t                   oPastor John and wife Kathy  
 

 
 

Preaching God's Sovereign, Electing Grace   

RESCUE BAPTIST CHURCH

April 7, 2019

Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour. I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God. Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it? 

                                                                        Isaiah 43:10-13

Message 

“Salvation Proclaimed”

A searching question and a satisfying answer

 “Our Lord had pressed upon his hearers the great truths of the gospel.  He told them plainly that he was God the eternal Son. He taught them man’s complete spiritual depravity and inability. He explained to them the fact that salvation is altogether by God’s sovereign grace. And he insisted that no man is born again except that man who is joined to Christ by a living and vital union of faith.  But those men who followed Christ only for material gain, or out of a religious curiosity, or because they had eaten the miraculously produced loaves, were offended at his doctrine.  And ‘from that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him’.

Then our Lord turned to the twelve and asked this searching question: ‘Will ye also go away?’  Now I put the question to you.  Many have gone away.  It is likely that many more will yet do so.  I fear that some who appear to be devoted today might become offended because of the gospel tomorrow and go back, go back to the world’s way.  Will you?

But this I know, those who are truly born again, those who have experienced the grace of God, been redeemed by the blood of Christ and been called to life by the Holy Spirit cannot go away. Those who truly know Christ can never leave him. We know our desperate need of him.  Therefore, God’s elect return with this satisfying answer: ‘Lord, to whom shall we go?’  Sometimes we are tempted and the world tugs hard at our hearts.  But we know that no one can satisfy our need and our heart’s desire but Christ.  Christ alone has the words of eternal life.  He is the life itself and the way to life.  We believe and are sure that Jesus of Nazareth is that Christ whom God has sent.  He is God’s anointed Prophet, Priest and King.  He is the promised Redeemer.  He is the Son of the living God.  The law cannot help us.  The world cannot satisfy us.  We must cling to Christ.  He is all.”

                                                             ~ Pastor Don Fortner

“When true followers of Jesus Christ boldly state that we are not under the Law of Moses, we’re not saying we’re without law.  Every believer is ‘Under The Law To Christ’ (1 Cor. 9:21).  When we experience the miracle of The New Birth, the love of God is put in our hearts by the power of God the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).  ‘Faith, which works by love’ motivates God’s children (Gal. 5:6).  ‘The love of Christ constraineth us’ (2 Cor. 5:14).  God’s preachers don’t have to coerce true believers to come to church, to fellowship with one another, to minister to the needs of suffering members of the Body of Christ, to support the church with their monies.  Hebrews 6:10 describes these involvements as a ‘labor of love’.  True followers of Jesus Christ will obey our Sovereign King because we love Him.  ‘...love is the fulfilling of the law’.”                             

                                                        ~ Gene Harmon

Let your thoughts of Christ be many, increasing more and more each day. He is never far from us as Paul tells us (Romans 10:6-8). The things Christ did were done many years ago, and they are long since past. “But,” says Paul, “the word of the gospel where these things are revealed and by which they are brought home to our souls is near us, even in our hearts, that is, if we are true believers and have received the word by faith.” So, the gospel exhibits Christ and all the benefits of His mediatory work to us. If, therefore, the Word is in our hearts, Christ is near us. If we at any time turn into ourselves to converse with the Word in us by meditation, we shall find Him ready to receive us into communion with Himself. By the light of the knowledge of Christ that we have by the Word, unexpected thoughts of Him will continually come to mind. But if our minds and hearts are filled with other things, how can we expect to have fellowship with Him in beholding His glory?

                                     ~ John Owen

April 14, 2019

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 

                                                  2 Corinthians 5:17 

Message 

“IN CHRIST

“And be found in him” (Philippians 3:9)

   “Two small words ‘in him’, two small words which in and of themselves are insignificant.  One is a common preposition and the other is a personal pronoun.  Yet these two words are full of grace and truth.  In these two words are found the very essence of the gospel.  Why?  Because the person the pronoun refers to is the Lord Jesus Christ, the God Man, the Savior of sinners.  And the simple preposition describes the glorious position and relationship of every believer as being in Christ.

     God ‘chose us in Him (Eph. 1:4); we are ‘justified’ in Him (1 Cor. 6:11); we are ‘the righteousness of God’ in Him (2 Cor. 5:21); in Him is ‘forgiveness of sins’

 (Eph. 1:7); in Him we are sanctified and redeemed

(1 Cor. 1:30); in Him is ‘peace with God’ (Rom. 5:10); in Him we have ‘died to sin’ (Rom. 6:2); in Him we are ‘alive to God’ (Rom. 6:11); in Him we have assurance of faith (1 John 2:5); in Him ‘the love of God is perfected’ in all those who believe (1 John 2:5); and in Him we have ‘obtained an inheritance’ of eternal riches.

     Truly the Lord Christ is everything and all those who are in Him by faith are those who receive and inherit all the great and precious promises given in Christ Jesus.”

                              Missionary Lance Hellar

 “Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the Book widens and deepens with our years.”

                                          C. H. Spurgeon

April 21, 2019

“But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,”

                                                      Galatians 1:15

Message 

“When It Pleased God” 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

It is common enough in human history to meet with periodical celebrations, anniversaries of the day of their birth or of their death, held in honor of those who have greatly distinguished themselves by their virtues, their genius, or their high services to their country or to mankind. But where except here do we read of any one in his own lifetime originating and appointing the method by which he was to be remembered, himself presiding at the first celebration of the rite and laying an injunction upon all his followers regularly to meet for its observance? Who among all those who have been the greatest ornaments of our race, the greatest benefactors of humanity, would ever have risked his reputation, his prospect of being remembered by the ages that were to come, by exhibiting such an eager and premature desire to preserve and perpetuate the remembrance of his name, his character, his deeds? They have left it to others after them to devise the means for doing so, neither vain enough, nor bold enough, nor foolish enough to be themselves the framers of those means. Who, then, is he who ventures to do what none else ever did? Who is this, who, ere he dies, by his own act and deed sets up the memorial institution by which his death is to be shown forth? Surely he must be one who knows and feels that he has claims to be remembered such as none other ever had — claims of such a kind that, in pressing them in such a way upon the notice of his followers, he has no fear whatever of what he does being attributed to any other, any lesser motive than the purest, deepest, most unselfish love! Does not Jesus Christ, in the very act of instituting in his own lifetime this memorial rite, step at once above the level of ordinary humanity, and assert for himself a position toward mankind utterly and absolutely unique?

                                    Dr. Hanna

April 28, 2019

And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

Act 5:42

Message 

“Religion or Rest”

ANNOUNCEMENTS

·       Our FELLOWSHIP DINNER is scheduled for next Sunday

·       We will come to THE LORD’S TABLE following the afternoon worship service, Lord willing

“IN THE LIGHT”

By Mike Loveless

IN THIS PHYSICAL WORLD: In this present physical world man controls most of the light switches: With a flick of his finger light floods in illuminating his surroundings, and THEREFORE THEN he sees! The light doesn’t change what was already there, but it does reveal what he could not possible see beforehand!

IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD:  But spiritually speaking we must see what we cannot naturally see due to our condition of spiritual death. We find ourselves in this world born physically, but spiritually sill-born due to Adam’s deliberate fall in the garden! When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, he died that very day spiritually, even thought he lived on physically for some nine hundred and fifty years! He plunged the whole of humanity into spiritual death and utter darkness! As the result he became spiritually ignorant of God, and the thins of God.

 In order for him to see spiritually after that event, he must be supernaturally born again! Born of the Spirit!

Only by way of that new birth can he have spiritual discernment once again! In the Lord Jesus Christ alone is LIFE!

     (John 1:4) “In him was life: and the life was the light of men.”

GOD OWNS ALL SWITCHES: In reality our Lord Jesus Christ controls all of the switches! He is Lord of both the living and the dead. The light and the darkness! All creation bows to Him. But to see Him who is LIFE we must have new spiritual life performed in us, by Him! Otherwise the truth of God is foolishness to us!

 (1 Corinthians 2:14)

God must throw on the switch of life, or we remain ignorant, death in sins and spiritual darkness! The TRUTH was always there (the Lord Jesus Christ wo is the Truth), but without life there is no discernment of HIM.

Him being the LIFE . . . . . .  who is the LIGHT OF MEN!