December 30, 2012
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
Order of service, announcements, nursery schedule, etc., are in attachment. All articles in the bulletin are by the pastor unless otherwise noted.
*******
To speak what I do NOT believe is hypocrisy. NOT to speak what I do believe is cowardly. To speak what I believe only when and where I know it will be received is deceit.
Henry Mahan
*******
GOD SPARED NOT ANGELS
2 Peter 2: 1-4
“If God spared not the angels that sinned,” he will not spare any man who sins, though they appear as angels of light. God will “cast them down to hell.” What a solemn subject for every teacher in every capacity: husbands before our households, parents before our children, believers before our neighbors, and especially teachers in the church. Above all things it is preeminently important to abide in the truth of God.
The Angels that Sinned
In heaven, a host of heavenly angels followed that chief one we now know as the devil in sinning against God. They were created good, holy, with God in heaven. But these angels rebelled against God. What was the sin in heaven that caused this? The Lord said, “He abode not in the truth.” (Jn 8: 44-45)
God in heaven made known the truth of the Gospel to the angels: the truth that God would save chosen sinners by the work of God the Son taking the nature of man. They heard the truth that Christ Jesus, the Son of God, would glorify God, declaring him just and the Justifier, and that Christ Jesus would redeem each one for whom he died, and that Christ would be exalted head over all angels and men a glorified Man. (Hebrews 1: 4-9, 13-14; 2: 5-8)
Satan and the fallen angels did not abide in the Truth. Pride would not let them bow to Christ Jesus knowing he would be exalted above them in our human nature. Satan led these angels in rebellion against God. So God spared not the angels that sinned. He cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment.
The Holy Spirit draws a parallel between false teachers and those who follow them with these fallen angels. False teachers are teaching the same pride for which Satan and the fallen angels were cast out of hell. The damnable heresies of men exalt men rather than God. That is why the doctrines of men are called the doctrines of devils. The devils doctrine is, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” (Lk 19: 14) “When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (Jn 8: 44) Like as the fallen angels were cast down to hell, delivered unto chains of darkness, reserved unto the day of judgment, so false teachers and those who follow them are cast down. All men that have heard the truth, even professed to believe on Christ, and afterwards deny Christ Jesus are represented in the same desperate case. (Heb 6: 6; 10: 26-29) What a solemn warning, brethren!
Comfort for Believers
Let him that glories glory in the Lord. We owe all to his grace. God chose us in Christ before he made the world. We are separated only because God separated us by his electing grace. If God did not choose us, since we are conceived in sin, we surely would not have chosen God. (Ps 51:5) By that very Truth that the fallen angels despise, we who abide in Christ have union with God in Christ which angels never had. (Heb 2: 16) Christ came and fulfilled the righteousness of the law on our behalf, put away our sin, justified us and made atonement for us by his death.
We do not want our will to be free from God’s keep hand. We see what angels did when God left them to their will. We saw what Adam did left to his will, both in a perfect state and a perfect environment. Shall we who are sinners be thought to do anything less if left to ourselves? (Rom 8: 5-9; 1 Cor 2: 14) Brethren, by the grace of God we are, and we want to be, continually, inseparably united with Christ by his blessed Spirit. We want our will to be inseparably united in subjection to God’s will and kept in subjection to him by the Spirit of God. God does so by his power! Thy people—chosen, elect and precious to God—Thy people shall be made—made righteous in Christ our Righteousness, born anew of the Spirit of God—Thy people shall be made willing—willing to submit to Christ in his Preeminence over all, willing to ever look to him for grace to help in time of need-- Thy people shall be made willing in the day of thy power—thank God for saving us by his power! (Ps 110: 3)
Our gracious Father made a covenant of grace with us ordered in all things and sure—by the blood of Christ Jesus. And he keeps us by his Word of truth. (1 Jn 3: 9) We are made “members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones;” but our confidence is not in ourselves it is in God’s grace i God’s Son. It is only by God’s unchanging grace and power that we are kept in the day of temptation, “the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations.”
The Conclusion of the Matter
My brethren, ever depend upon the grace of our God to keep us from falling. A sinner saved by grace never arrives at some lofty position so that we can stand without God’s keeping hand of grace. That goes for each of us. We must have the truth of the gospel. Put no confidence in our flesh: in ability, or office, or learning or service or experience. (1 Cor 10: 12) These were angels in heaven dwelling in that Light which no man can approach unto, now they are in chains of darkness. Let men cry up free will, let men promise liberty, it is nothing but the bondage of Satan and darkness. This is our cry, “Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.” (Ps 27: 9)
The God of all grace promises for the sake of Christ Jesus our Righteousness that he shall keep the weakest of his children. Christ shall have the preeminence. If we even begin to think otherwise we are already entangled. Let us therefore ever follow Christ. (Heb 12: 15-16).
“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen!” (Jude 24-25)
******
Faith is not believing that God will do what I want Him to do or what I think I need Him to do. Faith is believing that God will do what He said he would do. Faith in Christ is an abandonment of our own thoughts and ways, and a complete, unreserved trusting of Him as our Righteousness, Sin-offering and Sovereign. Chris Cunningham