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Thank You, all of you, our church family here in Danville, and our many friends around the world, for your tender expressions of love and concern during my sister’s sickness these last 10 months, and upon her death last Sunday (November 7). Thank you for your intercessions on her behalf. And thank you for your intercessions for my family and me. How we rejoice to know, “He hath done all things well!”

Grace Baptist Church of Danville

May 21, 2017

Time is one of the most valuable and precious things in the world. Once it is lost, it can never be regained.

Daily Readings for the Week of May 21-28, 2017

Sunday 2 Chronicles 33-34 Thursday Ezra 7-9

Monday 2 Chronicles 35-Ezra 1 Friday Ezra 10-Nehemiah 2

Tuesday Ezra 2-3 Saturday Nehemiah 3-5

Wednesday Ezra 4-6 Sunday Nehemiah 6-7

· I am scheduled to preach Friday – Sunday at the 2017 New Focus Conference in London, England. The following Monday and Tuesday, I am scheduled to preach for the Freegrace Fellowship of Ballymoney, N. Ireland.

Amazing Love! Eternal Grace! — Don Fortner

(Tune: #497 — When I Can Read My Title Clear —CM)

1. Amazing love! Eternal grace!

Redemption’s work displays,

In God’s predestinated race,

To His eternal praise!

2. God’s sons by Him were all foreknown

And registered above;

Predestinated to a crown,

By everlasting love!

3. On this eternal, fixed decree,

All things in time depend:

Salvation, perfect, full, and free,

And glory without end!

4. Predestinating grace and love

Transforms the chosen race,

Prepares His saints for joys above,

And gives triumphant grace!

“The business of the Law is to knock us down from the pedestal of self-confidence, and to grind us small; as Moses ground to power, and dispersed the materials of the Israelitish idol. The business of Grace is to lift us from the dust, to settle us upon Christ the rock of ages, to put a new song of free salvation into our mouths.” — Augustus Toplady

“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”

Amos 3:3

Pastor Frank Hall

Sovereign Grace Assembly, Kannapolis, North Carolina

Can God and man walk together if they disagree? The answer to that question is obvious to all who have been chosen of God, redeemed by Christ, and called by God’s Spirit. Man cannot walk with God if he does not believe all of God’s Word. If we dare dispute with the Almighty, communion with him is impossible. We cannot walk with God if we do not agree with God by faith. To “walk together” is to walk in agreement.

Unbelievers Cannot

Unbelievers do not walk with God. It does not matter how religious, how refined, how nice, how knowledgeable, or how highly esteemed a person is in the eyes of men, anyone who does not believe the written Word of God disagrees with God declares that God is a liar and cannot walk with God. God says, “If you walk contrary to me then I will also walk contrary to you.” — “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him.” I can promise you this, in the end, either in grace, or in wrath, God will win the dispute. Don’t argue with God.

Believers Do

God’s people walk with him. God’s people, like Enoch of old, walk with God by faith, trusting Christ, believing the gospel of God’s free and sovereign grace. God’s people agree with God in all things. This is the way of peace. It is to live in agreement with the Creator, acknowledging his Son, his truth, his justice, righteousness, and grace. By the irresistible grace of God chosen sinners are forced to submit to and agree with what God says is so.

Ÿ Believers agree with God concerning their sin. They are totally depraved sinners, doomed, deranged, damned, dead, and dying.

Ÿ Believers agree with God concerning righteousness. They have none and the only righteousness God will accept is the righteousness that he provides in Christ, “who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”

Ÿ Believers agree with God concerning the death of Christ. He died for his elect and only his elect. He accomplished their redemption, satisfied God’s law for them, removed their sins, and reconciled them to God by the blood of his cross. All for whom he died are justified from all things.

Ÿ Believers agree with God concerning the deity of Christ. Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. Anyone who denies the Godhood of Christ disagrees with God, does not believe God, and does not walk with God.

Ÿ Believers agree with God concerning God’s sovereignty in the work of salvation. God saves whom he will. “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.”

“Who is like unto thee, O Lord?”

Exodus 15:11

God alone is independent and self-sufficient. God alone needs nothing. God does not need you, me, or anyone else. God needs nothing but himself. In old eternity, when God dwelt alone in the glory of his triune persons, he was self-contained and self-sufficient, in need of nothing. He needed nothing to make him happy, glorious, and complete. And he is still independent, self-sufficient, in need of nothing.

Creation and Grace

The creation of the world added nothing to God. He is immutable. He changes not (Malachi 3:6; James 1:17). His essential glory could never be increased or diminished. God was under no constraint, obligation, or necessity to create the world. He who “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Ephesians 1:11), freely chose to create the world simply because it was his sovereign pleasure to do so. He created the world, not to get glory to himself, but to display and manifest his glory in it. God gains nothing from his creatures.

Gains Nothing

Even the praises of redeemed sinners add nothing to the glory of his Being. — “Stand up and bless the Lord, your God, forever and ever; and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise”. (Nehemiah 9:5). Even the salvation of God’s elect adds nothing to his solitary, self-sufficient, and independent glory. He predestinated his elect to eternal salvation to the praise of the glory of his grace “according to the good pleasure of his will” (Ephesians 1:5). He chose to save us to show forth his glory in us (Ephesians 2:7), but not that he might increase his glory (Psalm 16:2-3). We add nothing to him. We gain everything from God; but God gains nothing from his creatures (Romans 11:34-36). And, if God gains nothing from man, then it is impossible for man to bring God into any obligation to him (Job 35:7-8).

No Injury

By the same token, God loses nothing by the wickedness of his creatures (Job 35:6). As man can add nothing to God’s glory, so man can never diminish God’s glory. God made all things to show forth his glory, and all things shall serve their end (Revelation 4:11). The glory of his wisdom and power shall be seen in all creation and providence. The glory of his love and justice is seen in redemption. The glory of his mercy and grace is seen in the salvation of his elect. The glory of his truth and righteousness is seen in the eternal ruin of his enemies.

Independent and Self-sufficient

The God of the Bible is so great that he is self-sufficient in the glory of his own holy Being. There was no vacuum in God’s heart that had to be filled by man. Had it pleased him to do so, he might have dwelt alone in his solitary glory forever without making his glory known to any. All that we experience of his grace and goodness we experience because of his sovereign good pleasure alone (Psalms 115:3; 135:6).

God is totally independent of his creatures and self-sufficient without us (Isaiah 40:15-23; 1 Timothy 6:15-16). This is the God of the Bible. He is still, in this reprobate religious age, “the unknown God” (Acts 17:23). Because he is unknown in this religious world, we seek to make him known. This is a God to be reverenced, worshipped, and adored.

The Grace Bulletin

May 21, 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