SHREVEPORT GRACE CHURCH
2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118
CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE
SEPTEMBER 4, 2005
SUNDAY
Scripture Reading/Prayer: Psalm 119:81-88 (David)
Call to Worship: ‘My Soul for Thy Salvation Faints’
Scripture Reading/Prayer: 2 Samuel 24 (Mike)
Hymn: #118- ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’
Message: Brother Jim Pennywell
WEDNESDAY
6:30 PM- Mid-week Service
Nursery care available for all services for ages 4 and younger.
Ken Wimer, Pastor- ( (318) 687-4943
E-MAIL : pastor@shrevegrace.org
WEB SITE: http://www.shrevegrace.org Updated weekly with audio messages now available on-line.
CALL TO WORSHIP
(Tune: #293- ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd)
Words from Scottish Metrical Psalter
My soul for thy salvation faints;
Yet I thy Word believe.
Mine eyes fail for thy Word: I say,
When wilt thou comfort give?
For like a bottle I’m become,
That in the smoke is set:
I’m black, and parched with grief; yet I
Thy statutes not forget.
How many are thy servant’s days?
When wilt thou execute
Just judgment on these wicked men
That do me persecute?
The proud have digged their pits for me,
Which is against thy laws.
Thy words all faithful are: help me,
Pursued without a cause.
They so consumed me, that on earth
My life they scarce did leave:
Thy precepts yet forsook I not,
But close to them did cleave.
After thy loving-kindness, Lord,
Me quicken, and preserve:
The testimony of thy mouth
So shall I still observe.
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hrist is wisdom for our ignorance, strength for our weakness, righteousness for our guilt, sanctification for our corruption, redemption from all the thralldom of our apostasy.COPIED
“…and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others,” Eph. 2:3
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s there any sense in which it may be said that those whom God has purposed to save, and Christ did save by His death on the cross, were at one time children of wrath? The answer is, ‘No!’ First of all, the scripture says that we were ‘by nature’ children of wrath, but that is different than stating that we are children of wrath. ‘By nature,’ we all deserve God’s wrath, and certainly share the same sin nature inherited from our father Adam. However, it is clear that those whom God has chosen, redeemed, and therefore saved, were always objects of mercy and not wrath.
1. Romans 9:22 and 23 makes a clear distinction between those who are vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy. Just as tares never become wheat, and goats don’t become sheep, so vessels of wrath are forever so, and vessels of mercy have always been such, by God’s eternal sovereign grace.
2. 1 Thessalonians 5:9 states, “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” It wasn’t in order to make God merciful that Christ died on the cross. Rather, it was because in love God elected and predestinated a people to salvation (Ephesians 1:4, 5), and Christ came and paid the required ransom in His death, that God might be just (justified) in loving, saving, and showing mercy to His elect, Rom. 3:26.
This is what the Lord Jesus accomplished! Although the elect are all born into this world deserving of God’s wrath, and until the cross, were under the legal condemnation of God’s law, the Bible declares that the Lord Jesus Christ so met all of the requirement’s of God’s law and justice that His forbearance of those in the Old Testament is now ratified in the death of the Lord Jesus, and His full forgiveness, grace and love toward the elect since the cross is justified, even before they are brought by His Spirit to Christ in faith, Romans 3:25. As one old writer so plainly puts it, “So, all the elect were considered in Christ, Who by His death, did free all the elect from this fall of sin and death; so as never since Christ’s death, none of the elect were under that state of wrath or curse, nor indeed could possibly be.” Because then “Christ redeemed them from under the Law,” Gal. 4:4, 5.
Some may object citing John 3:36- ‘he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.’ However, this verse does not support the notion of God’s wrath being on someone until they believe. If you consider the entire verse together it is contrasting those who do believe because they have been given everlasting life in Christ, versus those who never believe, because they have been and always are under God’s wrath. They never were objects of mercy.
To be an object of mercy, is to be chosen of God the Father in electing grace, and to be redeemed, justified, sanctified, and reconciled by the death of Christ, and in time brought to repentance by the Spirit’s calling out unto Christ in faith, I Peter 1: 2 Is this your testimony?
KEN WIMER
FREE FROM THE LAW
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ecause Christ, by His death, put an end to the Law, the Law was not to last any longer then till Christ came; "The Law was added till the seed should come," Gal. 3:19. "Christ is the end of the Law:" Rom. 10:4. It was never in force against any of God's elect since Christ's death. "We are freed from the Law by the body of Christ," Rom. 7:4. Christ in "his flesh did abolish the Law of Commandments:" Eph. 2:15, 16; Col. 2:13,14. "Now we are delivered from the Law," Rom. 7:6. "Against such there is no law:" Gal. 5:23. If the Son shall make you as free in your consciences, as the elect are free in Him, you shall see, and say you were free indeed, John 8.
· The Law is dead to us, and we to it, "As a woman is freed from the law of her husband if he be dead:" so are we from the law. "Wherefore my brethren, we are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that we should be married to another, even to him, that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter," Rom. 7:1-7. This new husband is better than the old. Welcome Christ, and farewell Law. Now we have nothing to do with the Law, nor the Law with us, "Our old man is crucified with him," Rom. 6:6. "He that is dead is freed from sin:" v.7. "We are dead with Christ," v.8.
· There is none of Moses' law now in force, to the elect, with curses to be under, no law, no transgression, no curse, and no penalty in force now. For when the Law ceased, the curse of the Law ceased also with it. The Law said "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them," Gal. 3:10, Deut. 27:10, 26.
· "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that the blessing of Christ might come upon us," Gal. 3:13, 14. Christ underwent all the curses, that all His chosen might not suffer any at all of it. And seeing none could be redeemed from the curse without His death, Christ did die. There shall none be saved, but such as were then redeemed by His death, for He will die no more, Heb. 9:25,26. That liberty, which the Saints stand in and enjoy when they believe, was not procured by their conversion and faith, etc., but by Christ upon the Cross. "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," Gal. 5;1. This liberty believers now enjoy, but it was purchased then by Christ's death. For then, we were perfected for ever, Heb. 10:14. SAMUEL RICHARDSON
NOTES