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Grace Baptist Church of Danville

April 30, 2017

If you would enter into heaven’s glory and live forever with God, you must be as good as God. You must be perfectly holy (Leviticus 22:21).

Daily Readings for the Week of April 30-May 7, 2017

Sunday 2 Kings 23-24 Thursday 1 Chronicles 8-10

Monday 2 Kings 25-1 Chron. 2 Friday 1 Chronicles 11-13

Tuesday 1 Chronicles 3-5 Saturday 1 Chronicles 14-17

Wednesday 1 Chronicles 6-7 Sunday 1 Chronicles 18-21

· The Lord willing, we will have our Quarterly Fellowship Dinner on Sunday, May 14^th, following the morning worship service.

Happy Birthday! Elizabeth Peterson-3^rd

Happy Anniversary: Klaus & Ruth Peterson-4^th Billy & Jayalita McCormack-14^th

Church Cleaning in May: Lindsay & Diane Campbell

Nursery Duty: Nicole Abell (Today) — Shelby Fortner (Tuesday)

The Banqueting House” — Don Fortner

“He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.”

Song of Solomon 2:4

(Tune: #188 — I Love Thy Kingdom Lord —SM)

1. Oh, let us sing the praise

Of Christ the Prince of Peace,

Who brings us to His house, and says,

“Come feast upon My grace!”

2. His love prepared the feast.

His blood He gives for wine! —

O matchless grace! — His welcome guests

Are helpless souls like mine!

3. Love’s banner He’s unfurled;

O Holy Spirit bring

Our souls away from this vain world,

To feast with Christ our King!

Three Fruits of False Preachers

Pastor Clay Curtis

“Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:30). — Look at these three fruits of false preachers: (1) They once sat under the faithful preaching of Christ amongst God’s saints — Also of your own selves shall men arise. (2) In order to differentiate themselves from the gospel and those they once called brethren they change a few points of doctrine from the truth they claimed to have been saved under — speaking perverse things (3) The intent is not Christ’s glory nor the good of God’s people but themselves — to draw away disciples after them.

Holiness

God’s Requirement and God’s Work

Hebrews 12:14

That which God demands God gives. He requires faith; and he gives faith. He requires atonement; and he gives atonement. He requires righteousness; and he gives righteousness. The same is true about holiness. God requires it. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. And God gives holiness. As Christ is our righteousness and our redemption, he is our holiness (sanctification).

God’s Requirement

God who is “glorious in holiness,” demands holiness in us. He cannot and will not accept anything less than perfect, pure, flawless holiness. God will not accept sincerity, works of benevolence, repentance, sacrifices, moral reformation, or even faith as a substitute for holiness. God demands holiness (Matthew 5:20; Hebrews 12:14; Leviticus 11:44-45; 1 Peter 1:16). God says, “Walk before me, and be thou perfect” (Genesis 17:1). The slightest deviation from perfect holiness ignites the fire of God’s wrath against his creatures. It was deviation from perfect holiness that: drove Lucifer from heaven, the angels into darkness, Adam from the Garden, and drives sinners into hell. It will take something more than a walk down a church aisle, a few tears, a prayer, and a decision of your free-will to get you into heaven. If you would live forever with God, you must be as good as God. You must be perfectly holy! That means that salvation by the will of man, the works of man, or even the worship of man is an utter impossibility, because you cannot make yourself holy!

God’s Work

God alone can make unholy, sinful men and women perfectly holy. Holiness is nothing less than the complete restoration of manhood to the image and likeness of God. Holiness is the complete, not partial, but complete conformity of man to the image of God in Christ. Men talk about practical holiness, about living holy lives, and of being holy. And that is alright, as long as you understand that holiness is not something you produce. It is something God gives. Not even faith in Christ produces holiness. Faith receives holiness. Faith embraces holiness. Faith loves holiness. And faith seeks holiness. But faith cannot produce holiness. Holiness is the work of God.

The whole purpose of God in the scheme of redemption and grace is to make his people holy, perfectly holy, for the glory of his own great name. Salvation is neither more nor less than God taking that which is common and unclean and making it holy (Ephesians 1:3-6; 5:25-27). There cannot be degrees of holiness. We are either holy or unholy. It is impossible to be partially holy. God makes his elect holy by three distinct works of grace: (1.) We have been made holy before the law of God in free justification by the righteousness of Christ being made ours (Romans 5:19; 2 Corinthians 5:21). (2.) We have been made experimentally holy in regeneration (sanctification) by the imparting of Christ’s nature to us (2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 3:4-9). We do not become more and more holy by our works in progressive sanctification. We grow in grace, but not in holiness. Our sanctification (holiness) is the free gift of God’s grace in salvation (Hebrews 10:10-14). (3.) And we shall be made absolutely holy in glorification by the miraculous conformity of our nature (body, soul, and spirit) to Christ in the resurrection (Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:51-58; 1 John 3:2).

Holiness Revealed

Romans 3:24-26

The supreme revelation of God’s holiness is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here, and here alone, “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psalm 85:10). When I see Jesus Christ, the Son of God, with my sin upon him, suffering the horrible wrath of God, without mercy, I see that God is indeed holy, so holy that he will not allow even his own darling Son to go unpunished when sin is found on him, so holy that he will sacrifice his only begotten, well-beloved Son to save sinners before he will sacrifice his character! No wonder the seraphim, looking upon the mercy-seat (The Old Testament Picture of Christ’s Blood Atonement) cried continually, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts!”

“Every real believer perceives a life in his soul, with which he was not born, which was at some period given him by the ministration of the Word and Spirit, and which puts forth in him many acts of a divine nature, to which his human sense was, before that ministration, a perfect stranger. He has new eyes, new ears, new heart, new hopes, new affections: In a word, he is become, in the language of the Scripture, a new creature. (2 Corinthians 5:17.) This new creation, which every carnal mind, swollen with the opinion of its own powers, is disposed to treat with enmity, because it cannot comprehend what is above itself, is a spiritual creation, formed in the soul of the true Christian, and superadded to that nature with which he came into the world. Consequently he appears outwardly as a mere man; but to God, to spirits (angels), and to himself, both an immortal and a celestial being. Men see his gross parts; but only spiritual existences can discern his spiritual. He is known to be a Citizen of Heaven by all the inhabitants of Heaven.” — Ambrose Serle

Saved Sinners

“Unblameable in Holiness before God”

1 Thessalonians 3:13

Every sinner who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ is perfectly holy in the sight of God (Colossians 2:9-10). Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, by faith in him, we fulfill all the law of God (Romans 3:28). By faith in Christ we give what God demands from us, complete satisfaction for all our sins and perfect holiness. In Christ every believer stands before God’s holy law in perfect holiness (Romans 5:19; 2 Corinthians 5:21), with a holy nature imparted to him in regeneration (2 Peter 1:4), in hope of a holy life with Christ forever in eternal glory (1 John 3:2). As we behold the wonders of God’s salvation, let our hearts sing with Moses, “Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?”

If you are God’s, if you are born again, if you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, you are in Christ “unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father” (1 Thessalonians 3:13), and Christ will present you before him in the last day “unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father” (Jude 1:24-25). What a blessed hope that is!

The Grace Bulletin

April 30, 2017

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