March 2, 2008
Sunday 10:00am WLEX TV Channel 18

Arise, my soul, my joyful powers
And triumph in thy God
Awake, my voice, and loud proclaim
His glorious grace abroad.

He raised me from the depths of sin
The gates of gasping hell
And fixed my standing more secure
Than ‘twas before I fell.

The arms of everlasting love
Beneath my soul He placed
And on the Rock of Ages set
My slippery footsteps fast.

Arise, my soul! Away my voice
And tunes of pleasure sing
Loud hallelujahs shall address
My Saviour and my King.

(Tune: “O For A Thousand Tongues” p. 46)


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We will observe the Lord’s Table this evening.


There will be a Bible Conference in Kingsport, TN March 7th – 9th. Speakers are Don Bell, Don Fortner, Henry Mahan, Paul Mahan, Todd Nibert, and Rupert Rivenbark.

Birthdays
3rd – Amy Coleman 5th – Michelle Grubb
6th – Ella Parker 8th – Clare Charron



“Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.”
- Proverb 10:12
“Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 15:16). As long as we are in the flesh, the lusts, the cravings, and the desires of fallen nature are with us. “When I would do good, evil is present with me” (Rom 7:21). Walking in the Spirit does not imply the absence of the lusts of the flesh. But walking in the Spirit does prevent them from being fulfilled. What is walking in the Spirit? Faith in Christ. Not being under law, but under grace. In looking to Christ, we will not fulfill the desires of our carnal nature. It is only by being under law that we will fulfill the lusts of the flesh. It is only the person who is not under law but under grace who is promised that “sin shall not have dominion over you” (Rom 6:14).

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Much of today’s preaching has to do with making Christ our savior. If God is pleased to save us, it will be God the Father who made Him our Saviour. It is God who made Christ to be our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (I Cor 1:30). I do not make Christ to be anything: however God the Father made Him to be everything to His people; Christ is our all in all by the power and purpose of God (Col. 3:11). – Pastor John Chapman


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God is the one Supreme and independent Being. He is the only one in all the universe who has the right and the power to do absolutely as He pleases. “He sits on no precarious throne, nor borrows leave to be.” He is the only one who has the right to act for His own glory. The sovereignty of God means that He does as He pleases, always as He pleases, and only as He pleases. – C. D. Cole


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A man who seeks and finds God will discover three things: (1) God is perfectly unchangeable, unapproachably holy. (2) That he himself is not holy but sinful, absolutely so; corrupt, guilty, vile, abominable in God’s sight. He has no righteousness before God and no standing on his own. (3) The only way God saves sinners is through the blood and righteousness of Christ. – Pastor Donnie Bell

THE NEW BIRTH
The new birth is solely the work of God the Spirit and man has no part or lot in it. This from the very nature of the case. Birth altogether excludes the idea of any effort or work on the part of the one who is born. Personally we have no more to do with our spiritual birth than we had with our natural birth. The new birth is a spiritual resurrection, a “passing from death unto life” (John 5:24) and, clearly, resurrection is altogether outside of man’s province. No corpse can reanimate itself. Hence it is written, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing” (John 6:63). But the Spirit does not “quicken” everybody – why? The usual answer returned to this question is, because everybody does not trust in Christ. It is supposed that the Holy Spirit quickens only those who believe. But this is to put the cart before the horse. Faith is not the cause of the new birth, but the consequence of it. This ought not to need arguing. Faith (in God) is an exotic, something that is not native to the human heart. If faith were a natural product of the human heart, the exercise of a principle common to nature, it would never has been written, “All men have not faith” (II Thess. 3:2). Faith is a spiritual grace, the fruit of the spiritual nature, and because the unregenerate are spiritually dead – “dead in trespasses and sin” then it follows that faith from them is impossible, for a dead man cannot believe anything. “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8) – but they could if it were possible for the flesh to believe. Compare with this last quoted scripture Hebrews 11:6 – “But without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Can God be “pleased” or satisfied with any thing which does not have its origin in Himself? - A. W. Pink (1886-1952)

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We believe, that the work of regeneration, conversion, sanctification and faith, is not an act of man’s free will and power, but of the mighty, efficacious and irresistible grace of God. -C. H. Spurgeon

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The popular gospel is a declaration of man’s rights and God’s obligations….. “I have a right to salvation if I want it, and God must give it to me if I ask for it.” The Gospel of Christ is a declaration of God’s rights and man’s helplessness to fulfill any of the obligations…. “Hath not the Potter power (authority) over the clay to make of the same lump one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?” (Romans 9:21) “There is none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10).
– Pastor Joe Terrel