Please join us again next Sunday as we enjoy breakfast in the fellowship hall. Sunday, Dec. 13th 9:15-10:00 a.m.
Hymns for service: “Amazing Grace” – p. 236 “Pass Me Not” – p. 235
I am preaching this morning, tonight, and Wednesday evening for Pastor Jim Byrd and the congregation of 13th Street Baptist Church in Ashland, KY. Pastor Byrd is preaching for a group of believers in Hawaii. I will return home (DV) this Thursday. – The Pastor
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“A NAIL IN A SURE PLACE”
“And I will fasten Him as a nail in a sure place; and He shall be for a
glorious throne to His father’s house” (Isaiah 22:23). My soul! through grace, you have long been enabled to hang all your grand concerns for eternity upon the Lord Jesus; and will it not be a very refreshing subject for meditation to see how eternally firm and secure all rest, with an unshaken and unchangeable confidence? Behold Him as He is in Himself, in His person, work, and righteousness – “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today and forever.” Next contemplate Him as the source, origin, fountain, and support of all the great things of salvation. There is not a purpose of God, but is founded on Christ; not a promise, but is made, confirmed, and fulfilled in Christ; and not a dispensation in all the kingdoms of nature, grace, and glory, but comes from Christ and His own righteous govern ment. Go on, under a third branch of meditation, and behold Jesus as a nail in a sure place, and that the persons, concerns, and blessings of His people all hang on Him; from Him they derive all their spiritual strength, gifts, graces, authority, order, and appointment. On Him they all depend, for life, ability, power, and disposition to carry it on; and to Him the whole glory of their services return, in an endless revenue of praise. Lastly, and above all, on this nail in a sure place, behold the hand of God your Father, both fixing Him there, and proclaiming it to the souls of His people – “I will fasten Him,” saith Jehovah, “as a nail in a sure place; and He shall be for a glorious throne to His Father’s house.” Hail! Thou glorious almighty Mediator! Founded on such authority, and possessing in Thyself such eternal principles, evermore will I hang my soul, and body, and spirit, with all I have, and all I am or hope to be, in time and to all eternity, on Thee; for never can too great a stress be laid upon Jesus, nor too full a confidence be placed in Him. How can a soul perish that hangs on God’s Christ? —Robert Hawker
CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS
We must be declared free from guilt and invested with a righteousness that will stand before the law of sinless perfection and entitle us to the kingdom of heaven. And if we have it not in ourselves, where must we look for it but as existing solely in the person of Jesus Christ? Dependence therefore upon that righteousness, as wrought out by Him for believers and appointed of God for sinners to trust in, is the gracious faith of the gospel by which the soul is justified. Satan and the world may ask us, “How can ye be justified by a righteous ness which is not yours?” We answer, “The righteousness of Christ is ours, and ours by as great a right as any other thing we possess by the free gift of God; for it hath pleased Him to give us a garment who were naked, and to give us who had none of our own, a righteousness answerable to divine justice.” —William Cowper
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HOW GOOD MUST ONE BE TO GET TO HEAVEN?
How good does one have to be to get to heaven? Will God accept sincerity? Will God accept you if you do the best you can and lead a good life? Can you get to heaven if, from this day forward, you serve the Lord? Anyone who knows anything about God and His word knows that the answer to these questions must be AN EMPHATIC NO! (Romans 3:20, Romans 3:28) It is not possible for any man to do or think anything that is good or acceptable before God (Isaiah 64:6). God cannot and will not accept anything less than WHAT HE IS, which is absolute perfection. He says in Leviticus 22:21, “It shall be perfect to be accepted.” In order to get to heaven by our works, we must be as good as God, perfect in all things – perfect in heart, perfect in thought, perfect in works, PERFECTLY HOLY! Is there, therefore, no hope? Must we all perish forever? NO! Blessed be the Lord our God! In Christ He has found a way to be both just and Justifier. He has found a way to make fallen, sinful people like us perfect – perfectly holy and perfectly accepted. Now this perfection is not of us, in us, nor through us, nor the results of anything we do or have done. It is entirely the work of God’s free grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. God has taken Christ’s perfect righteousness and imputed it to us, making us to be the very righteousness of God in Him. The penalty against sins was paid in full by the doing, suffering, and dying of our Lord Jesus as the sinner’s Substitute. – Scott Richardson
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