May 23, 2010
Sundays 7:00 am Channel 27 WKYT
It is requested that all children under the age of five stay in our nursery
so there will be no distractions during the preaching of the Gospel.

HYMN OF THE DAY
Prepare me, gracious God
To stand before Thy face
Thy Spirit must the work perform
For it is all of grace.

In Christ’s obedience clothe
And wash me in His blood
So shall I lift my head with joy
Among the sons of God.

Do Thou my sins remove
Thy sovereign love make known
The spirit of my mind renew
And save me in Thy Son.

Let me attest Thy power
Let me Thy goodness move
Till my full soul can hold no more
Of everlasting love.

(Tune: “I Love Thy Kingdom Lord” p. 188)

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I am in Mexico visiting with the Groovers this week and will return home Saturday evening. Bob Coffey will bring the message this morning and Andy Davis will speak tonight. Don Fortner will preach for us on Wednesday evening.

Birthday
27th – Thomas Kincer 28th – David Walmsley 28th – Stephen Walmsley


“A wise son heareth his father’s instruction: but a scorner heareth nor rebuke.” - Proverbs 13:1



WHAT IS PREACHING?
If I claim to be a preacher, I better have some understanding of what true preaching is. In Acts 28:23, we are given a definition of true preaching. “And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging: to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets.” We see the source of the content of true preaching - the Scriptures. If it is not a message from the Word of God, it is a worthless message. Three words are used to describe Paul’s preaching and any preaching that does not have these three elements involved is not true preaching. (1) Expounding: Setting forth the meaning of the Scripture. (2) Testifying: Bearing witness to what we have seen and experienced. (3) Persuading: Paul sought to persuade men to believe the message he was expounding and testifying of. And it was always a message concerning Jesus. There is a type of preaching where only one or two of these elements are taking place. But that kind of preaching is not preaching that God will use.
Preaching is expounding, testifying, and persuading concerning Jesus from the Scriptures. If it is not that, whatever else it may be, it is not true preaching.

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Not saved are we by trying
From self can come no aid
‘Tis on the blood relying
Once for our ransom paid
‘Tis looking unto Jesus
The Holy One and Just
‘Tis His great work that saves us
It is not ‘try’ but ‘trust’!

No deeds of ours are needed
To make Christ’s merit more
No frames of mind or feelings
Can add to His great store
‘Tis simply to receive Him
The Holy One and Just
‘Tis only to believe Him –
It is not ‘try’ but ‘trust’!

“And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.” (Isaiah 59:16)
Salvation is God reaching down to us, not the other way around. Salvation is not us reaching to God or aspiring after God, but is God reaching down to us, pure and simple. Salvation is the work of the arm of the Lord, not the arm of man. There is no greater point of the Gospel than this; nothing that more clearly distinguishes the religion of God from the religion of man. Beginning with Cain’s sacrifice and on through the Tower of Babel, the self-righteousness of the Pharisees, and the legalism of Galatia’s church, man has shown his unwillingness to acknowledge his utter inability to help himself and trust his soul’s case to the work of God alone.
And this wicked principle is by no means dead in the thoughts of believers. This is why we always preach the simple Gospel to believers as well as unbelievers. Those of us who have been saved by the long and strong arm of the Lord still struggle with the flesh and its prideful insistence on the ability to do some good thing God can accept. But, according to the word of Paul, we come in this world with nothing good in us, and we remain that way. There is nothing that has arisen in the heart of a man or woman that God can accept or find pleasure in. The only good thing that God has ever found in a man is that which God, Himself, put there. Does a man have faith? It is the gift of God. Does a man love God? That love was born of God’s love for him. As one song writer put it, “The only good thing in me is Him.” - Pastor Joe Terrell



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God’s sovereignty lies at the foundation of all things, yet in His dealings with men – His own people not excepted – He always treats them as moral agents, enforces their accountability, and causes them to reap as they have sown, whether it was evil or good seed. – A. W. Pink