SHREVEPORT GRACE
CHURCH
2970 Baird Rd., Shreveport, LA 71118
CHRIST ALONE-SCRIPTURE ALONE-GRACE ALONE
MARCH 18, 2007
SUNDAY
WEDNESDAY
6:30 PM-
Mid-week Service
Nursery care available for all services for ages 4 and younger.
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
William Gadsby’s Hymnal
(Tune: #118- ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’)
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esus lived, and loved, and died,
Rose, and lives to intercede;
And with Zion on His breast,
He has said He’ll ever rest.
Long before this world was made,
Or that monster, Sin, appeared,
God was love, and loved the men
He ordained and then redeemed.
Love constrained the Lamb to die,
For a wretch so vile as I;
Love, immensely great and free,
Christ has shown to worthless me.
Once I rolled in guilt and sin,
Heeded not a heart unclean;
But I now with wonder tell,
Jesus saved my soul from hell.
GOD’S EVERLASTING LOVE FOR HIS OWN
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hink about John 3:16-“For God SO loved the world.” We need to remember Christ was talking to a Jewish Pharisee, Nicodemus, who thought Jews were the only people God had any intention of saving. So Christ used the word “world” to point out to Him that God’s purpose was to save all His people out of every nation. Since God “SO” loved His people, “He gave His only begotten Son”. Now our natural reasoning latches on to this next phrase-“that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish.” Everybody tells us this verse teaches that man’s belief is what appropriates Christ’s work of redemption and makes it his own. But, notice the last part of the verse-“but HAVE (literally, already possess) eternal life.” The only reason any ever believe or rest in Christ is because they “already possess” eternal life which was obtained for them by Christ’s perfect work of redemption at Calvary-“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”(I Jn.4:10) Think about it like this: All those for whom Christ died were loved of God from before time, and nothing they do ever causes God’s love for them to increase or decrease because His love is PERFECT LOVE based on the PERFECT SACRIFICE of His Son, the believer’s Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. RICHARD WARMACK, Ruston, LA
PREDESTINED,
CALLED, JUSTIFIED, AND GLORIFIED
‘Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called,
them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified.’
Romans 8:30
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ne thing we learn
from this verse is that the salvation of sinners is by God’s sovereign order and
decree. If any sinner is saved, it is because God the Father decreed it,
eternally named that one in the book of life of the Lamb slain, Rev. 13:8, and
in time declared that one just by the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus
imputed to His account, Rom. 5:9, 10. When Christ died, rose again, and
ascended on high, every sinner whose names were written on His breast plate as
the Great High Priest were glorified with Him, Ephesians 2:5,6.
This is exactly the order of salvation set forth by the apostle
Paul in Romans 8:30. While many use this verse to teach the sinner’s
justification either in eternity or after the Spirit’s work of regeneration, a
careful study of the context shows it to be accomplished at the cross for three
reasons:
1. The word used for ‘called,’ (kalew) is not referring here to a spiritual calling of the Spirit of God to Christ, but rather the naming of sinners in election according to God’s predestinating grace. Matthew 1:21, 25 use the word in this way, ‘thou shalt CALL His name Jesus.’ Therefore, the proper order of the sinner’s justification (legal acquittal from all guilt and declared righteous), is following his predestination and election (naming in the Lamb’s book of life). When was this accomplished?
2. The context of Romans 8:30 shows that the sinner’s full, complete, and final justification before God was finished when Christ died at Calvary. Look at verses 31-34. It couldn’t be plainer! “He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,” v. 32. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth!” v.33. How? When? See v. 34- ‘It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”
3. In the same context we know that those whom God the Father predestined and called (named in election), He not only justified, when Christ died, but glorified them as well. It is true that the redeemed await their final glorification and deliverance from the presence of sin, and yet, it may just as truly be stated that they are now glorified, being seated with Christ their representative who was glorified by the Father when He rose and ascended on High- John 13:31, 17:10.
What a glorious order of salvation giving God and His Christ ALL the Glory!
KEN WIMER
A BALM IN GILEAD
“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?” Jeremiah
8:22
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here is a balm in Gilead, and there is a physician there. This is, and must ever be, our only hope. If there were no balm in Gilead, what could we do but lie down in despair and die? For our sins are so great, our backslidings so repeated, our minds so dark, our hearts so hard, our affection so cold, our souls so wavering and wandering, that if there were no balm in Gilead, no precious blood, no sweet promises, no sovereign grace, and if there were no physician there, no risen Jesus, no great High Priest over the house of God, what well-grounded hope could we entertain? Not a ray! Our own obedience and consistency, these are a bed too short and a covering too narrow. But when there is some application of the balm in Gilead, it softens, melts, humbles, and at the same time thoroughly heals. Nay, this balm strengthens every nerve and sinew, heals blindness, remedies deafness, cures paralysis, makes the lame man leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb to sing, and thus produces gospel sight, gospel hearing, gospel strength, and gospel walk. When the spirit is melted, and the heart touched by a sense of God’s goodness, mercy, and love to such base, undeserving wretches, it produces gospel obedience, aye, a humble obedience; not that proud obedience which those manifest who are trusting to their own goodness and seeking to scale the battlements of heaven by the ladder of self-righteousness, but an obedience of gratitude, love, and submission, willingly, cheerfully rendered, and therefore acceptable to God, because flowing from His own Spirit and grace. It is the application of this divine balm which purifies the heart, makes sin hateful, and the Lord Jesus precious, and not only dissolves the soul in sweet gratitude, but fills it with earnest desires to live to God’s honor and glory J. C. Philpot