SHREVEPORT GRACE CHURCH

2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE

JUNE 12, 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 – ‘From Every Stormy Wind That Blows’ # 355)

Words by Isaac Watts based on Psalm 117

rom all that dwell below the skies

Let the Creator’s praise arise,

Let the Redeemer’s name be sung

Through every land, by every tongue.

Eternal are Thy mercies, Lord!

Eternal truth attends Thy word:

Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore

Till suns shall rise and set no more.

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THE EXCLUSIVITY OF CHRIST

(Luke 14:25-35)

he message of Christ is exclusive to all others. He exclusively came as Representative of the triune Godhead. He exclusively came as Representative of those chosen in eternity. He exclusively came in the flesh and was born under the Law. In behalf of those chosen, He exclusively established perfect righteousness by fulfilling every requirement of the Law in life and assuming to Himself every wrong in death. He exclusively put away their sin, clearing the way for God to forgive, justify, redeem, sanctify, reconcile, save and adopt.

Christ is the exclusive ground of the removal of guilt and the discharge of all sins and trespasses. The imputation of righteousness at the cross, where He completed His obedience and sin bearing, is exclusively the justification of the elect.

DAVID SIMPSON, Powell, Tennessee

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THE BIBLE IS A BLOODY BOOK

 “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;  But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” I Peter 1:18,19.

he Bible is an extremely bloody book because it shows us from Genesis to Revelation that the only remedy for sin, the only answer for this universal problem- SIN, is the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, THE Lamb of God!  That’s the scarlet thread that runs through the whole Bible. All of God’s elect were REDEEMED (eternally, completely, unchangeable) with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, “Who verily was FOREORDAINED before the foundation of the world, BUT WAS MANIFEST IN THESE LAST TIMES for you, who by him do believe in God…” I Peter 1:20, 21.  He is God’s Lamb, our Passover Lamb, “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,” yet, a lamb without blemish or without spot.  When we read the Bible, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, because of what David called ‘our own blood guiltiness.’ 

Let’s beat upon our breasts like the publican of old and say, ‘God be merciful to me THE SINNER.’  I’m the only sinner I really have to be concerned with in this mess, as far as answering before God.  Therefore, I must look to the blood of Christ, that precious blood that cleanses us from ALL our sin, and ALL our unrighteousness.  Since the fall of Adam, man by nature has stumbled over that tree (the cross).  Christ had to shed His own blood to pay the ransom price for our sin.  Even the disciples struggled with it when our Lord told Peter and the others that He “must needs go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day,” Matthew 16:21. You remember what Peter said? “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.”  Our Lord rebuked Him saying, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.”    The apostle Paul wrote that the word of the cross (that’s Christ’s death), the Gospel of the Cross, THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST, is foolishness to those who are perishing, I Corinthians 1:18.  Yet, he went on to say, ‘But we preach Christ,” v. 23, we preach Christ CRUCIFIED, a stumbling block to the Jews, the highly religious, and foolishness to the Greeks, ‘the worldly wise,’  but to those who are called by the Spirit of God, both Jew and Greek, Christ is the power and the wisdom of God.  People by nature hate the idea of Christ’s blood paying for ALL our sins- ALL our sins, not just some of them.  Some say he just paid for our past sins, but we have to atone for our present and future sin.  Some don’t even know what He did.  They think it was a gesture of love towards man.  Many call it a ‘slaughter house religion, and yet from the start of our human history, God has made it plain, that the forgiveness of sins  has only been accomplished through the shed blood of the acceptable Substitute, period!             BILL PARKER, Ashland, KY