t                   oPastor John and wife Kathy  
 

 
 

Preaching God's Sovereign, Electing Grace   

RESCUE BAPTIST CHURCH


WELCOME TO RESCUE BAPTIST CHURCH

27th ANNUAL SOVEREIGN GRACE

WINTER CONFERENCE

Sunday Morning, January 28, 2018

                                                                                                                                                     

OPENING HYMN

   "Revive Us Again"                                                                Page 295

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WORSHIP HYMN

  "There Is a Fountain"                                                             Page 196

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SPECIAL MUSIC

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  "Accepted In The Beloved"    -    Message by Gene Harmon  

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WORSHIP HYMN

  "My Faith Has Found a Resting Place"                                 Page 405

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WORSHIP HYMN

   "Now I Belong To Jesus"                                                      Page 511

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SPECIAL MUSIC

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Are you a Consicrated Christian Message by Pastor Don Fortner   

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CLOSING HYMN

  "His Name Is Wonderful"                                                      Page 101

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A fellowship dinner is scheduled for this afternoon following this morning’s worship service.  Please join us.

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"Accepted in the beloved"

--Ephesians 1:6--

 

  "Upon what do you rest your hope of acceptance before a holy God?  Baptism?  Church work?  A religious experience?  A moral reformation?  All these things, in themselves, are vain, empty and useless. They are worse!  Apart from the knowledge of Christ, they are a positive curse.  If you and I trust anything, in any measure, for our total acceptance before God, other than Jesus Christ, we shall surely perish! ‘ Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.’

    Our text declares that ‘He [God the Father] hath made us accepted in the beloved [God the Son].’  Here is a doctrine full of consolation to our hearts.  God Almighty has made all of his people accepted, perfectly and completely, in Christ!  It is no marvel that we should accept Christ.  But there is wonder in this, that God accepts us, sinners deserving his wrath, in Christ Jesus!  Beloved, there exists a positive and eternal union between Christ and his people.  We are one with Christ.  A rapturous thought!  Bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh!  ‘We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.’  We are one with Christ in his heart from all eternity.  Our names are written beneath his in the book of God’s eternal election.  We are in the hands of Christ, as the Surety of our redemption and eternal glory.  We are in the loins of Christ spiritually.  As in Adam we sinned and died, even so in Christ we died upon the cross and rose again!  And we are in his very person. By a living faith we are joined to the God-man.  He lives in us and we live in him!  This is the vital union of faith, enjoyed by God’s elect.  This is the beginning of heaven and eternal glory.  Being accepted in Christ, we have become the objects of God’s pleasure. As God is pleased with his Son, he is pleased with all who are in his Son.  Think of this, believing soul: God is well-pleased with you for Christ’s sake!  ‘He hath made us accepted in the Beloved’."

 

                        Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
                         More than all in Thee I find.

Pastor Don Fortner

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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).  MOREOVER, 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, God‘s Darling Son, 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.

Gene Harmon

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • A Fellowship Dinner is scheduled for this afternoon following our worship service this morning. Please join us.
  • Our worship service for this evening has been cancelled.
  • Our monthly Music & Testimony Nigh is scheduled for next Sunday evening commencing at 6:30 pm.

******* Cleaning duty this week: John and Kathy Reeves *****

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SUGGESTED BIBLE READINGS FOR THIS WEEK

Monday                           Wednesday                     Friday

Job 36                             Matthew 3                        Hebrews 6

Job 37                             Matthew 4                        Hebrews 7

Job 38                             Matthew 5                        Hebrews 8

Job 39                             Matthew 6                        Hebrews 9

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It is absolutely impossible for unregenerate men and women to please God (Jer. 13:23; Heb. 11:6; Rom. 8:7 - 8).  THEREFORE, God must begin the good work in us by giving us His Spirit, creating true saving faith in us.  When, under the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we experience the miracle of the new birth, the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us will enable us to live for the glory of Jesus Christ, the true and living God.  That’s what’s pleasing to our Heavenly Father.   

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

SALVATION IS FOR SINNERS

  "The Gospel, my dear sir, is a salvation appointed for those who are ready to perish, and is not designed to put them in a way to save themselves by their own works.  It speaks to us as condemned already, and calls upon us to believe in a crucified Saviour, that we may receive redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of our sins.  And the Spirit of God, by the Gospel, first convinces us of unbelief, sin, and misery; and then, by revealing the things of Jesus to our minds, enables us, as helpless sinners, to come to Christ, to receive Him, to behold Him, or, in other words, to believe in Him, and expect pardon, life and grace from Him; renouncing every hope and aim in which we once rested, ‘And accounting all things loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ’."

--John Newton

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  "Faith is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8)  Christ is the Author and finisher of faith (Heb. 12:2).  Hence it must follow, that what is God’s gift is not man’s merit; and therefore the glory of faith, in the exercise of his people, is wholly the Lord’s.  It may perhaps appear strange to some, when I say, that I consider faith as the act of Christ upon my soul, more than my act of dependence upon him.  Paul said, and saith with truth, that his life of faith was not his, but the Lord’s. Hear his own words.   The life (saith he) which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.  Mark the expression. Not Paul’s life of faith in the Son of God, but the faith of the Son of God (Gal. 2:20).  It is not Paul’s act upon Christ, but Christ’s act upon him.  And how is this proved?  The life of faith, like any other life, is a life of receiving, not giving.  Similar to animal life, which is wholly kept up and preserved, by receiving food, air, strength.  These things are received to live upon.  They are incomings, not out-goings. The incomings are first received, as the cause.  The out-goings are exercised as the effect.  Reader! if these things are so, how doth it reduce, and bring low the pride of all our attainments?  How forcibly come home the words of the Apostle, "For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive?" (1Cor. 4:7).

--Robert Hawker

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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 is in IN CHRIST (1 Cor. 1:30).

Pastor Henry Mahan

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  "Brethren, just as real as is the person of the true and living God, so are all his works.  Just as real as the Son of God was made flesh and dwelt among us, he who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.  Just as real as he died to the law, we died to the law.  Just as real as he was raised to the right hand of the Father, we were raised to the right hand of the Father.  Just as real as his elect are in him who is Spirit, he is in all his elect who are born of his Spirit.  Just as real as his creation of our inner man is now fit to enter into his presence, by the same glory and power he shall also raise our mortal bodies to immortality, in incorruption, into his presence.  Just as real as he made the first heaven and the first earth, he shall make all things new in righteousness where nothing that defiles shall enter in.  Just as real as we have been his since before time began, he is now ours for eternity.  Our God is real and so is our salvation."

Pastor Clay Curtis

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Religion And Eternal Life  -  The Difference

--Romans 8:38 - 39--

 

  "Religion is to know biblical facts; life is to know God 1 John 5:20).   Religion is to know what I believe; life is to know Whom I believe (2 Timothy 1:12)Religion is to be baptized into the church; life is to be baptized into Christ (Romans 6:3). Religion is to be reformed, life is to be regenerated (John 3:3)Religion is to be a new convert; life is to be a new creature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

    A man was asked, ‘And what is your religious persuasion?’  He replied, ‘I am persuaded that nothing can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 8:38 -  39)."

Pastor Henry Mahan

     

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  "If God, by His Divine Power, has given us ‘.. all things that pertain unto life and godliness’ (2 Peter 1:3), can there be anything lacking?  And, if God is the One who has given us all things, is there any room for boasting on our part?  In addition, if ‘.. all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose’ (Rom. 8:28), could there be anything that is not under God’s sovereign control?  Moreover, if God has highly exalted His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and has ‘.. given all things into his hand’ (John 3:35), and has put ‘.. all things under his feet’ (Eph. 1:22), it is Jesus Christ Himself who is the Sovereign Ruler over this whole universe and everything in it.  It is Jesus Christ, the God-man, Who upholds ‘.. all things by the word of his power’ (Heb. 1:3).  Knowing this, knowing that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, knowing that nothing happens apart from His permissive will, knowing that Jesus Christ our Savior is working all things for our good, and for His glory, shouldn’t we, as His blood-bought children, ‘Do all things without murmurings and disputings’? (Phil. 2:14)."

Gene Harmon

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  "In Heaven, believers will be able to do perfectly that which Paul determined to do on this earth.  Know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

Pastor Chris Cunningham