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Grace Baptist Church of Danville April 21, 2013
If you are not willing to spend your life in your study, laboring in the Word and in the doctrine of God, go do something less important and meaningful than the most noble of all works — preaching the gospel. This work requires, demands, and deserves our lives! Preparation without inspiration will give meat with no savor; and what many vainly imagine is inspiration, without preparation, serves for meat an empty plate covered with glitter. — If we would preach, we must prepare to preach, laboring by study and prayer in the Word and in the doctrine of Christ.
Daily Readings for the Week of April 21-28, 2013 Sunday 1 Kings 22-2 Kings 1 Thursday 2 Kings 10-12 Monday 2 Kings 2-4 Friday 2 Kings 13-14 Tuesday 2 Kings 5-7 Saturday 2 Kings 15-17 Wednesday 2 Kings 8-9 Sunday 2 Kings 18-19
· We are delighted to have Pastor Bruce Crabtree here to preach the gospel to us today. Bro. Crabtree is pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in New Castle, IN. · Bro. Larry Criss, pastor of Fairmont Grace Church in Sylacauga, AL will preach here on Tuesday evening. · Our pastor is preaching today for Robert St. Baptist Church in Dudley, England., where Bro. Norman Wheeler is pastor. Monday and Tuesday he is scheduled to preach for the Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Ballymoney, North Ireland.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Joyce Montgomery-25th
NURSERY DUTY THIS WEEK Today: Jenny Bartley (AM) Debbie Bartley (PM) Tuesday: Sherri Warta
That Glorious Better Part — Don Fortner (Tune: #66 — Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts _ LM)
1. This is that glorious better part, Most dear to each believer’s heart: — Christ Jesus dwelling in the soul, The sovereign Monarch of the whole.
He comes in mercy from above, And enters by almighty grace, The hearts of all His chosen race.
3. His Spirit plants His grace within, There He subdues the power of sin, Renews, transforms, and stores it well! — And there He shall for ever dwell.
4. Does Christ the Savior dwell in me? — Then I shall endless glory see! He is my Hope, in Him I rest, In Christ I am for ever blest!
22 Worthy of Double Honor
“Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.” (1 Timothy 5:17)
I read recently that Alexander the Great, wherever he went, when he came to a field, would instinctively begin in his mind to lay it out as a battlefield, determining where he could best set his military forces, were it necessary for him to engage an enemy on that field. Alexander the Great was a warrior. It was as natural to him to think in terms of military strategy as it was for him to breathe.
Preachers ought to be like that with regard to preaching. If we are preachers, if the God of heaven has called us to this great work of preaching the gospel, we should strive to make preaching as much a part of our lives as breathing. We should discipline our minds to focus on preaching all the time, making everything God puts in our day serve as a tool with which we prepare to preach.
Faithful Labor
But let no man imagine that he can preach the gospel, that he can speak for God, that he can faithfully expound Holy Scripture without work. The preacher’s work is study. Study and pray! Pray and study! If a man is not willing to spend his life in his study, laboring in the Word and in the doctrine of God, he should go do some lesser work, something less meaningful and less demanding. This work requires, demands, and deserves our lives! Everything must be sacrificed for it. Everything must be made subservient to it. — Preparation without inspiration will give meat with no savor. Our hearts must have inspiration. But that which many vainly imagine is inspiration, without preparation, serves for meat an empty plate covered with glitter. — If we would preach we must prepare. And preparation requires study and prayer, study and prayer, relentless study and prayer.
Preaching is not talking to give out the light, frivolous imaginations of our minds. Preaching is proclaiming God’s truth with sound judgment, truth fixed in our hearts by God the Holy Spirit by diligent labor in study and earnest prayer, to the profit of God’s people. If we would preach, we must labor in the Word and in the doctrine.
Double Honor
Those who labor in the Word and doctrine are worthy of “double honor.” The word “honor” in 1 Timothy 5:17 means “pay.” God the Holy Spirit plainly asserts that God’s faithful servants are worthy of double the pay of any other man, no matter what that man’s labor is, it is less noble and less meaningful than the work of the man who faithfully preaches the gospel. A faithful gospel preacher does not want it, does not seek it, and does not need it, but he is worthy of double pay; and God’s church needs to be reminded of it. And those who labor in the Word and doctrine of Christ deserve and shall have the love and high esteem of God’s people for whom they devote their lives to the labor of the gospel (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13).
23 Expounding the Scriptures
“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27)
The word “expounded” means “thoroughly explained” or “gave the interpretation of”. That is what preaching is: thoroughly explaining, giving the interpretation of the Word of God. In preaching the gospel we interpret the ideas (the doctrine) conveyed in a passage in the light of its immediate context and in the light of the whole Volume of Divine Inspiration, and declare that doctrine honestly in the language of the people we address.
Holding Fast
“Holding fast the faithful Word,” as we have been taught by God the Holy Spirit, let every faithful gospel preacher boldly and confidently expound exactly what God says in the Bible, no more and no less, “by sound doctrine,” “for there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.” I say with Paul to all who are responsible to proclaim the gospel of Christ, “speak thou the things which become sound doctrine,” for the time has come when men “will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”Faithful men, “preach the Word.”
Interpreting the Word
How are we to interpret Holy Scripture? John 1:18 gives us some help. — “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” The word translated “declared” here is the word from which we get our English words “exegete” and “exegesis”. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has by his incarnation, obedience, and death as our Substitute given us the exegesis of the Triune God. He has declared to us all that God is. He has reached into God himself, brought him out in all his fulness, and shown him to us. That is what we are to do with the Word of God. By study and prayer, seeking the direction and grace of God the Holy Spirit, we must reach into the text, dig as deeply as possible into the text, open it up, discover exactly what it says, and bring it out, showing the thing written by Divine inspiration with boldness, simplicity, and clarity. As the incarnate Christ shows us God, shows us who God is, it is our responsibility to show immortal souls the Word of God, to show people what the Word of God means.
God’s Meaning
Every preacher is responsible before God and his hearers to faithfully proclaim the Scriptures, giving the meaning and message intended by God the Holy Spirit in the passage from which he preaches. The Spirit’s meaning and message can be obtained only by the gift of the Holy Spirit; and that gift is bestowed upon faithful men laboring in the Word, studying, praying, and seeking God’s message for his people.
24 The Grace Bulletin
April 21, 2013
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 7:45 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
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Pastor Fortner’s
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