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Grace Baptist Church of Danville

September 4, 2016

Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints are vital articles of faith. To deny any of these precious truths of Divine Revelation is to deny the Gospel of God.

Daily Readings for the Week of September 4-11, 2016

Sunday Ezekiel 45-47 Thursday Daniel 6-8

Monday Ezekiel 48-Daniel 1 Friday Daniel 9-10

Tuesday Daniel 2-3 Saturday Daniel 11-Hosea 1

Wednesday Daniel 4-5 Sunday Hosea 2-7

· We are delighted to welcome our guests to our conference. — The dates for next year’s conference are September 1-3, 2017.

· There will be no service here tonight or Tuesday night.

Happy Birthday! Klaus Peterson-8^th Samuel Torson-8^th

Happy Anniversary: David & Betty Burge-7^th Jamie & Nicole Abell-15^th

Nursery Duty Today: 10:00: Shirley Bain & Brittany Torson

11:00: Nicole Abell & Jayalita McCormack

Our Sovereign God Maintains His Universal Throne — Don Fortner

(Tune: #39 — This is My Father’s World — SMD)

1. Our sov’reign God maintains His universal throne;

In heav’n, and earth, and hell He reigns, and makes His wonders known!

His counsels and decrees, firmer than mountains stand;

He will perform whate’er He please; and none can stay his hand!

2. All things His will controls; and His all-wise decree

Has fixed the destinies of all in matchless sov’reignty. —

Jacob by grace He saved, and gives no reason why;

But Esau’s heart He left depraved. — And who shall dare reply?

3. What if the Potter takes part of a lump of clay,

And for Himself a vessel makes and casts the rest away?

Who shall resist His will, or say, “What doest Thou?”

Jehovah is the Sov’reign still; and all to Him must bow!

4. My soul, bow and adore the Lord in all His ways;

His sov’reignty none can explore; but I will trust His grace!

“For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things:

To Whom be glory evermore! Amen! Amen! Amen!”

O Happy Fall

C. H. Spurgeon

O happy fall, which has thus made manifest the abounding mercy of God! Looked at in one aspect all sin is an unutterable calamity; but as it has had the effect of displaying still more of the matchless mercy of God in the person of Jesus Christ, we see how God brings forth good out of evil.

“But God be Thanked”

“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.”

(Romans 6:17)

Be sure you do not miss that little word, “but,” with which this verse opens. It refers us back to what Paul has just told us about all we have experienced in God’s saving grace: all that we confess in believer’s baptism, all that Christ accomplished for us in redemption, all that God the Holy Ghost has wrought in us by his grace in regeneration, and the blessed assurance God has given to every sinner who trusts his dear Son that sin shall never have dominion over us. We are redeemed. We have been saved by the grace of God. We are dead, indeed, unto sin and alive unto God. Christ is our Life; and we live in him.

Reason to Give Thanks

After assuring us of these things, the Apostle Paul, writing by divine Inspiration, says to you and me, “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.” Oh, what great reason saved sinners have to give thanks to God and live for his glory!

Just as poison is sometimes made a medicine for healing, and sickness of body is made the means of health for our souls, the sin and fall of Adam, and our sin and fall in him, laid the foundation for the revelation of Christ as a Savior and Redeemer. We could never have known our blessed Christ as our Savior and Redeemer, had not our shame in sin afforded an opportunity for the display of his glory in washing us from our sins in his blood.

Divine Wisdom

The holy Lord God, by infinite wisdom and grace, has made our sin and misery the occasion of our greatest possible blessedness. — Oh, what a great reason this is for thanksgiving and praise to our God! Let no one misunderstand my words. I offer no excuse for any man’s sin. And I certainly do not excuse my own. We do not attempt, by any means, to escape our own responsibility for sin, or to charge God with sin. — “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13). But our great God is so infinitely wise and gracious that he turns our greatest misery into our greatest good and sovereignly overrules our sin to make it an occasion for our eternal blessedness (Romans 8:28; Psalm 76:10).

Jonathan Edwards wrote, “Divine wisdom has found out a way whereby the sinner might not only escape being miserable, but that he should be happier than before he sinned; yea, than he would have been if he had never sinned.” By the redemptive work of Christ, the sins of God’s elect are turned into a means of accomplishing greater happiness, joy, and everlasting glory than we could ever have known if we had never sinned. — “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Our great, all-wise God, in infinite wisdom, ordained our fall in our father, Adam, and overrules our abounding sin that his own elect might forever enjoy the superabundance of his matchless free grace in Christ.

“God be Thanked”

“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.”

(Romans 6:17)

Sinful man is brought into a nearer union with God in the Person of Christ our Substitute than we could ever have enjoyed had we not known sin. Had we never sinned, Christ would not be our Surety and Substitute. But now God has assumed our nature in the Person of his Son. We are members of his body (Ephesians 5:30). Christ is our Brother and our Husband. And we are the Sons of God (1 John 3:1). Our temporary separation from God, by sin, has been made the means of our eternal union with God in Christ by redemption (John 17:20-23).

Knowledge of God

The saved sinner, by reason of his sin, has greater and fuller knowledge of God, his glory, his grace, his justice, his holiness, and his love than he could ever have possessed had he never sinned. We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ our dying Substitute (2 Corinthians 4:6). And in his death we have the love of God commended to us (Romans 5:8). This will be the theme of our heavenly praise forever and ever (Revelation 1:5-6).

Love for Christ

Our redemption from sin and death by Christ causes us to have a love for God that we could not otherwise have. One day this love will be brought to perfection. But even now, the love of Christ that constrains us is something Adam in innocence and the angels in heaven could never know. Great forgiveness produces great love (Luke 7:47). Great forgiveness is the greatest possible motivation for love, adoration, devotion, and praise (1 Corinthians 1:26-31; 6:20).

Faith in God

Fallen man, saved by grace, has a greater, more sensible dependence upon God than he could otherwise have. And God is glorified by his creatures’ dependence upon him. Fallen man, saved by grace, knows by painful and abundant experience that he has no hope but the free grace of God in Christ, who is our all in all. Fallen, helpless man cries, “The Lord is my Portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him.”

Did you ever notice (Genesis 2:17) that the forbidden tree was called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”? God is the One who planted that tree in the midst of the garden. And he ordained that our father Adam eat the fruit of that forbidden tree, to taste the evil of sin, because he had wisely and graciously determined that his elect might know the great and glorious good of redemption and grace in Christ. — God the Holy Ghost tells us that this grace abounding to us in and through Christ Jesus is truly a great reason for thanksgiving and praise to our great God, who is the God of all grace (Romans 6:17-23). — “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound!”

The Grace Bulletin

September 4, 2016

Grace Baptist Church of Danville

2734 Old Stanford Road-Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438

Telephone (859) 576-3400 — 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