In seeking to keep ourselves safe from the current epidemic, we will once again stay in our homes and worship with our families by listening to God’s Word preached on live-streaming. You can access this through our website at www.rofgrace.com or SermonAudio.com. If you have trouble connecting to the live-stream, we will have the messages up on on our website and on SermonAudio soon. May the Lord cause this epidemic to end soon.

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TODAY’S SERVICES – Messages by Pastor Bill Parker

BIBLE CLASS – 10:00 a.m. –

To God Be the Glory – Romans 16:19-27

MORNING WORSHIP – 11:00 a.m –

READING – Luke 23:13-38

MESSAGE – Preaching From the Cross – Luke 23:13-38

Birthdays: Ralston Sparks – Apr. 25^th

GOD MUST DEAL WITH OUR SINS

It is a fact that God who is holy and just and righteous MUST punish our sins. He will by no means clear the guilty (Ex. 34:7), and the soul that sins must surely die (Ezek. 18:4,20) because death is the just wages of sin (Rom. 6:23). If God were to fail to punish even one sin, He would as soon cease to be God. Yet, the psalmist wrote, “He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities” (Psalm 103:10). Notice this verse does not say, “God hath not dealt with our sins.” It says, “God hath not dealt WITH US after our sins.” Children of God, God most certainly has dealt with our sins. He dealt with our sins in strict justice when He dealt with them as they were imputed (charged, accounted, credited) to Christ and as He punished His beloved Son for all our sins at one time on Calvary. God must deal with sin either in the sinner or in the one and only substitute and surety for sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ had to die for the sins of His people. Sinner, without Christ God will have to deal with you after your sins, and that means eternal damnation. But thank God that He has a people whom He sent His Son to redeem with the price of His blood. Therefore, in our salvation, God is just to justify us and bring us to glory; for He has dealt with our sins in Christ. —Pastor Bill Parker

Excerpt from Joseph Iron's sermon entitled "Justification"

"One of the most affecting displays of the gross ignorance of man under the fall, relative to God's method of saving sinners, is that, after the lapse of almost nineteen hundred years from the days of Christ on earth, there should be such multitudes professing and calling themselves Christians, who determine to reject God's only method of saving sinners, and cling to the system which can only curse and condemn them; still ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own, "refusing to submit to the righteousness of God."

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The ‘Children of the Resurrection’ Shall Live

“Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” (I Cor. 15:12-17)

Consider how Paul’s reasoning here with the Corinthians is just as relevant in our day and time. Like some of these among the Corinthians, many in our day likewise readily accept the fact that Christ truly arose from the grave while at the same time believing that many of those for whom Christ lived and died shall not be resurrected, but rather shall perish unless they presumably do something to seal the deal. If even one for whom He died and rose again fails to be resurrected into heaven’s glory, then it would have to follow that Christ must not have truly risen from the grave for (or because of) their justification (Rom. 4:25). I pray God will show men and women the illogical, God-dishonoring contradiction of believing that Christ arose while at the same time imagining that any could perish for whom He lived, died, and arose? Sadly, any who cling to such notions might accurately have attributed unto them the same indisputable conclusions that Paul related to the Corinthians – that such a faith is indeed vain (empty, useless, worthless) since apart from the full and complete satisfaction He rendered to justice which merited and demanded His resurrection, all sinners would be left in their sins. —Randy Wages

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT EXCEEDS

“For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).

The righteousness of which our Lord was speaking here is the perfection of the righteousness of the law that comes only by His obedience unto death and which God has imputed to all His people (Rom. 4:6-8; 2 Cor. 5:21). I heard a preacher state that this is not the case. He claimed that this was an imparted righteousness evidenced by a person’s sincerity and desire to keep the law. He claimed that the Pharisees were not sincere and did not desire to keep the law. The ground of this preacher’s justification before God, then, was his sincerity and desire to keep the law. This is self-righteousness and heresy.

First, the Pharisees were sincere and did desire to keep the law, but they like all of us by nature, failed miserably (Matt. 23:13-39; Luke 18:9-12; Rom. 9:31—10:3). The man who judges himself to be right with God because he is more sincere and moral than the Pharisees is boasting in his own works.

Secondly, the context of our Lord’s statement shows of what righteousness He was speaking. Just prior to this statement, the Lord spoke of the fact that HE had come to keep the law perfectly (Matt. 5:17-19). Immediately after this statement, the Lord showed the inflexible requirement of the law, which is perfection, not only in deeds and actions, but also in thought and motive (Matt. 5:21-48). This is the convicting law that judges all of us to be sinners who deserve and have earned nothing but God’s wrath and eternal death based on our most sincere efforts to obey the law of God.

Thirdly, the Gospel message is the revelation of “the righteousness of God” (Rom. 1:16-17), which is the merit of Christ’s obedience unto death as the Surety, Substitute, and Redeemer of His people. The perfection of righteousness of the law can only be found in HIM (Rom. 10:4), and the only way His righteousness can be ours is by imputation (2 Cor. 5:21).

Believer, be as sincere and as diligent as you can to follow Christ and obey His Word. But if you are honest, you will always find room to doubt your salvation. You will always wonder, “Am I sincere enough? Do I truly desire to keep God’s law?” If you look to Christ alone, you will never have any room to doubt that His righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, and that His righteousness equals the perfection of the law. So, do not look to or within yourself for a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. LOOK TO CHRIST AND TO HIM ALONE!