SHREVEPORT GRACE CHURCH

2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118

CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE

OCTOBER 22, 2006

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: #291- ‘Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah’)

esus, Shepherd of Thy people

Lead us through this desert land;

We are weak, and poor, and feeble,

Yet we trust Thy mighty hand;

Great Protector! Great Protector!

By Thy pow’r alone we stand [Repeat]

All Thy sheep shall come to Zion;

With them Thou wilt never part;

Beasts of prey, nor roaring lion,

None shall pluck them from Thy heart;

All Thy chosen, All Thy chosen

Cost Thee wounds, and blood, and smart [Repeat]

In Thy bosom safely lodged,

Thine shall rest from danger free;

They shall never more be judged,

Nor shall condemnation see;

Blessed Jesus, Blessed Jesus,

Let us thus rejoice in Thee [Repeat]

MY ROCK

"The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my Savior, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the strength of my salvation, my stronghold!"      (Psalm 18:2)

o rocks defend me from blasts, from whatever quarter they blow? So does my Rock! Is the blast from hell? Well, He has the keys of hell and of death!  Is it from sin? He is my righteousness!  Is it from Satan? He has conquered principalities and powers! Is it from afflictions? He is my sympathizing and loving High Priest!  Is it from losses? He is my exceeding great reward! Is it from crosses? He makes all things work together for good to His people!

JAMES MEIKLE, 1730-1799

WHO IS A SAVED SINNER?

he Bible teaches us that the Lord Jesus Christ magnified God’s law and made it honorable according to what was prophesied in Isaiah 42:21- “The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honorable.”  The Gospel is therefore a declaration of Christ Jesus being ‘the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,’ Romans 10:4.  It is not our believing that makes an end of the law’s condemnation toward us; it was already done away in the death of the Lord Jesus.  However, all that believe in truth submit to that righteousness accomplished and imputed in His death.

Therefore, the justice of God is manifested in having fully acquitted and justified all them that believe in Jesus.  In other words, all for whom Christ died will be brought in time to submit to Christ and embrace whole-heartedly His substitution and satisfaction for them.   Though in themselves they did sin and come short of the glory of God, when Adam fell (Romans 3:23) and were justly condemned by the law, yet in time the Spirit of Truth brings them to see that every hand-writing of ordinances that was against them was taken out of the way, nailing it to HIS CROSS (Colossians 2:14).  Although in the elect sinner’s experience, none can know the hope of salvation in truth until they are brought by the Spirit of God to know themselves sinners, ruined and justly condemned by the law in Adam, yet by faith they are brought to know that God is just in having pardoned and saved them through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Romans 3:24. 

Anyone who knows and is persuaded by the Spirit of his just condemnation as a guilty transgressor of the law, and the deep pollution of his nature, and is brought by God’s grace to have lost all hope of escaping the curse by any thing of his, either in him or by him, is the very character, whom, as declared in the Scriptures, Christ came to save. He came to seek and to save that which was lost, Luke 19:10. And he that by God given faith knows and submits to Christ as the end of the law for righteousness, his hope for salvation resting solely on that foundation, (righteousness established and imputed in Christ’s obedience unto death alone), is according to the Scripture a saved sinner- 2 Timothy 1:9  “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”                             KEN WIMER

NO CONTINGENCY WITH GOD

here is a tendency within all men to view things in a timely, segmented, and chronological order.  Our brain functions best that way in natural things.  But in dealing with spiritual and eternal matters, God is of one mind, immutable, and unchangeable.  He does not ponder and plan things out as man.  With God, all of salvation stands firm.  On the timely plain, however, we as creatures experience salvation in a chronological order, and view it as such.  Christ has already saved all He will ever save, and they are even now as safe as if they were all already glorified. 

But let us stress, that the work of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling to life and immortality; the calling and directing of the Gospel ministry: the preaching, hearing and believing of the Gospel; the conversion of the elect in repentance, and the continuous working in them both to will and to do of His good pleasure will invariably follow Christ’s redemptive work until the fullness of Christ and the ultimate and certain glorification of the “General Assembly, the Church of the Firstborn whose names are written in heaven.”  None of this is left precariously in the hands of man…not even the preaching of the Gospel; for it is by His sovereign providence that the elect are given the ministry of the sovereign grace of God.  Ministers are God’s gift to His people for their edification and peace through the knowledge of their glorious Savior Jesus Christ.  And these ministers, willingly or not, knowingly or not, will preach the Gospel exactly when and where and to whom God pleases.  “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His Son:  In whom we have redemption through the blood, even the forgiveness of sins,” Colossians 1:13.                                                STANLEY PHILLIPS