2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE

April 3, 2005

OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORSHIP

SUNDAY

WEDNESDAY

6:30 PM- Mid-week Service

Nursery care available for all services for ages 4 and younger.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Ken Wimer, Pastor- ( (318) 687-4943

PO Box 5028, Shreveport, LA 71135

E-MAIL: pastor@shrevegrace.org

WEB SITE: http://www.shrevegrace.org Updated weekly with audio messages now available on-line.

CALL TO WORSHIP 

(Tune: ‘Sun of My Soul, #77)  Words by Joseph Irons, 1847 - Based on Psalm 105

 GIVE thanks unto the Lord,

 Praise His name with one accord:

    Tell the wonders of His power,

     Praise His goodness every hour.

Let His ransom’d church begin,

Whom He hath redeem’d from sin,

Gather’d from the east and west,

North and south, to enter rest.

Through the wilderness they stray,

In a solitary way:

Hungry, thirsty, tried and faint;

God attends to their complaint.

Led by Him form day to day,

Right, although mysterious way,

To His city they shall come,

Habitation, rest, and home.

Oh that men would praise the Lord,

While His goodness they record;

All is wondrous works rehearse,

Who redeem’d them form the curse.

TRUE REPENTANCE

INNERS must not believe, that their forgiveness lies in their repentance and sorrow for sin, nor in their inherent holiness. I mean, it is not for the sake of their repentance, nor for the worth of their faith, nor that their inherent holiness is any part, or matter of their justifying righteousness before God; or for the sake and worth of which they are pardoned and justified; but only by the active and passive obedience of Christ.  “Be it known unto you therefore, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things,” Acts 13:38-39.

                Consider that repentance, sorrow for sin, and humiliation, faith itself, are the effects of Christ’s death and merits; and that all sense of sin, and such a believing or confidence, which an ungodly person may have, before he obtains a vital union with Christ, are but dead works, and profits no man to justification; and know also, that true repentance is the immediate product of saving faith, though faith itself is a fruit of God’s Spirit, Gal.5:22.  The sense of divine love in free forgiveness works brokenness of heart, and true sorrow for sin.                                                                                                  BENJAMIN KEACH – 1640-1704

PROPITIATION THROUGH HIS BLOOD

 “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood”-                                                                          Romans 3:25

n the surface, it would appear from the translation of this verse that one’s faith is instrumental to our justification before God.  However, depending on where you put the comma, it affects the overall sense.  “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation,” is better suited as a continuation of the previous verse showing that when Christ died to redeem His people, it is because God set Him forth (ordained) Him to be that propitiation (satisfaction or mercy seat).  The comma, inserted by the editors, would be better placed after ‘through faith,’ where faith is used as a synonym for THE GOSPEL.   The meaning then is that God has set forth Christ’s propitiation in the Gospel.  “In His blood,” would then begin the next thought that it is in or by His death that the righteousness of God is declared as to why He was forbearing with the sins of those whom He saved in the Old Testament.  He was forbearing because He had purposed all along that their sins be punished in the death of Christ.

The "blood" of Christ is that, by which Christ is the propitiation; for without the shedding of that blood, there is no redemption, no peace, no reconciliation, or remission of sin.  This is set forth on every page of Scripture, and it is ‘through faith,’ i.e. ‘the faith once delivered unto the saints,’ Jude 3, and ‘the faith of God’s elect,’ Titus 1:1.   It is that faith upon which God’s children believe and rest, when taught of the Spirit of God.  What greater hope, consolation, and comfort could there be than to know that the Lord Jesus paid it all, and we stand justified by Him, not in our believing, but in His dying!

IF CHRIST DIED FOR ALL MEN…

F Christ died for all men, even for them that can and do perish, then no consolation nor certainty of salvation can be had from the death of Christ, even by those that believe He died for them, seeing, notwithstanding He has died for them, they may perish:  but this is absurd, and contrary to Rom. 8:34, where believers conclude, from the death of Christ, that they cannot come into condemnation.  The consequence of this argument is denied.  But how is it possible, that there should be any solid comfort or real certainty of salvation from the death of Christ, when, notwithstanding complete redemption is obtained by it, the benefit of it enjoyed, sin really forgiven in Christ, and the remission of it truly applied, yet persons may fall from the enjoyment of those benefits through sin and unbelief, and eternally perish? 

JOHN GILL - 1852

GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16

hat love cannot be fully explained; but He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for it.  Now mark you, God did not give His Son to do something whereby His anger and wrath should be appeased and His love flow forth to those who would avail themselves of the provision He had made.  Not that.  But, “God so loved the world, that He gave.”  His love preceded His give.

                                “God beheld the world undone,

Loved the world and gave His Son.”

What world is this?  A world within a world.  God’s world surrounded by the devil’s world.  There are many worlds mentioned in God’s Word; but the world he loves is that saved by His Son.  See John 3:17, 4:42.  The world loved by the Father and saved by the Son is identical with that of chapter 16: And when He is come, He will reprove (convince) the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”   Often we hear of the Holy Ghost convincing of a judgment to come.  Nonsense.  There is not an allusion here to the judgment to come; but to the judgment past.  See!  It is, “because the prince of this world is judged.”  In the sufferings and death of Christ, judgment was passed upon Satan, sin, and self, so that all  the elect and redeemed world stands free from condemnation, justified, and accepted in the Beloved.  Every elect and favoured sinner in God’s world enjoys all spiritual blessings as the free gifts of a loving Father in Christ Jesus.  Look at that precious declaration in Rom. 8:32; “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Amongst these all things He has given that glorious and gracious Person who carries on our spiritual education, and who secures our safe conduct to eternal glory, even God the ever-blessed Spirit. 

THOMAS BRADBURY, 1877