October 23, 2016
SOVEREIGN GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH
LOCATION
Rocky Hill Firehouse, 2nd Floor
150 Washington Street
Rocky Hill, New Jersey, 08553
Clay Curtis, pastor
Telephone: 615-513-4464
Schedule of Services
Sunday 10: 15 AM Bible Class
Sunday 11:00 AM Morning Service
Thursday 7: 30 PM Midweek Service
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NURSERY
We have a nursery equipped with a digital flat screen television broadcasting all services live, for children four and under.
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All articles by the pastor unless otherwise noted.
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FROM MOSES TO CHRIST
Here are examples from Hebrews which was written to turn men from the law of Moses to Christ and his grace.
1. Hear only the gospel of Christ (Heb 1: 1-3; 2: 1-4.)
2. Hear Christ in the gospel (Heb 3: 1-5.)
3. Guard against the heart of unbelief by resting in Christ (Heb 3: 12-14, 18-19; 4: 1, 10, 11.)
4. Go to Christ at the throne of grace for help (Heb 4: 16; 5: 1, 2; 8: 1, 2; 10: 19-22.)
5. Love your brethren—chiefly by assembling around the gospel: provoke and exhort each other; supporting the furtherance of the gospel (Heb 10: 23-25)
6. Lay aside every weight and run the race set before us looking to Christ (Heb 12: 1-7; 12-15.)
7. Let your only motive be the grace and love of God in Christ Jesus (Heb 12: 22-25.)
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THE MESSAGE
Jonah 2: 9: But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.
Salvation—from our sins, from the curse of the law, from our sin-nature, from our hourly choices, from this present evil world, from death and from hell—salvation is of the LORD. We see in Jonah an example that salvation is not only salvation from our sins and the law’s curse, salvation is also God keeping us every hour. The triune God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ is the LORD of salvation. From eternity, to our first day of experiencing it, to the last day of grace, salvation is of the LORD. This is the message by which God gives a new spirit in his child by regeneration of the Holy Spirit. It is the message by which God constrains his child to believe on Christ and love one another. It is the message God uses to make his child repent from the dead works of trying to justify and sanctify himself by his so-called law obedience and so-called evangelical works. This is the only message God gives his child a heart to hear and abide under. Jonah’s disobedience was all of his sinful flesh. But God overruled it to teach Jonah this lesson one more time. In his wisdom, God has left believers in a body of death with our sin-nature to continue to teach us that “salvation is of the LORD.”
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GOD’S COMMANDMENT
1 John 3:23: And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
By God bringing us under the new covenant of grace, the believer is under grace and not under any law given under the old covenant of works. The commandment God has given to the believer has two branches. Yet, it is one commandment: believe on God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, as Christ commanded. No sinner is without some rule. Every sinner is a servant: either of sin unto death or of obedience unto Righteousness. (Rom 6: 16-18) “Faith which worketh by love” is the rule of the believer’s life. (Gal 5: 4-7)
Believers are not trying to establish the righteousness of the ten commandments. By God’s grace and gift working in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we believe unto righteousness by resting in Christ. (Ro 10:10) To believe unto righteousness is to trust Christ to have established the whole law of God on our behalf in whom we are made the righteousness of God. Through faith in Christ we have established the law because Christ did it for us. That is what the apostle Paul meant when he said, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.” (Rom 3: 31) So then Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. (Rom 10: 1-4)
The second branch of God’s commandment to the believer is to love one another. “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” (2 Cor 5: 14) The chief purpose for obedience in this world is because Christ is using his church, his people, to call out the remainder of his lost sheep.
Believer, this is the good news that fills our heart with joy unspeakable! Holy God is eternally at peace with every believer saved by his grace! We are as righteous as God, seated with him in Christ, accepted of God in him. In Christ, not only have we fulfilled the law, we cannot be charged with breaking the law—“who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.” (Rom 8: 33-34) It is the preaching of this gospel, not law that motivates God’s saints. The more the child of God hears that we are made the righteousness of God by Christ’s love accomplishing this work for us on the cross, the more we are constrained to obey our Righteousness by resting in Christ and loving one another.
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We can be certain, a conscience made tender by the Lord will eventually be turned by God to the Word of the Lord, will look to God’s dealings with him and desire to be conformed to Christ—God will see to it! We must wait on the Lord. If God is chastening his child, God shall be able to get the message across to his child without us adding unneeded burdens. Point them to Christ!
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TRACE THE EFFECT TO ITS CAUSE
Jonah 1: 4: But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.
Child of God, in the midst of your own trouble trace the effect to its cause. The ship was almost broken because of tempest. The tempest was caused by the wind. The wind was sent from the LORD. The wind was sent because of Jonah’s rebellion.
Let me quickly say two things about the LORD’s chastening. When a child of God suffers it is not always because of rebellion. Sometimes it is; sometimes not. But it is only for me to judge if it is God’s chastening hand upon me; it is not for me to judge when I am looking upon my brethren who suffer. Job’s friends were miserable comforters.
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FAST ASLEEP
Jonah 1: 5:…Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.
Rebellion is indeed a sleeping stupor! When Jonah fell asleep he may have been thinking, “This must be the Lord’s approving providence. I wanted to go to Tarshish, there was a ship. I needed a fare, I had it. There was all this company of sailors going the very direction I wanted to go. I needed some rest, a place was provided.”
The easiest thing in the world is to use the circumstances around us to excuse our disobedience. When we seek to justify ourselves in our rebellion our deceitful hearts and the devil become the preachers of God’s sovereign providence convincing us this must be God’s will. But it is very sad when we use God’s sovereign providence to justify what is no more than our own stubborn rebellion. That is what it is to be fast asleep!
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DOWN IS UP
Jonah 2: 6: I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.
God brought Jonah down, down, down. “Yet”, in doing so Jonah said, “thou hast brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.” By bringing him down, God made Jonah’s soul to faint within him and God made his prayer come in unto God. Jonah was made to look away from himself unto Christ whose suffering made us complete. Then Jonah confessed his sin was “observing lying vanities” and “forsaking his own mercy.” Then he thanked God, “Salvation is of the LORD.” When God brings his child down, God is bringing us up by making us see we can trust in none to save but our triune God in Christ Jesus our Lord.