Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

All articles in the bulletin are by the pastor unless otherwise noted.

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ANNOUNCEMENT

Our annual summer meeting is scheduled for Thursday, July 30 through Sat, August 1. Our speaker is Don Fortner, pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Danville, KY. Thursday and Friday services begin at 7:30pm with Saturday morning service at 10:15am.  We will have ice cream after service Friday night and a meal after service Saturday. We will have our regular services the Sunday following. Save the date and invite someone to come hear Christ preached.

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     Only those sinners who come to God believing on Christ Jesus the Just shall justly be accepted and dwell with our just God in glory for all eternity.

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Hebrews 7: 22: By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.

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“THE WORLD BY WISDOM KNEW NOT GOD”

(I Corinthians 1:21)

     What did the philosophy of Greece do for its disciples?  It made them ignorant worshipers of an “unknown God” (Acts 17:23).  The inscription on their altar published to the universe their ignorance and shame.

     How can I know God?  Where can I find Him?  Can science and philosophy tell me?  Have they ever told anyone?  No, never.  “The world by wisdom knew not God.”  The schools of ancient philosophy could only plunge the human mind into darkness and hopeless bewilderment, and the schools of modern philosophy are not one bit better.  They give no certainty, no safe anchorage, no solid ground of confidence, only hopeless speculation, torturing doubt, wild and baseless theory.  That’s all human philosophy in any age or of any nation has to offer an earnest seeker of truth.

     How then are we to know God?  If such a stupendous result hangs on this knowledge; if to know God is life eternal, and Jesus says it is (John 17:3), then how is He to be known?  “No man hath seen God at anytime.  The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (John 1:18).  Here we have the answer.

     Christ reveals God to the soul and reveals the Father to the heart.  We are not sent to creation to learn who God is, though we see His power, wisdom and goodness there.  We are not sent to the law, though we see His holiness and justice there.  No, if we want to know Whom and What God is, we are to look into the face of Jesus Christ, Who dwelt in His bosom before all worlds, Who was His eternal delight, the object of His affections (II Corinthians 4:6)                                                                    Scott Richardson

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"For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness." (1 Cor 1:22, 23)

   The mystery of the cross can be received only by faith. To the Jews it was a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called,

both Jews and Greeks, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. When, then, we can believe that the Son of God took part of our flesh and blood out of love and compassion for our souls; that there being no other way which even heaven itself could devise, no other means that the wisdom of God could contrive whereby sinners could be saved, but by the death of the cross, then the mystery shines forth with unspeakable lustre and glory. The shame, the ignominy, what the Apostle calls the "weakness" and "foolishness" of the cross disappear, swallowed up in a flood of surpassing grace; and faith views it as a glorious scheme of God's own devising, and of the Son of God's approving and accomplishing. Viewed in this light how glorious it appears, that by suffering in our nature all the penalties of our sin, Jesus should redeem us from the lowest hell and raise us up to the highest heaven. How full of unspeakable wisdom was that plan whereby he united God and man by himself becoming God-man; empowering poor worms of earth to soar above the skies and live for ever in the presence of him who is a consuming fire. How glorious is that scheme whereby reconciling aliens and enemies unto his heavenly Father, he summons them, when death cuts their mortal thread, to mount up into an eternity of bliss, there to view face to face the great and glorious I AM; to be for ever enwrapped in the blaze of Deity, and ever folded in the arms of a Triune God. It is this blessed end, this reward of the Redeemer's sufferings, bloodshedding and death, which lifts our view beyond the depths of the fall and the misery of sin, as we see and feel it in this miserable world. It is this view by faith of the glory which shall be revealed which enables us to see what wisdom and mercy were in the heart of God when he permitted the Adam fall to take place. It is as if we could see the glory of God breaking forth through it in all the splendour of atoning blood and dying love, securing to guilty man the joys of salvation, and bringing to God an eternal revenue of praise.                           JC Philpot

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(THAT IS, IN MY FLESH)

Romans 7: 18: For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing:…

    Why did the apostle Paul make the distinction so that we would be sure to know he was talking about his flesh when he said in my flesh, dwelled no good thing?  The flesh is the old man, the sin-nature, we received from Adam.    But in addition to the flesh, a believer has a new man, a new nature, which we received from Christ. So the believer’s fleshly nature is of Adam while our new spiritual nature is of Christ.

   In regards to righteousness, the old man was created in unrighteousness by Adam’s disobedience in the garden; the new man was created in righteousness by Christ’s obedience unto the death of the cross. In regards to holiness, the old man was created unholy when born of Adam by corrupt seed in nature generation; the new man was created holy when born of Christ by the incorruptible Seed in supernatural regeneration. (Eph 4: 22, 24; Col 3: 9-10; 1 Pet 1: 23-25)

    This is why the apostle Paul was careful to make a distinction between his old man of flesh and his new man of spirit. He would not dare say there was anything good in his old man while he would not dare charge God with creating anything less in the new.

    Understand, this distinction is not to encourage men to look to the new man within us, we look only to Christ. But it is to make certain we do not deny the glory of God who created a new man in the righteousness and holiness of Christ within these old bodies of fleshly death. Without God creating within us a new nature, we would never know that a believer has two natures.

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Genesis 35: 1: And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.