Sovereign Grace Missionary Baptist Church
1217 Dillon Texarkana, Texas 75501
January 16, 2011
Newsletter Number 303

Elder Randy Johnson, Pastor Bro. Ronnie Henderson, Song Director
Pastor E-Mail: sgmbcpastor@baptistsonline.org Web Site: www.baptistsonline.org/sgmbc

"Where The Truths Of God’s Word Are Still Taught"

You Were Asked To Pray For:

All of Our Military, Their Family’s & All the Civilian Workers in The Middle East, Zee Mink Fuller and Family, Her son’s Bryan Armstrong and Hunter Hackie, Daughter Shannon, and Brother Philip & Sondra Thornsberry, Virgil & Alice Hoskins, Grandchildren, and his daughters Liz Janis and Debbie Gray, Derrick & Alecia and sons Coty & Carson Clements, Frank Trusty, Bryndon Thomas, Frank & Dawana Reigel, Andrew Preston, Helen Maggard, Renee Jackson, Larry Mollette, Larry Mollette II & Family, Kirby Mollette, Kerry Pennington, Kim Butler, Danny & Nita Mollette, Verna Mae Allen, Wendell Henderson, Judy Dunn, Martha Gray, Joshua Kidd, Matthew Kidd, Kevin Henderson, Ronnie Henderson Jr. & Daughter Ashley, Lilly Stansord, Vickie Sims, Debbie Farmer, Terry Farmer, Morgan Murchison, Jim Stagner, Bro. & Mrs. Hammond, Don & Neil Hammond, Charles Hammond, Eric Hammond, Archie & Barbara Griffin & son Daniel, Bro. & Sister Bob Keller, Kathy Rosinbaum, Brenda Galusha and Jewel, Mary Ramsey, Donna Johnson, Fay Johnson, Luann Reynolds, Bro. & Sis. Curtis Pugh, Timothy and Nathan Fails, Jacob Ramsey, Jim & Linda Meier, Brother David & Sister Anne Shortt, Brother Manuel Seymour & Family, Letha Langford, Brother & Sister Kelley Hinson and Kelley Lee, Billy and Jo Hobbs, Jerry Hughes, Sister Nita Bookout, Roger Bookout, Pastor G. L. Burr, Melody Carr, Janie Capps, Gina Sullivan, Katie Norton, Imajo Tracy, Sister Jean Dodson and Family, Linda Hughes, Roy Lemmon, Marshall Risinger, Jeremiah Kelleher, Jack Johnson, and Bro. Sergey Mochalov and the Churches in Russia.

The Pastors Corner:

God’s Greatness Is Unimaginable!
“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (34.) For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? (35.) Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? (36) For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” Romans 11:33 – 36

The Psalmist said “Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.” Psalms 40:5 Both Paul and the Psalmist remind us just how great and wonderful Jehovah God truly is to us-ward. Paul said “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God…” The two words “depth of the riches” describes to us just how deep and wide the wisdom and knowledge of God truly are. So many today belittle God, every time they preach they belittle God. The most asinine statement I have personally heard is “God can’t change your will, only you can do it”. But the scriptures describe salvation different, the scriptures declare that it is man who cannot change his own will, and God must change it. Paul declared in 2 Corinthians 4:4 “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” If Satan has the lost blinded then it is Satan that must be defeated and over powered in order that the blinders are removed. We cannot remove the blinders and defeat Satan on our own; therefore there must be a greater power to save the lost. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:6 “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” The word “commanded” means - to speak or grant – meaning it is God who commanded that the blinders of Satan be removed. It reminds us of creation, God said let there be light and there was light. There was no light without God commanding it just as there is no salvation unless God gives it. Even though people believe they have power over themselves, but in reality man has no power over himself, and therefore he cannot and will not choose good over evil. Jesus said in John 3:19 “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Men love darkness more than good because it is who they are, and a dog cannot change himself into a cat. Only God can change a dog into a cat and only God can change a man that loves evil to love good.

This is why the greatness of God is unimaginable, because God saves sinners. The eleventh chapter of Romans deals with the return of Israel to where God wanted them in the first place, carrying the word of God. This is the reason Paul was so enthused in our text scripture, God has promised the return of his beloved Israel, and God was going to bring it about. Israel will never return on their own, but God can and will return them to His work. Words cannot be uttered to describe the greatness of God, because it is beyond measure. This is why people when attempting to figure out how God accomplished a miracle they cannot, because it is beyond our understanding in the flesh. “…his ways past finding out!” The only thing we know and understand is “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” Everything is to His glory, everything should praise Him in the end. If something praises us it was done in vain. Man must understand, it simple is not about us but rather all about God. It is “of Him, through Him, and to Him” and what you will hear in most pulpits today simply do not meet these standards. God is sovereign and those that believe in a sovereign God give all glory to God for all things, not simply in words but in action. And beloved, this is why, The Greatness Is Unimaginable!

A Thought For The Week:

You Cannot Participate In Both Worlds
“Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?” (I Cor. 10:21-22)

This is one of the great misunderstandings man has concerning God’s relationship with mankind. Man has this tendency to believe that God thinks like man does. God said: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is. 55:9) God’s ways and thoughts are far higher, that is, more spiritually centered than man’s ways and thoughts. Man cannot act or think on the same high, holy, and eternal level that God does; and God cannot lower Himself to wretchedly unholy distorted assumptions of the tiny minds of men.
Unlearned men in spiritual matters assume they can forcibly associate themselves with the holy substances of God and the putrefying quagmires of Satan’s deceptions whenever they so choose. Our text rejects such abominations. God is sovereign in all of His ways, and He will not be forced into fellowships or actions at the fancies and sacraments devised by evil conceptions.
The text of “ye cannot” is not describing the physical inability to touch symbolic elements. For example, one may be immersed in water and call it scriptural baptism, but if that individual has not been born out of the Spirit through the blood of Christ by godly faith, he merely just got wet by the water. On the other hand, one who truly believes in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is plunged figuratively and spiritually into the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The believing one fellowships spiritually in the whole of what Christ did, is doing, and will do. He becomes a partaker in the things of his Lord and Saviour. Now, did the unbeliever touch the very elements of water? Why of course, but he partook of nothing of Christ for he was still in unbelief. God will not permit it.
One may physically touch the elements of the Lord’s table, but if he is still unregenerate, God will not permit him spiritually to partake or to fellowship in the sacrificial body and blood of Christ. “Ye cannot” means God will not permit anyone to partake jointly in the spiritual and the ungodly. God demands holy separation!

By Dr. M. J. Seymour, Sr.