Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

September 11, 2022

 Weekly Schedule of Services

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Proverbs 19:4: Wealth maketh many friends; but the poor is separated from his neighbour.

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John 6:11: And Jesus took the loaves.

In the account of Christ feeding the multitude, one who is often overlooked is the lad.  This lad had a meal in those few loaves and fishes.  Yet, at the Lord’s command, the lad gave it all to Christ.  Then the Lord multiplied to the lad far more than he had and divided a multitude of bread to others. 

    The Lord’s multiplication to his children is first by subtraction then by division.  He makes us willing to let go of all that we thought was our life.  But by this subtraction, Christ multiplies unto us, personally, making us feast on Christ the Bread.  He gives us eternal life in abundance: Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Sanctification and Redemption. Then through using us to preach the gospel, Christ divides an abundance to other lost sinners throughout the world. 

     May our Lord make us submit to Him like this lad.  Our Savior said, “Except ye become as little children, ye shall in now wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

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No one ever frustrated God from effectually performing his will.   Sinners think they do.  They would if they could.  But the true and living God is the LORD of hosts, the most High God!

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John 6:12: When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.

Christ created enough bread and fish so that the great multitude ate “as much as they would.”  The lad was given far more than he would have had.  The apostles gathered up twelve baskets full beside all that the multitude ate: twelve baskets for twelve apostles as if to say, “Why did you doubt?”

     Christ’s grace is sufficient.  The little mouse was in no danger of eating up all the corn in Joseph’s storehouses. The minnow is no danger of drinking up all the water in the ocean. We are in no danger of partaking of Christ’s grace too much.  Come to Christ and partake freely of His grace as much as you would.  He is all sufficiency.

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“How many preachers can you listen to and hear of a sovereign, reigning God?  And is any news good news to an old guilty sinner which does not have its foundation in such a God?   No, absolutely not.  Nothing can speak peace to the heart of a Holy Spirit made sinner unless it comes from the God of sovereign purpose and sovereign grace.  Such a sinner has ‘no confidence in the flesh’.  He is fearful of himself and distrusts himself; and needs to hear of a salvation which is planned, provided and carried out to its final, eternal consummation by a faithful God Who cannot and will not fail.  He is too much like old Peter and must often hear his Master say, ‘I have prayed for you that your faith fail not.’   What he is in himself would soon turn his hope into despair, but he rests his sinful soul in the ‘SURE MERCIES OF DAVID.’  And as his own unfaithfulness looms up before him, he says with David of old, ‘YET God has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and SURE: and this is all my salvation and all my desire.’  Only the salvation of a sovereign, reigning God can speak peace to this sinner’s heart.  ‘THY GOD REIGNETH!’ is good news to me.”

–Maurice Montgomery

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“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” John 17:3

How many are anxious to know what is the way of salvation, how eternal life is to be obtained, and how to “flee from the wrath to come?” But the Lord Jesus has shewn in one short sentence in what eternal life consists, that it is in the knowledge of the “only true God, and of Jesus Christ, whom he has sent.” He therefore that knows the Father and the Son has eternal life in his soul. The Lord Jesus, in the sixth chapter of John, quoted this amongst other passages of the Old Testament, and says, “It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.” He lays this down, then, as one especial fruit of divine teaching, that it produces a coming unto him. The Spirit, who teacheth to profit, holds up before the eyes of the soul, the Person, work, blood, love, grace, and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He shews the soul that he is just such a Saviour as it needs. He opens up the dignity of his Person, and shews that he is God-man. He makes known in the conscience that he has offered up himself a sacrifice for sin; that he has shed his atoning blood so that the sin of the Church is for ever put away from the sight of a just God. He opens up before the eyes of the mind his glorious righteousness, as that in which the Father is well pleased, and in which if the soul has but an interest, it is secure from the wrath to come. He unfolds to the heart the willingness of Christ to receive every coming sinner; he shews the treasures of mercy and grace which are locked up in him; and brings down in the heart the comforting words that he spake in the days of his flesh, such as, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”                                      

–JC Philpot

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God himself, in His divine person, is the sole moving cause of every good motion and good work in us.  He is the only stimulator, inspirer, animator, instigator, influencer, and director in all real worship.  All the light, the life, the truth, the integrity, the honesty, the sincerity, and the uprightness in all heavenly devotion, are of Him, who is the grand object of them, to whom they ascend, and on whom they terminate; and He is the exceeding great reward of all his heavenly worshippers.  Every good and perfect gift is from Him, and by Him is the man of God furnished for every good work; for what has man that he has not received?

–William Huntington