August 5, 2012
SOVEREIGN GRACE BAPTIST
CHURCH
LOCATION
Rocky Hill Firehouse, 2nd
Floor
150 Washington Street
Rocky Hill, New Jersey, 08553
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
What folly can be greater than to
labor for the meat that perisheth, and neglect the food of eternal life? John Bunyan
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Everything in this world is vain
without Christ. This
world is nothing more than a pretty painted coffin in which to go to Hell. It mocks your soul. It is an illusion – a mirage in a
desert. There is no joy here. Possessions are nothing more than anxiety and
worry. "Vanity of vanities,
saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." In this world there is nothing that comforts,
nothing that satisfies, nothing that makes you happy. Everything here passes away. All religion is nothing more than the makeup
that is put on a corpse. Even
repentance, if it does not lead you to Christ, must be repented of. Faith that does not look to Christ, and is
not based on His atoning sacrifice, is not the faith of God's elect.
Milton
Howard is pastor of Kitchen’s Creek Baptist Church in Ball, Louisiana.
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James 5: 3: Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a
witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped
treasure together for the last days.
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WHY DID GOD CALL US?
Isaiah
45: 3-6
Here
are three reasons God calls his child to life in Christ:
1. For you personally (v3)—that thou mayest know. Before God worked grace in your heart, the
riches of Christ were hidden unto you. What
a blessing that God would regenerate and fill us with the riches of assurance
that our salvation is accomplished by Christ!
2. For God’s elect (v. 4)—For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine
elect, I have called thee by thy name. God
has given us the riches of Christ, not to exhaust our time and energy on our
business or our estate or the cares of this world, but to be an instrument in
his hand to send forth the gospel for the elect whom God has yet to call out of
darkness, as well as for the present help of those here, and in other places, whom
he has already called.
3. For his glory (vv. 5-6)—I am the LORD, and there is none else. His own praise and honor is the reason
God called us.
Father, strengthen us so that we give
this life which you have given us, along with all these gifts and talents that you
have given us, to this most gracious privilege you have given us.
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Isaiah 45: 3: And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden
riches of secret places,…Christ’s elect children are the treasure God
has given to Christ his Son. We were
hidden in the darkness and secret places while captives in Babylon. But Christ conquered our enemies, delivered
us, and we are now the spoils of his victory.
In doing so, Christ has given himself to us. He is the Treasure that our
darkness once could not value. But now Christ is become the hidden riches in
the secret place of our new heart.
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Spiritual Blindness
It is not merely that the sinner cannot come to Christ,
but he will not come to Christ that he may have life; it is not merely
that he cannot see the truth, but that he loves darkness rather than light, and
does not want to see. Sinners are not willing to see. The natural will itself
is in bondage. It takes the divine will of God to overcome the wicked will of
man by creating life where there was no life. This blindness is more than
blindness of the natural eye. It is
blindness of heart, blindness of will, blindness of conscience, blindness of understanding,
blindness of all things spiritual. You
who are yet blind may raise your objections to my gospel but you are as
unqualified to express an opinion about something you have never seen as a
blind man is to argue with you about the color of an object.
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Judges 13: 22-23: And Manoah said unto
his wife, we shall surely die because we have seen God. But his wife said unto
him, if the Lord were pleased to kill us he would not have received a burnt
offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all
these things nor would as at this time have told us such things as these.
Here then is our threefold comfort in times of sorrow, poverty, distress or
trial! Did not the Lord receive unto His bosom that great and glorious
sacrifice of the only begotten of the Father? Has He not made manifest the
wonders of His grace through His everlasting gospel to such as us the worms of
the dust? In addition, by His word, has he not given unto us, His dear
children, such precious and complete promises by which it is impossible for God
to lie? Yes, Yes, Yes! Dear believer, whenever you doubt your going and your
coming in; remember these words from the faithful wife of Manoah and find
comfort for your soul (He abideth faithful).
Drew Dietz is pastor of Sovereign Grace
Church, Jackson, MO
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“If our prayers had less of the tail feathers of pride and more wing they would
be all the better. Verbiage is to devotion as chaff to the wheat.”
Charles Spurgeon