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Grace Baptist Church of Danville

June 11, 2017

Being filled with the Spirit is being under the influence, control, and rule of the Spirit of God. It is living by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Daily Readings for the Week of June 11-18, 2017

Sunday Job 37-40 Thursday Psalm 22-30

Monday Job 41-Psalm 5 Friday Psalm 31-36

Tuesday Psalm 6-16 Saturday Psalm 37-43

Wednesday Psalm 17-21 Sunday Psalm 44-50

· I am preaching today for Sovereign Grace Assembly in Kannapolis, NC, where Bro. Frank Hall is pastor. — You are privileged to have Bro. Mike Walker, pastor of Millsite Baptist Church in Cottageville, WV here to preach the gospel to you.

· We will have a fellowship dinner together on June 25.

Happy Birthday! David Peterson-12^th Skip Gladfelter-15^th Sandy Parks-17^th

Happy Anniversary: David & Celeste Peterson-16^th Oscar & Nancy Bailey-18^th

Nursery Duty This Week

Jayalita McCormack (AM) — Debbie Bartley(PM) Tuesday: Ruth Wall

This God is Mine! — Don Fortner

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

1. In Christ, my Savior, clear and bright,

Jehovah’s glories shine;

My faith beholds Him with delight,

And sings, this God is mine.

2. God’s attributes are his own, —

Incarnate God above!

Crowned Lord by right, upon His throne,

He reigns, the God of love!

3. He made the world! He conquered hell!

He ransomed me with blood!

He rules and governs all things well! —

He is th’ eternal God!

4. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, —

Jehovah’s glories shine,

In Jesus Christ, the God I trust

This God, this God is mine!

Believer’s Baptism ― This gospel ordinance was established by our Lord as a clear line of separation between his church and the world. By our immersion in the watery grave, believers confess their faith in Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice (his death, burial, and resurrection in our place) as our only basis of hope before God. Rising out of the watery tomb, we confess our hope of the resurrection and our consecration to Christ, our resolve to walk with him in the newness of life. Thus confessing Christ as our Lord, we declare that all our former religion and religious works were but the uncleanness of idolatry, identifying ourselves with Christ, his people, and his gospel.

Doctrinal Error and Damning Heresy

“A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject.”

(Titus 3:10)

A friend once asked me, “Do you make a distinction between doctrinal error and damning heresy, and if you do, what is it?” That is a good question and deserves a public answer. While I do not find such a distinction made in the Scriptures between the use of the words “error” and “heresy,” the word “error” as we commonly use it is a much milder word than the word “heresy.” But in the New Testament distinctions were made.

Peter’s Dissimulation

For example, Peter was in grave error in the dissimulation he made at Antioch. By his actions he gave the appearance that believers should still be held under the yoke of the law; and, for this error, Paul publicly rebuked him (Galatians 2:11-21). However, his error was not damning heresy. Had he taught that men gain salvation or improve their relationship with God by obedience to the law, that would have been damning heresy (Galatians 5:2, 4).

The Distinction

This is where we must draw the line of distinction. — Doctrinal error is the misinterpretation or application of any biblical teaching. — Damning heresy is any doctrine or practice that is contrary to salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Obviously, any teaching that allows the worship of false gods, denies the deity of Christ, his virgin birth, or vicarious atonement is damning heresy. But there are other forms of heresy far more subtle and dangerous.

To teach sprinkling for baptism is grave error, but not necessarily damning. However, to make baptism a condition of grace to any degree is damning heresy. To substitute grape juice for wine in the Lord’s Supper is serious error, though not damning to the soul. But to make the Lord’s Supper a sacrament by which grace is conferred upon a sinner is damning heresy.

One Test

The list could be greatly enlarged. But there is one test by which damning heresy can always be identified. — Any doctrine that teaches, or religious ceremony or practice that leads people to believe, that salvation is in anyway conditioned upon, dependent upon, or determined by the worth, work, or will of the sinner is damning heresy and always deadly to those who embrace it. Arminian, free-will, works religion is as damning to the souls of men as Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, or Satan worship. It is our responsibility to expose heresy by instructing people in the truth, and to reject those who will not obey the truth as self-condemned heretics (Titus3:9-11).

God’s people and God’s servants, faithful, believing sinners, saved by the grace of God, washed in the blood of Christ, can and often do embrace doctrinal error, though they truly trust and love the Lord Jesus Christ; but that does not make them heretics who are to be rejected by us.

Reminders to Pray for One Another

Missionary Daniel Parks — St. Croix, US Virgin Islands

I read early every morning a sweet note my daughter taped to a mirror when she visited a few years ago. As I stir steeping coffee grounds in a press, I look at pictures of my children and grandchildren on the wall before me. I time the coffee-steeping by a device given to me by a friend when he visited a few years ago. I pour the coffee into a thermos given to me by another friend in 1984. I place my coffee mug on a coaster given to me by a brother-in-law many years ago.

The point I here would make is not that I have many dear and giving friends and relatives – although I indeed do! Rather, I would have you know that I think of them when I see and use the things associated with them. And when I think of them, I am reminded to pray for them, for they all have needs of which I am familiar.

The events I described in the first paragraph occur just a few minutes after arising. Similar events occur throughout the remainder of the day. And they occur to you as well.

By these means, our Lord enables us to obey the exhortations “pray for one another” (James 5:16) and “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) – or pray for one another without ceasing.

“Grace grows best in winter.”

Samuel Rutherford — 1600-1661

When I am Old

John Newton — 1725-1807

“Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.” (Psalm 71:9)

I am drawing nearer and nearer to the season which the Psalmist either expected or felt. Many reasons teach the aged believer the need of this prayer. As his graces are still imperfect, so his powers are feelingly upon the decline. It was but little he could do at his best, and now less and less!

He feels other props and comforts dropping off apace. When he was young, he had warm spirits and pleasing prospects; but now, what a change of the friends in which he once delighted! In some, he has found inconstancy. They have forsaken and forgotten him; and others have been successively taken away by death. They have fallen like the leaves in autumn; and now he stands almost a naked trunk. If any yet remain, he is expecting to lose them likewise, unless he is first taken from them.

Old age abates, and gradually destroys the relish of such earthly comforts as might be otherwise enjoyed. Pains, infirmities, loss of sleep, the failure of sight and hearing, and all the senses, are harbingers, like Job’s messengers arriving in close succession, to tell him that death is upon his progress, and is not far away!

If youth has no security against death, then old age has no possibility of escaping the grim monster. But, though friends fail, cisterns burst, gourds wither, strength declines, and death advances, if God does not forsake me, then all is well.

“Even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.” (Isaiah 46:4)

The Grace Bulletin

June 11, 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