2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE

MARCH 27, 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) 834-4395

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: “I Love Thy Kingdom Lord,” #188)

Words based on Psalm 106                     

1. God of eternal love,
   How fickle are our ways!
   And yet how oft did Israel prove
   Thy constancy of grace!
   
    
2. They saw Thy wonders wrought,
   And then Thy praise they sung;
   But soon Thy works of power forgot,
   And murmured with their tongue.
   
    
3. Now they believe His Word,
   While rocks with rivers flow;
   Now with their lusts provoke the Lord,
   And He reduced them low.
   
    
4. Yet when they mourned their faults,
   He hearkened to their groans;
   Brought His own covenant to his thoughts,
   And called them still His sons.
   
    
5. Their names were in His book;
   He saved them from their foes:
   Of the chastised but ne’er forsook
   The people that He chose.
   
    
6. Let Israel bless the Lord,
   Who loved their ancient race;
   And Christians join the solemn word,

AMEN, to all the praise

                                                           Isaac Watts, 1712

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GOOD FRIDAY

ood Friday originated because someone assumed that Friday was the day that our Lord Jesus was crucified.  However, simple math shows that there are not enough days to count three days and three nights between Friday and Sunday, as our Lord said was the duration of his time in the grave from death to resurrection. Matthew 12:40- “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

            The fact is that Christ would have laid down his life on a Wednesday afternoon, and risen Saturday evening at the end of the Jewish Sabbath.  When the women came early the next morning, the first day of the week, they found the tomb already empty, Matthew 28:1.  The rising again of Christ on the Jewish Sabbath was the final fulfillment of all of the Old Testament feast days, showing that forgiveness of sins and pardon before God were accomplished in the death Christ died.  Christ laid down His life in payment for the sins of God’s elect, whose death the Father accepted and applied to them, that He might be a just God and Savior.  How do we know that the Father is satisfied with the work of His Son and has thereby justified every one that Christ redeemed?  HE RAISED HIM UP THE THIRD DAY, Luke 24:46, Romans 4:26.  My friend, salvation is not in the celebration of days, but the SUBSTITUTION of the Savior.  All who believe on Christ do repent of any other way and trust and rest in Him alone who finished the work!                                                                                                                                                                                                                  KEN WIMER

THE LOVE OF CHRIST

ho shall separate us from the love of Christ?  A love that brought him from heaven to earth, from deity to manhood, from glory to the world; a love that brought him to shame and ignominy, to buffeting and tribulation, to the suffering of death itself, even the death of the cross.  A love that moved him to give all that he had for the lost, everything he possessed for the destitute, his life for the sheep; a love of devotion, self-denial, of sacrifice, and a love that rejoiced not in iniquity, but rejoiced in the truth, enduring all things; a love that never failed.                                                               

  J. METCALFE

KEEP YOURSELVES FROM IDOLS

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols, Amen.”  I  John 5:21

e cannot separate this verse from the truth that is set before us in the preceding verse 20-  “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ.  This is the true God, and eternal life.”

            There is truth and there is error.  In other words, everything that is not of the TRUTH as it is in Christ Jesus, and what He accomplished in His sacrificial death is idolatry.  So resist idolatry, which opposes the truth: to use Mary and the assorted saints to approach God is idolatry; to use symbols, days, and rituals is idolatry; to use the will of man to appropriate salvation is idolatry; to work to establish a just standing before God is idolatry; to say to a man that God has done His part and now you complete it by doing something, whether in believing, or in baptism, or any other work of man, in order to make it yours, that is idolatry.

DAVID SIMPSON, POWELL, TN

CHRIST’S JOY

he joy of Christ is the possession of all true believers in Jesus Christ.  It begins with our regeneration and conversion, continues throughout the life of faith in this world, and is consummated in glory, when we go to be with our Savior forever.  Our problem is that we do not always realize it as we should.  A few things need to be said here.  This joy results from our union with Christ.  The joy of the believer is Christ’s joy, whose joy is infinite.  Though on earth he was the Man of sorrows, bearing our sins, he still had joy (Luke 10:21)-  joy he imparted to his disciples (John 15:11).  His joy is that of the blessed Son of God, eternally one with the Father, now reigning in glory till his enemies are made his footstool.  It is the joy of one who rejoices over the completion of his redemptive work, and over the recovery of his lost sheep, his brethren, and co-heirs (Hebrews 2:11, Romans 8:17).  It is that ‘fullness of joy’ of which Psalm 16:11 speaks (see Acts 2:28).

ROBERT STRIVEN, (UK)