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Grace Baptist Church of Danville

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June 16, 2019

When I am comfortable and at ease, I enjoy reading good books, especially books about theology and history. But when I am in trouble, tempted, tried, broken, and heavy laden, I have no interest in them. Then I read no book but the Book of God. Only the light of God’s Word supplies my need in hours of darkness.

Daily Readings for the Week of June 16-23, 2019

Sunday Psalm 31-36 Thursday Psalm 60-68

Monday Psalm 37-43 Friday Psalm 69-73

Tuesday Psalm 44-50 Saturday Psalm 74-78

Wednesday Psalm 51-59 Sunday Psalm 79-86

· We will have our Quarterly Fellowship Dinner on Sunday, June 30^th.

Happy Birthday! Mabel Dix-20^th Bill Rolley-21^st June Roundtree-21st

Happy Anniversary: Oscar & Nancy Bailey-18^th

Nursery Duty Today (AM): Debbie Bartley

God’s Gift of Faith — Don Fortner

(Tune: #77 — Sun of My Soul —LM)

1. Amazing love, beyond degree,

Eternal, sov’reign, rich, and free!

Jehovah gave His only Son,

For rebel sinners, lost, undone!

2. Have I the gift of faith received?

Do I in Jesus Christ believe?

I do believe, by grace divine,

And claim eternal life as mine.

3. God’s gift of faith, this precious gift,

With hope assured our spirits lift. —

All who believe on Christ shall prove,

The joys of everlasting love.

A Sobering Experience

Many years ago, a man dropped into our assembly on Sunday evening. He worked with one of our men who had invited him to come. So far as I know, this gentleman had never heard the gospel of Christ in his life. (He certainly did not hear it from his own pastor.) On Monday evening, while taking his evening walk, that man fell dead. Less than twenty-four hours after I preached the gospel to him, that man went out of this world to meet God! I do not know what effect the message had upon him, but I do know that his blood is not upon my hands (Ezekiel 33:7-9). How could I face that immortal soul at the judgment, or face God who sent me to preach the gospel, if I had failed to declare the gospel to him when I had opportunity? — “Necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!”

Between Death and The Resurrection

2 Corinthians 5:6

When speaking of the believer’s death, the Word of God always represents it as an immediate entrance into heavenly blessedness. Actually, for the believer, death is not death at all, but the beginning of life. God’s elect never die (John 11:26). The death of a believer’s body is the liberation of his soul. And as soon as our souls are freed from this body of sin and death, we shall enter heaven. This is the doctrine of Holy Scripture.

Isaiah 57:1-2

When the righteous perish from the earth, they live in uprightness forever. Those who have been made righteous by the grace of God, having the righteousness of Christ imputed to them in free justification and imparted to them in the new birth, when they die, are taken away from evil. They enter into a world of peace. They rest in their beds, their bodies in the grave and their souls in the arms of Christ. And they live in the uprightness of glorified spirits forever.

Luke 16:22-25

As soon as the believer dies, he is carried by the angels of God into heaven, “Abraham’s bosom,” the place of endless comfort. As the man with a palsy was let down by his friends through the tiling to the Lord Jesus (Luke 5:18), so God’s saints are taken up to their Savior by the angels of God. Those ministering spirits who have been our protectors in life (Psalm 91:10-11; Hebrews 1:14) shall be our porters to carry us home to Christ in death.

Luke 23:43

At death every believing sinner is taken to be with Christ in paradise. Paradise is heaven, the garden of God (Revelation 2:7). It is that place of assured blessedness promised to sinners who seek the mercy of God in Christ. Our Savior said to the dying thief, “Today,” immediately, “shalt thou,” assuredly, “be with me,” in endless company, “in paradise,” heavenly glory.

Philippians 1:21, 23

Death for the believer is infinite, immeasurable, immediate gain. Believers, upon leaving this world, lose nothing but sin and sorrow, and gain everything good and glorious.

What is the state of the saints’ life between death and the resurrection? I will not say more than God has revealed. But we are assured that God’s saints are not floating around in the clouds. And we are assured that their souls are not sleeping with their bodies in the grave. They have gone to a specific place called heaven, where Christ is. There they are assembled as a glorified church (Hebrews 12:22-23). And their souls exist in a recognizable form. The Scriptures give us examples of this fact in Lazarus, Moses, and Elijah (Luke 16:23; Matthew 17:3). Do God’s saints have a body between death and the resurrection? A physical body? No. A spiritual body, a heavenly form, a house for their souls? Most definitely (2 Corinthians 5:1). Every believer, as soon as he leaves this body of flesh, enters into heaven with Christ. It is this assurance that makes death a desirable thing for the believer.

“A Nail in a Sure Place”

Isaiah 22:23

Robert Hawker

My soul, through grace, thou hast long been enabled to hang all thy grand concerns for eternity upon the Lord Jesus. And will it not be a very refreshing subject for thy meditation to see how eternally firm and secure all rest with an unshaken and unchangeable confidence? Behold him as he is in himself, in his person, work, and righteousness. — “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”

All Salvation

Contemplate him as the source, origin, fountain, and support of all the great things of salvation. There is not a purpose of God but that that is founded on Christ. — Not a promise but that that is made, confirmed, and fulfilled in Christ. — And not a dispensation in all the kingdoms of nature, grace, and glory but that that comes from Christ and his own righteous government.

All Grace

Go on, under a second branch of meditation, and behold Jesus as a nail in a sure place, and that the persons, concerns, and blessings of his people all hang on him. From him they derive all their spiritual strength, gifts, graces, authority, order, and appointment. On him they all depend for life, ability, power, and disposition to carry it on. And to him the whole glory of their services return in an endless revenue of praise.

Fixed by God

Lastly, and above all, to crown thy meditation on this nail in a sure place, behold the hand of God thy Father, both fixing him there and proclaiming it to the souls of his people. — “I will fasten him,” saith Jehovah, “as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his Father’s house.”

Hail, thou glorious almighty Mediator! Founded on such authority, and possessing in thyself such eternal principles, evermore will I hang my soul, and body, and spirit, with all I have and all I am or hope to be, in time and to all eternity, on thee. Never can too great a stress be laid upon Jesus nor too full a confidence be placed in him. How can a soul perish that hangs on God’s Christ?

Go to dying beds. There you will learn the true worth of deliverance from damnation by the death of Christ. — James Hervey

“Therefore are they before the throne of God”

Revelation 7:15

Not because they came out of great tribulation; but because they and their robes were washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. Being freely interested in Jesus, they are saved by grace; and the God of grace has all the glory.

— Augustus Toplady

The Grace Bulletin

June 16, 2019

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