Grace Baptist Church of Danville

April 8, 2012

 

No work is so great, no labor is so noble, no burden is so heavy, no honor is so humbling as preaching the gospel of the grace of God to eternity bound sinners.

 

Daily Readings for the Week of April 8-15, 2012

    Sunday                  2 Samuel 18-19                                           Thursday       1 Kings 2-3

    Monday                  2 Samuel 20-21                                           Friday             1 Kings 4-6

    Tuesday                2 Samuel 22-23                                           Saturday                    1 kings 7-8

    Wednesday          2 Samuel 24-1 Kings 1                  Sunday                      1 Kings 9-10

 

·      It is a great delight to have Bro. Linwood Campbell here to preach the gospel of Christ to us. Bro. Campbell is pastor of the Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Boonville, NC

·      Bro. Frank Hall is preaching today for Bible Baptist Church in Madisonville, KY, where Bro. Maurice Montgomery is pastor.

·      We will have our Quarterly Fellowship on Sunday — April 29th.

·      Our pastor is preaching this morning for Katy Baptist Church in Fairmont, WV, where Bro. Marvin Stalnaker is pastor. Tonight he is scheduled to preach for Millsite Baptist Church in Cottageville, WV.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  Jayalita McCormack-14th    Denise Raneri-15th

 

NURSERY DUTY THIS WEEK

Today: Jenny Bartley (AM)  Debbie Bartley (PM)          Tuesday: Jayalita McCormack

 

Hail! Blessed Morn When Christ Arose!— Don Fortner

(Tune: #8 — All People that on Earth Do Dwell — LM)

 

1.    Hail! blessed morn when Christ arose,

And triumph’d o’er our mighty foes!

Hail! sacred day, when He appears

In Zion’s courts and Zion cheers!

 

2.    Entomb’d in doubts and fears we lie,

Till Christ, descending from on high,

Rolls unbelief (that stone) away,

And bids us rise to Gospel day.

 

3.    Come, blessed Holy Spirit, come,

Roll back the stone; our souls untomb!

Arise, O Sun of Righteousness,

Oh, shine upon our souls in grace!

 

4.    The beams of Your bright glory shed,

Revive the drooping, raise the dead!

On wings of faith, oh, make us rise,

To taste the joys of Paradise!

 

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Before you accept that call…

2 Timothy 4:1-5

 

Many men presume God has called them to preach the gospel and to be pastors, who obviously do not have the gifts of God required to preach or to be pastors. God has not called them to the work  of the ministry. Yet, they want it and continually try to open doors for themselves and thrust themselves into the work. Be warned: — If you run without being sent, you run to your own peril and to the peril of others. So, before you accept that call from a church to be its pastor, I suggest you give serious consideration to a few pointed questions.

 

            Has the Lord God called you and gifted you to preach the gospel? This I know, no man has been called to preach the gospel who does not know the gospel. Do you know the gospel of the grace of God? And no man has been called of God to preach the gospel who is not divinely gifted to do so. If God has called you to preach the gospel, he has given you understanding of the Scriptures and the ability to communicate that to others. — Usually others will be aware of your gifts before you are.

 

            Are you prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to give your life to the work of the ministry? Few men are. Are you? The gospel ministry is more than a vocation. It is a way of life, a way of life that demands that everything else in your life be subservient to it. A pastor must be a man of prayer and study and preaching. He must give his life to these things. That means that he cannot give himself to another job, or to the social activities that other men engage in, or to the pleasures of relaxation that others enjoy.

 

            God’s people are generous and take good care of God’s servants; but few gospel churches are of sufficient size to take care of a pastor’s financial needs as well as they desire or as well as the pastor might provide for himself. That means that you must make a choice. Will you do without the extras, luxuries, and financial security that a secular career might provide for you, or will you sacrifice the cause of Christ upon your carnal lusts? The choice is that simple and that cutting. If you choose to provide for yourself, you choose to sacrifice the ministry of the gospel. Sometimes, God’s servant must make tents to get by; but you cannot operate a tent manufacturing company and give yourself to the work of the ministry. If you prefer the tent business, stay with it; but don’t pretend to be a preacher.

 

            Are you prepared to spend your life serving the congregation that has called you? Some of God’s churches are small, in small, rural, out of the way places. If you are not prepared to spend your life in such a place, do not go there. God’s people deserve better. No local church should be used as a stepping stone for advancement.

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            Will you give yourself wholly “to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine,” laboring in the Word and in the work of the gospel? If you are not prepared to spend your life in study, in prayer, in writing, and in preaching, if you are not prepare to addict yourself to these things, for the glory of God and the salvation of his elect, please do not accept that call. God deserves better. His people deserve better.

 

 

Making Sport for the Devil

            Frequently men attempt to draw others into useless controversies, from which nothing good can come. Some wrangle furiously over the order of God’s decrees (as if they knew). Others, with great zeal, wish us to join them in either exalting or damning men whose souls departed the earth long ago. There are multitudes who wish us to unite with them in laying down irrevocable laws by which to judge who is saved and who is lost. The more impossible and forbidden the task, the more dogmatic the antagonists. I say to you, and to all who come under my influence, especially my brethren in the ministry, such arrogant folly is nothing but making sport for the devil. All hell must roar with laughter when the church of God quibbles and divides over nonsense, while eternity bound sinners rush to hell!

 

 

Children of Promise

Missionary Lance Hellar — Papua, New Guinea

 

“Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise.”

Galatians 4:28

 

This is truly a wonderful declaration, is it not?  This is a statement worthy of the gospel.  Everyone who is born of the Spirit through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is born, like Isaac, according to a promise.  The gospel of God is a promise.

 

One of the greatest and most predominant misconceptions about the gospel is that the gospel is an offer.  But nowhere do we find the Scriptures ever referring to the gospel as an offer.  What we do find is that the Word of God repeatedly speaks of the gospel as a promise; and the great spiritual blessings found in the gospel as promises.

 

A promise, by its very nature, is distinguishing; it is given to someone. — “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.  He does not say, 'And to seeds,' as of many, but as of one, 'And to your seed,' who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). The glory of this promise is that, not only was this given to Abraham 430 years before the Law, but that this promise of a multitude of guilty sinners being justified by faith in Christ (Galatians 3:22) had its inception before time ever was. This promise is rooted in eternity past when, in the form of a covenant, it was confirmed by God in Christ (Galatians 3:17). It was then that God purposed to bring many sons and daughters to glory.

 

This promise has as its final climactic fulfillment the Lord of Glory, the Seed to whom the promise was made, standing in the midst of the heavenly congregation singing praise to God and saying: — “Here am I and the children whom God has given Me” (Hebrews 2:10-13).

 

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The Grace Bulletin

 

April 8, 2012

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don Fortner

 

 

Listen to sermons at FreeGraceRadio.com