hope
That is my hope and prayer to God for you. If God the Holy Spirit sprinkles your heart with the blood of Christ, if He will apply the blood to you, you will look upon Him you have pierced and mourn. Miracles will never penetrate your hard heart. Judgments will never break your heart. Tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes, though ever so frightening, will never penetrate the heart of a sinner. Affliction will never break it. The law, with all its threats and curses, will never break the heart of man. Hell itself cannot break the rebel heart of man. But the blood of Christ can!
The blood of Christ, sprinkled on stony hearts as hard an impenetrable as adamant, breaks the hard heart of man, humbles the sinner, and bows him as a contrite one before the throne of God’s free grace, causing him to cry like the Publican, “God be propitious to me, the sinner. Have mercy upon me through the sin-atoning blood of your dear Son!”
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Blessed, God-given, God-sustained Hardness
“As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they [be] a rebellious house.” (Ezekiel 3:9)
This invincible boldness, courage, and steadfastness in God’s prophets the world calls “pride,” “impertinence,” and “rudeness.” The religious world (especially preachers, teachers, and religious leaders) calls it “divisive dogmatism” and “sectarianism.” But the people of this world and the self-serving religious leaders of the world know nothing about the power of the Spirit, the call of God, “the burden of the Word of the LORD,” or the work of the ministry.
The adamant, “harder than flint,” cannot be broken by a hammer or consumed by fire. It is unaffected by its environment and equally unaffected by that which men may do to it. That adamant stands firm and never yields. This legendary stone was thought to be used to cut iron in pieces and to polish precious gems.
John Gill rightly observed, “The design of the simile is to set forth the courage and fortitude of mind the prophet was endowed with, in order to face an impudent and hardhearted people.”
The servant of God must be as bold as a lion, as fearless as a bear, as strong as an ox, and as tender as a dove. He is the instrument by which God cuts the heart of iron in pieces and breaks it, and the instrument by which the Almighty polishes jewels for His crown.
His work is of immense importance. Moses can never compromise to appease Pharaoh, to please Aaron, or to win Israel’s approval. God’s servant is and must be a man willing to stand alone, both in the world and in the Church. He cannot be moved by the flatteries of friends or the frowns of foes. Though the world rise up against him, though enemies attack him violently, he stands firm, “as an adamant harder than flint,” unmoved, unaffected, unafraid. Why? How? — He is God’s servant, not the servant of men. Being God’s servant, he knows that failure and defeat are impossibilities. — God give me such strength with which to serve You in this generation!
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THE GRACE BULLETIN
May 29, 2011
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
Tuesday
7:30 P.M. Mid-Week Worship Service
Television Broadcasts in Danville
Channel 6 - Sunday Morning 8:00 A.M.
Channel 6 - Wednesday Evening 6:00 P.M.
Channel 6 - Friday Evening 7:00 P.M.
Television Broadcasts in Harrodsburg
Channel 6 - Sunday Afternoon 3:00 P.M.
Channel 6 - Friday Evening 6:00 P.M.
Web Pages
http://www.DonFortner.com
http://www.FreegraceRadio.com
http://www.Grace-eBooks.com |
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