WELCOME TO RESCUE BAPTIST CHURCH
Sunday Morning, August 16, 2015
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SCHEDULED MEETINGS
Sunday Morning Bible Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10:00 AM
Sunday Morning Worship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11:00 AM
Sunday Evening Worship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6:30 PM
Friday Night Bible Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7:30 PM
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OPENING HYMN
“Come, Thou Almighty King” Page 267
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SCRIPTURE READING
Psalm 109
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OFFERTORY
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WORSHIP HYMN
“Beneath The Cross Of Jesus” Page 183
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SPECIAL MUSIC
To be announced.
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Message Title
“Covenant Mercies For God‘s Israel”
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CLOSING HYMN
“He Hideth My Soul” Page 496
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The New Covenant
The new covenant (Heb. 8:8) of this Gospel age is the covenant of grace promised back in Jer. 31. Finding fault with the people, the priests, the sacrifices, and the ceremonies of the old covenant of the law, the Lord God said, “Behold, the days come, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” This is a direct quotation from Jer. 31:31-34. This prophetic passage is referred to again in precisely the same way in Heb. 10:15-17.
This covenant of grace is not called “a new covenant” because it is newly made, or of a new origin. We know that because this covenant is elsewhere called “the everlasting covenant”. It is a covenant made with Christ our covenant Surety before the foundation of the world (Heb. 13:20; Rev. 13:8).
It is called a new covenant because it is newly revealed in this Gospel age. -- That which is revealed second was made first. It is called a new covenant, because it is always new and fresh. -- It will never grow old, or give place to another. It is called a new covenant, because it gives the believer a new record, a new heart, a new nature, and a new spirit. Indeed, for those who are in Christ, those who are partakers of this new covenant, all things are new (2Cor. 5:17).
Covenant of Grace
This new, everlasting covenant is a covenant of pure, free, immutable grace in Christ. This is the covenant which gave David hope and confidence on his death bed (2Sam. 23:5). This new, everlasting covenant is immutable and sure, its blessings are all infallibly secured to God’s elect, because this is a one-way covenant. It was made between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit before the worlds were made. In that sense it is a bilateral covenant. However, in so far as we are concerned, it is a unilateral covenant. Its blessings are secured by the will of God alone.
This is what the Lord God declared from old eternity that he would do for all his people in this Gospel day by his free, sovereign, saving grace in Christ: --“I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people…I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. 8:9-12). Rejoice!
Pastor Don Fortner
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“For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. (8) For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Hebrews 8:7 - 8).
“In order to have a clear apprehension of what is here said, it will be necessary to attend to the words of scripture, simply as they are. When the Holy Ghost speaks, as in this place, of a first covenant, and a second; and of a new covenant, and an old; the Reader must not suppose is meant, that the one differed from the other in substance, or that any change had taken place in the mind of God. Not so. There hath been from everlasting in reality but one and the same covenant, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the sole covenant of the people. Neither can his Gospel be called a new revelation, differing from the Old Testament in sum and substance, for the Gospel was preached to Abraham (Gal.3:8). I have shown this, I hope, very clearly, in the Preface to this Poor Man’s Commentary. But the meaning of this most beautiful passage (which is taken from the prophecy of Jeremiah, Jer. 31:31-34), is the spiritual illustration of God’s covenant in Christ, in which the several agencies of each glorious person of the Godhead, are blessedly shown in the Father’s electing, pardoning, justifying, accepting love; God the Son’s betrothing, redeeming grace; and God the Spirit’s quickening, sanctifying, sealing mercy. And the blessed effects arising from the whole are also here displayed, in the spiritual knowledge which the whole Church of God in Christ shall derive from the latter-day dispensation. So much of divine light, and divine knowledge, shall be diffused by the openly tabernacling of the Son of God in our nature, that from the highest to the lowest, and from the least to the greatest, all the children shall know the Lord; and that not in an hearsay or speculative apprehension of God, but a personal, spiritual, soul-enjoyment of Him. God shall be known in his threefold character of Person, in the Father’s love, the Son’s grace, and the Spirit’s fellowship, and in such a blessed way and manner, as shall refresh the whole Church, and raise up a revenue of glory to the Lord (Isa. 54:13; John14:23 - 27).”
--Robert Hawker
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
During our worship service this evening, we will come to The Lord’s Table (DV).
***** Cleaning duty this week: John and Kathy Reeves ******
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SUGGESTED BIBLE READINGS FOR THIS WEEK
Monday Wednesday Friday
Genesis 28 Psalm 22 Matthew 25
Genesis 29 Psalm 23 Matthew 26
Genesis 30 Psalm 24 Matthew 27
Acts 22 Acts 23 Acts 24
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
“We believe in election, in effectual redemption, and in God’s eternal covenant of grace. Now those are strange, uncouth words to some people’s ears. We have friends and neighbors who have never heard it; and if their pastors were asked why they never preach God’s covenant of grace, they most likely will reply, ‘Covenant? That is a Scotch Presbyterian thing, is it not? Something to do with Calvin and the Puritans and men of that persuasion? They are all dead now; there are possibly a few left; like fossils of the old times, they cling to an obsolete form of religion, and soon they shall all be quite extinct.’ SO THEY SAY, but we shall see; and meanwhile WE POOR FOSSILS DO BELIEVE GOD! We believe His word! We believe His sovereign, electing grace, His perfect righteousness, His blood atonement! And we believe with David who said, ‘He hath made with me an EVERLASTING COVENANT, ordered in all things, and sure: for THIS IS ALL MY SALVATION and all my desire’ (2 Samuel 23:5).”
--C. H. Spurgeon
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“The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant” --Hebrews 13:20--
If the Covenant of God’s Sovereign Grace is an Everlasting Covenant (Heb. 13:20), that covenant was established before the foundation of the world. A covenant is an agreement, a contract if you will, between two or more persons. Well, if God’s Covenant was established in old eternity, who are the two or more persons who were in agreement? Angels and finite human beings had absolutely nothing to do with the Everlasting Covenant. They had not yet come into existence. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit established the Eternal Covenant of Grace, and all three Divine Persons were in PERFECT AGREEMENT! God the Father promised a particular people to His Son, those He had chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:3 - 4). God the Son agreed to come to this world, to be made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem His chosen people from the curse of the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Gal. 4:4 - 5; Heb. 9:12). In that Glorious Eternal Covenant of Grace, God the Holy Spirit agreed to bring His chosen, blood-bought children under the preaching of His Gospel, and quicken, give life, to His covenant people (Eph. 2:1; Heb. 8:10).
Brethren, God’s Eternal Covenant of Grace was ratified (confirmed, officially sanctioned) by the precious blood of Jesus Christ our Saviour, God our Father brought our Lord Jesus from the dead through “The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant”. And because He, our Lord Jesus, obtained eternal redemption for His covenant people, all for whom Jesus Christ laid down His life will experience the miracle of the new birth; will be raised from spiritual death to newness of life. Our Great Triune God is a COVENANT GOD! And His enlightened saints are HIS COVENANT PEOPLE! OH! how thankful we should be that we were included in THE EVERLASTING COVENANT OF GOD’S AMAZING GRACE.
Pastor
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“There is nothing that will make a believer look to Christ alone, cling to and rest in Christ alone, more than to realize that everything God is, that God requires and that the sinner needs in IN CHRIST (1 Cor. 1:30).
Pastor Henry Mahan
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“The Christian minister, with only one subject – Christ Crucified – if he should live as long as Methuselah, might keep on preaching Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, and he would still find that the people of God would come to hear him, and never crave for a fresh subject.
We have had an instance, in London, of one who has delivered an amusing lecture a thousand times, always to great multitudes; but then they were different persons every time. No one thought of going to hear him lecture upon the same subject a thousand times.
But the Christian minister may keep on, and on, and on with the same theme – Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus; the same cross, the same crown of thorns, the same bleeding wounds – from the first time that he enters his pulpit to the last when he lays down his charge; and the people may always say, and he can always feel, that the Gospel has the same dew of its youth upon it, and is always fresh and ever new.”
--C. H. Spurgeon
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“It was not possible with God to impute sin to the innocent Jesus, neither could he inflict punishment on him. And if Christ did not endure proper punishment, his suffering were not, nor could be, satisfactory to the law and justice of God for our sins, and it is in vain to hope for salvation through his sufferings and death.”
— John Brine
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“Either the Lord Jesus was made sin for us and our sins were transferred to him, or he did not really bear the consequences and effects of them. I mean by that, either he was made sin for us and our sins were transferred to him, or he did not bear the penalty of them.”
Pastor Don Fortner
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I can still recall the first night Lynn and I slept in our first house. We did not realize we were so close to a railroad track. I can still remember how loud that train sounded! But within a few months, it got to where I didn’t even notice it. Could that be the way some of us are toward hearing the Gospel? There is not a more dreadful state than being “Gospel hardened.”
PastorTodd Nibert
