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November 12, 2006
Though our great shame and sorrow is the constant multiplying of sins, our God’s great glory is the constant multiplication of pardons (Isa. 55:7).
Daily Readings for the Week of November 12-19
Sunday Acts 10-12 Thursday Acts 20-21
Monday Acts 13-14 Friday Acts 22-24
Tuesday Acts 15-16 Saturday Acts 25-26
Wednesday Acts 17-19 Sunday Acts 27-28
I am scheduled to preach in the following places in the next two weeks. Pray for me as the Lord enables you.
November 11-12 — Saturday and Sunday Mornings
Grace Baptist Church – Taylor, AR
Contact: Winston Warlick – Telephone 870-859-3306
November 12-13 — Sunday and Monday Evenings
Sovereign Grace Fellowship, Wichita Falls, TX
Contact: Jim Wilson
Telephone 940-855-6505 Email JLW41297@aol.com
November 15 — Wednesday Evening
College Grove Grace Church, College Grove, TN
Contact: Pastor Chris Cunningham
Telephone 615-368-7853 Email gracetn@united.net
NURSERY DUTY THIS WEEK
Today: Vicci Rolley (AM) Regina Henson (PM) Tuesday: Jayalita McCormack
“Forgiveness!” What a Blessed Grace! — Don Fortner
(Tune: #497 — When I Can Read My Title Clear —CM)
“Forgiveness!” What a blessed grace,
From God Who reigns on high,
For sinners of a chosen race,
Who weep, and mourn, and sigh!
This boundless gift of love divine
Extends to every crime.
On needy souls its glories shine
Unchanged by changing time.
Our sins as countless as the sands
Like mighty mountains rise;
But God’s forgiveness (vast expanse!)
Removes them from His eyes!
The blood of Christ, God’s darling Son,
Has put away my sin,
(Past, present, future — all I’ve done),
And makes this sinner clean!
Ascending to the House of God
Our Contentment — Psalms 131
In Psalm 131 the pilgrim sings of humility and contentment, as he moves toward God’s house. This short, sweet psalm speaks of the humility produced in the soul by the experience of God’s boundless, free grace in Christ, the humility of confident faith.
Humility
All who ascend to the house of God to worship him in the Spirit and in truth come before the throne of grace in utter humility, with confident faith and hope.
In spiritual matters nothing, absolutely nothing, is the way men think it is, ought to be, and must be. In the world the way up is up. In the kingdom of God the way up is down. In the world the man with the greatest knowledge is the one who knows the most about the most. In the Church of Christ the person who knows the most is the one who knows nothing. In material things the person who has the most is the richest. In spiritual things the person who has the least is the richest. In natural things he who has the most strength is the strongest. In spiritual things he who is weakest is strongest.
And in the world humility and confidence are considered mutually exclusive. Nothing could be further from the truth. He who is most humbled before God is most confident in God. The person who has the lowest esteem of himself has the highest esteem of Christ. In a word, those sinners who have learned the first lesson in the school of grace, being humbled by the Holy Spirit’s conviction of sin, are most bold in pleading the blood and righteousness of Christ, being convinced of righteousness in him by the same Spirit. Being emptied of self, the heaven born soul comes to Christ with nothing, receiving all from him. Faith in Christ gives the confident hope and expectation of all grace.
A Weaned Child
The psalmist was inspired to use the figure of a weaned child to set before us the meaning of such humility, just as our Savior did (Matt. 18:3). Except we be weaned and become as little children, we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Heaven born children need and desire to be taught everything, because we know nothing. We must have everything provided for us, because we have nothing and can provide nothing for ourselves. We need constant protection and care, because we cannot protect and care for ourselves. And, just as children are confident that the mother who nursed them will do all these things for them, God’s children are confident that he who has born us from the womb of eternity (Psa. 110:3; 139:13) and nursed us as infants at the breasts of consolation (Isa. 66:11) will provide and care for us.
The weaned child neither thinks great things of himself nor seeks great things for himself, but simply takes what is given him, resting in its mother’s wisdom and love. Oh, that we might be given such grace! Let that mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus, our Lord (Phil. 2:1-8). May God the Holy Spirit cause the “meekness and gentleness of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:1) to so rule our hearts and lives that every faculty is both humbled in the dust before him and utterly content with him, to the everlasting praise of his glory!
5
From One Preacher to Another
“He that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.” (Proverbs 12:15)
In another place the Spirit of God admonishes us to “Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end” (Pro. 19:20). More than thirty years ago Pastor Henry Mahan and I were preaching together in a Bible conference in Appomattox, VA. I was a very young man, preaching with him and several other men of much age and experience. Each day we were there, Bro. Mahan came by my room for a visit. Each time, he gave me a word of wise counsel about preaching. I can almost recall his exact words. I have rehearsed them countless times over the years. They have, I hope, shaped my preaching.
Bro. Mahan’s first word of wisdom to me was “Preach the Gospel.” He urged me to preach like Richard Baxter, “as a dying man to dying men.” From that day to this, it has been my determination every time I preach to do so with the conscious awareness that I am preaching to eternity bound sinners, who must soon stand before God in judgment. — Let no sermon ever be preached that does not clearly show sinners how God saves sinners by his grace, urging them to seek his mercy in Christ.
Next, my wise counsellor urged me, “Don’t try to preach to preachers. Find a man in the congregation who looks like he may have been digging ditches his whole life, who looks like his heart is broken and heavy, who needs comfort and encouragement.” That is exactly what God himself demands of those who speak for him (Isa. 40:1-2). — Every gospel sermon is a message of consolation to God’s elect, urging them to look away from themselves and their woes to Christ and his fulness of grace.
The third wise word of counsel Bro. Mahan gave me that week was, “Bro. Fortner, find something in that Book that speaks to you, that you need. If you need it and it speaks to you, chances are somebody else will need it and it will speak to them. If you don’t need it, nobody else does.” In other words, it is utter vanity to stand in the pulpit answering questions no one is asking. — Gospel preaching is not defending points of doctrine, but declaring the boundless mercy and grace of God in Christ.
I pray that God will never allow me to forget these words of wise counsel. I think hell must roar with laughter when preachers stand in the pulpit and try to untie theological knots no one is aware of and argue debates no one cares about. Until I find a message more glorious than Christ crucified, more needful than free grace, more delightful than infinite mercy, more comforting than absolute forgiveness, more assuring than perfect righteousness, more compelling than redeeming blood, more hopeful than heavenly glory, and more joyful than the infinite, immutable love of God in Christ, I am determined to preach nothing else, but Jesus Christ and him crucified. — “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
Grace Bulletin
November 12, 2006
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
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.
Web Pages
http://www.donfortner.com
http://www.sovereign-grace/gracechurch.htm
http://www.freegrace.net/danville/default.asp
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