Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

Free Grace Media

Of Princeton, New Jersey

 

Author Various
TitleWeekly Bulletin 3-28-2021
Bible TextVarious
Date28-Mar-2021
Article Type Bulletin
 

March 28, 2021

Weekly Schedule of Services

Sunday:

10:15 AM

Bible Class

 

11:00 AM

Morning Service

Thursday:

 7:00 PM

Mid-week Service

 

Services Broadcast Live @ www.FreeGraceMedia.com/live

 

Web Address

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Weekly Meeting Location and mailing address

251 Green Lane

Ewing, NJ, 08638

Clay Curtis, pastor

Phone: 615-513-4464 | Email: clay@freegracemedia.com

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Articles in this bulletin are by the pastor unless otherwise noted.


Proverbs 16:6: By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.

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THE OFFENSE

Galatians 5:11: And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.

The offense of the gospel is Christ.  This word “offence” means stumblingblock, snare, trap. God declared Christ would be a stumblingblock and a snare to many (Is 8:14-15).  But he is only a snare to the workers of iniquity.  Iniquity is an outward obedience that does not equal the righteousness God requires.  Workers of iniquity require an outward sign.  They trust only in outward works of the law performed by men which they can see.  But God looks on the heart in which sinners break the law continually.  In addition, those God saves must die under God’s justice.  Therefore workers of iniquity stumble and are snared when they hear Christ alone is the righteousness of God who saves through faith apart from the sinners works (1 Cor 1:22-23).  Those who believe on Christ obtain the righteousness imputed freely to those who believe on Christ, though they never did one work to make themselves righteous. But those seeking righteousness by their works of iniquity stumble and perish at the gospel of Christ because they seek righteousness by their iniquity (Rom 9:30-33).  Christ is the Righteousness of God.  Believe on Christ and you shall be saved (Rom 10:9-11).

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‘Whether ye be in the faith’

Read 2 Peter 1:1-11

Paul admonishes all of us to make our calling and election sure. He says, ‘Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?’ He does not admonish us to examine one another, but he does tell us to examine ourselves. Here are three points by which I examine my own faith. I urge you to do the same.

1.   Is my faith based upon the Word of God? I know this: ‘Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God’ (Rom. 10:17). If my faith is genuine, it is born in my heart by the Word of truth. True faith arises from a proper knowledge of God, as he is revealed in Christ, in his holy and sovereign character (John 17:3). True faith arises from a proper knowledge of Christ, the incarnate God, in the glory of his efficacious, sin-atoning sacrifice as our Substitute. And true faith arises from a proper knowledge of ourselves, our guilt, our depravity and our inability. Until a man knows what the Bible says about God, about Christ and about himself, he cannot exercise saving faith.

2.   Does my faith cause me to have a well-grounded hope of a saving interest in Christ? True faith causes a man to have a good hope through grace. Trusting the merits of Christ’s righteousness and shed blood, the true believer has a confident, assured hope of eternal salvation and acceptance with God in Christ. True faith does not depend upon feelings, works or desires. True faith trusts Christ alone and enjoys peaceful hope of eternal glory in him.

3.   Does my faith produce a principle of love in my heart for Christ and his people? Faith causes a man to love Christ as he is and love the people of God as they are in Christ. This love is a self-denying, self-sacrificing commitment to Christ and his people. Any faith that lacks this love is a false faith.

–Don Fortner

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Learn from the repentant thief on the cross. Christ was made his Wisdom so he believed Christ. Christ was made his Righteousness so he was righteous. Christ was made his Sanctification so he had that holiness without which no man shall see God. Christ was made his Redemption so he entered that day into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. All of this was through the simplicity of believing on Christ. May God nail our hands and feet to the cross so the only confidence we have is Christ.

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Martin Luther said, “I never preach a sermon where I do not preach against fleshly self-righteous.  But no matter how much I preach against it, I can’t keep it down.” 

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“The fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.”  The fire I shall treat of is the temptations of Satan… “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” …I myself have been for years exercised in this way…for I have clearly appeared at such times to be the very hypocrite that God’s word has described; and at such seasons text upon text of Scripture have run in my mind…If under much bondage, “You are one of Hagar’s family, never made free by the Son of God.” If I have fallen by a besetting sin, “You are led captive by Satan at his will.” And if the same sin is slipped into again and again, then “You are a servant of corruption, an Antinomian.” If enmity has arisen under sore trials, “You hate Zion, God, and His cause.” If covetousness has worked up, “You will be in time proved to be like Ananias and Sapphira.”…Satan first tempts, then accuses, and then shoots his fiery darts…Our feeling these corruptions arise is in order that we may be well instructed…and kept sensible of our real need of Jesus Christ, in all His office characters: as a fountain to cleanse us as the end of the law for righteousness…that he may be all to us, and all in us; wisdom to fools; righteousness to condemned criminals; sanctification to the unholy; redemption to them that feel the captivity of Satan and the reigning power of their own lusts; reconciliation to enemies; light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; life to the dead; health to the sick; food to the hungry; and salvation to the lost. And not only at first, but these things are kept up…Here it is that we greatly err; for we conclude that these feelings altogether, have to do with God’s first work in convincing us of sin; and when He is pleased to deliver us, we expect after this to get more holy, and more and more righteous in ourselves.  But, alas when the old man arises, he at once contradicts this, and we find that in ourselves we are very devils. This keeps us out of confidence in our own tabernacle, and the longer we live, the worse we see and feel ourselves to be; and the viler we are in our own eyes, the more precious will Christ Jesus be every time faith is in exercise. Hence the church says in the song, “I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar,” and yet declares that Jesus Christ her Beloved was “the chiefest among ten thousand and the Altogether Lovely.”

John Rusk