Grace Baptist Church of Danville

April 15, 2012

“Where is adoration that is reverent enough for His blessed and exalted Person? Bring your sweetest songs, your most prized treasures, and all your honors. Bring all that you have, for such a Christ as this deserves more than all. What shall we render, O Christ of God, to Thee for all Thy benefits toward us?”                                                                                                                          — Pastor Jack Shanks

·      Congratulations! To Josh and Elizabeth Peterson on the birth of their daughter, Sophia Louise.

·      Bro. Ron Wood is preaching today for the San Diego Sovereign Grace Fellowship.

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

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  Betty Groover-17^th   Austin Groover-18^th

NURSERY DUTY THIS WEEK

Today: Alexis Mason (AM) Celeste Peterson (PM)          Tuesday: Mindy Peterson

Sinners, Come to Christ Believing — Don Fortner

(Tune: Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken #185 — 87.87.D)

1.     Sinners, come to Christ believing;

He alone can save the lost.

He is able, He is willing,

Christ saves to the uttermost!

Without Jesus, you will perish,

You will suffer endless death;

Tremble now, offended justice,

Seeks to slay the child of wrath!

2.     Yet, behold, the way is open!

See the Refuge for the lost —

Christ, with His own blood in heaven,

Pleads the merits of His cross:

“Father, here's the price of ransom,

See the merits of My blood.

You can justly now forgive them

Who, believing, come to God.”

3.     Come to God and sue for mercy

Through the merits of His Son;

Never has a sinner guilty

Not his suit for mercy won!

God the Father will receive you

Through the blood of Christ His Son,

As the Holy Spirit draws you,

Come to Christ, O sinner, come!

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A Tribute to a Faithful Pastor and Friend

JACK SHANKS

August 22, 1929 — April 7, 2012

I first met Bro. Jack Shanks in Memphis, Tennessee in 1972. I was a young preacher who had just begun the experience of being a pastor. Bro. Shanks was a seasoned veteran. We soon became friends and grew to be close friends. In the ensuing years we often preached together and for one another, corresponding regularly by mail and telephone, later by email on at least a weekly basis. This continued until it was no longer possible because of his ill health and subsequent confinement. He has only been gone for a few days; but I miss him greatly and have missed him for a long time.

Faithful Pastor

Bro. Jack was the faithful pastor of Laird Street Baptist Church in New Caney, Texas for thirty years. He preached the gospel of God’s free and sovereign grace with clarity and distinctiveness, exalting the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, ever urging sinners to trust his Redeemer, urging believers to honor him, and seeking to comfort God’s elect in the midst of temptation, trials, and heartache.

            Bro. Shanks was a gifted preacher and equally gifted as a writer. His excellent studies on The Tabernacle are included in the Ultimate Index Digital Library. He wrote, printed, and distributed numerous tracts and papers. His message was always the same — Christ crucified. And the message was always presented with learned simplicity. —    The members of Laird Street Baptist Church loved their pastor, honored him as their pastor, and cherish his memory.

Cherished Friend

I thank God for making Jack and Shirley Shanks a very intimate part of my life. Shelby and I cherish them and their friendship. Our daughter grew up knowing Bro. Shanks as a frequent guest in our home and loves him. After she was married, her husband quickly began to share that love. He often asked me about Jack and always beamed when he learned that Jack Shanks would be preaching at one of our conferences.

            That dear friend, more than twenty years my senior, was a constant source of encouragement to me. I never spoke to him, or received a letter from him, or even a brief note by email, without receiving a word of encouragement. When he was aware of something painful in my life, he was always a friend at hand.

            The Lord God says concerning his servants, “they shall see eye to eye” (Isaiah 52:8). That was certainly true with Jack and me. In all the years of our friendship and labor together in the cause of Christ, we never had a cross word between us. Doctrinally, we were twins.

            After many years of poor health and bodily pain, my friend is now with Christ in glory, forever freed from all sin, and sickness, and pain, and sorrow, and dying. I am honored, bettered, and give thanks to our God for the influence of Jack Shanks, his faithful servant and my cherished friend, in my life.

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Faithful, but Faulty

“And Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of David his father: only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places.”(1 Kings 3:3)

David’s son Solomon, that great king of Israel who was granted wisdom and greatness above all the kings of the earth, that man entrusted by Jehovah to build his temple at Jerusalem, was a faithful, believing man. He both loved the Lord and walked in his statutes.

Yet, like all God’s people in this world, like all God’s servants in this world, Solomon was far from perfect. His faults were glaring, so glaring that some have even asserted that Solomon was a lost man, an unbeliever, a reprobate! The man who gave us by Divine inspiration the wisdom of Proverbs, the heavenly sweetness of the Song of Solomon, and the depths of Ecclesiastes, some pigmies judge to be a lost man!

Solomon’s faults are set before us in the Book of God, as are those of many of the most eminent saints, not to excuse them, or to excuse the same faults in us, but to remind us that the best of men are only men, fallen, sinful, failing men.

Contrary to the opinions of some, faithful men often behave in contradictory ways and even believe contradictory things. Yes, it is possible for a Peter to take sides with legalists and lead others in a horrible dissimulation, though he truly did believe the gospel (Galatians 2:9-16). It is possible for an apostle like Paul, who believed better and knew better, to take a legal vow of purification to appease a bunch of legalists (Acts 21:20-26). It is possible for an Aaron, a spokesman for God, to lead the children of Israel in the worship of golden calves calling it the worship of Jehovah (Exodus 32:4-5).

I call your attention to these things for a reason: — There is a shameful, sinful tendency in us to denounce preachers and brethren as lost people because of doctrinal inconsistencies, inconsistencies that may reveal a weakness, a fault, maybe even a blameworthy fault. But it is altogether possible for people to believe the gospel of Christ and believe something that is inconsistent with the gospel, not seeing the inconsistency. I fear that we find it easier to denounce someone as lost, treating them as reprobates, than to help them as brethren. That ought not be the case.

            Let others cut us off and denounce us as they may, we should never behave in such a manner. If a person believes that Jesus is the Christ, believes that the man Jesus is God our Savior, that he actually did accomplish all that the law and prophets said the Christ would accomplish, that he actually did put away sin, bring in everlasting righteousness, and save his people from their sins, that person is born of God (1 John 5:1). He should be embraced by us, loved by us, and helped by us.

            I am fully aware that some will react to what I have written here by saying, “That’s compromise. I am not about to embrace as my brother a person who says he believes something contrary to the gospel of the grace of God.” That is your privilege, if you so choose; but I am afraid you will have to exclude Aaron, Solomon, Peter, and Paul from the church to make room for your swollen head and swollen heart. For my part, I would rather run the risk of embracing a hundred false brethren, who may cause me great pain and sorrow, than that of shutting one of God’s saints out of my life (Galatians 6:1-2)

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The Grace Bulletin

April 15, 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