Sovereign Grace Missionary Baptist Church
1217 Dillon Texarkana, Texas 75501
February 15, 2009 
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 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 Hoskins and his daughters Liz Janis and Debbie Gray, Frank & Dawana Reigel, Andrew Preston, Helen Maggard, Renee Jackson, Larry & Linda Mollette, Larry Mollette II & Family, Kirby Mollette, Shawn, Bridget, and Destiny Bradford, Kerry Pennington, Kim Butler, Danny & Nita Mollette, Verna Mae Allen, Wendell Henderson, Judy Dunn her father Elmer Harvey, Joshua Kidd, Matthew Kidd, Donnie Henderson, Kevin Henderson, Ricky Henderson, Rosalie Graves, Terry Hanson, Jim Stagner, Bro. & Mrs. Hammond, Don Hammond, Archie & Barbara Griffin & son Daniel, Larry Platt, Edna Garvin, Bro. & Sister Bob Keller, Wanda Fowler, Kathy Rosinbaum, Brenda Galusha, Mary Ramsey, Donna Johnson, Fay Johnson, Bobby Walker, Luann Reynolds, Bro. & Sis. Curtis Pugh and his brother Billy Jack Cooper and family, Abigail Cattemull, Timothy Fails, Jim & Linda Meier, Brother David & Sister Anne Shortt, Brother Manuel Seymour, Zach Seymour, Doris Hammock, Letha Langford, Leacho Tittle, Bro. David Green and Family , Pastor Kelley and Sister Eyvonne Hinson, Anita Marsh, Brother Frank and Sister Cyd James, Charles Boyd Jr., Gerrod Wilson , Pastor and Sister David O’Neal, Billy and Jo Hobbs, Michael Hiem, Jerry Hughes, Nita Bookout’s Niece, Kim McCool’s Mother and Father, and Bro. Sergey Mochalov and the Churches in Russia.
Thought For The Week:

Conformity to the world

"Be not conformed to this world." Romans 12:2


The leading desires of every person under the influence of Gospel principles, will be, to maintain an habitual communion with God in his own soul, and to manifest the power of his grace in the sight of men. So far as a Christian is infected by a conformity to the spirit, maxims, and sinful customs of the world, these desires will be disappointed. Fire and water are not more opposite, than that peace of God which passes all understanding, and that poor precarious pleasure which is sought in a compliance with the world; a pleasure (if worthy the name) which grieves the Spirit of God, and stultifies the heart. Whoever, after having tasted that the Lord is gracious, has been prevailed on to make the experiment, and to mingle with the world's vanities, has certainly thereby brought a damp upon his experience, and indisposed himself for the exercise of prayer, and the contemplation of Divine truths. And if any are not sensible of a difference in this respect, it is because the poison has taken a still deeper effect, so as to benumb their spiritual senses. Conformity to the world is the bane of many professors in this day. They have found a way, as they think, to serve both God and Mammon. But because they are double-minded, they are unstable; they make no progress; and, notwithstanding their frequent attendance upon ordinances, they are lean from day to day; a form of godliness, a scheme of orthodox notions, they may attain to, but they will remain destitute of the life, power, and comfort of piety, so long as they cleave to those things which are incompatible with it.

Conformity to the world is equally an obstruction in the way of those who profess a desire of glorifying God in the sight of men. Such professors do rather dishonor him. By their conduct, as far as in them lies, they declare, that they do not find the religion of the Gospel answer their expectations; that it does not afford them the satisfaction they once hoped for from it; and that therefore they are forced to seek relief from the world. They grieve the people of God by their compliances, and oftentimes they mislead the weak, and by their examples encourage them to venture upon the like liberties, which otherwise they dared not have attempted. They embolden the wicked likewise in their evil ways, while they see a manifest inconsistency between their avowed principles and their practice; and thus they cause the ways of truth to be evil spoken of. The length of this paper constrains me to conclude abruptly. May the Lord enable you and I to lay this subject to heart, and to pray that we may, on the one hand, rightly understand and prize our Christian liberty; and, on the other hand, be preserved from that growing evil—a sinful conformity to the world!

From John Newton's Letters "Conformity to the world"
A Thought From Our Pastor:

Keep yourselves in the love of God
"Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."
Jude 1:21

Beloved of God how often shall we that are loved of God, bow to praise the very God that loves us with an everlasting love, that before the foundation of the world He elected a remnant from this sinful and evil world to be His very own sons. The writer here (Jude) reminds us all of the love and the great mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, not just for salvation but also for the glorious meeting we will all have with Him either at death of at His second coming. The writer is not saying we can change the love of God by any means but rather that we can loose favor with God by falling out of His blessed will. I spoke last week of Israel and how they fell out of favor with God and God has now removed His Prophets and the Ministers of His word and they as a Nation are still "wondering in the wilderness" so to speak, but He still loves them as a Nation and one day (in the Tribulation period) He will bless a remnant of them with salvation.

Beloved, we (Gentile believers) are not Israelites nor are we thought of in the same way. God loves the Nation of Israel as a Nation only and not every single person, but with the Gentile’s He loves ever single believer and will save all of the elect Gentiles. However every elected member that has been or will ever be saved in the nation of Israel has been personally elected by God the same as we Gentiles are. God has an eternal love which means Israel did nothing to cause God to love them as a "son" just as we Gentiles never did anything to cause God to love us as His chosen people; His love came as a show of His Mercy and Grace totally on His part. 1 Peter 1:2 "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied."

The writer here is not telling us by any means to earn God’s love but rather to keep ourselves in His love by doing His blessed will, which Israel refused and still refuses to do. If we "Keep yourselves in the love of God" by following His blessed will and march as Christian warriors into battle with a world controlled by Satan, then we will be hated and not loved by it and will have an urgent need to draw closer and closer to the great God and Saviour that loves us. We (as believers) can either draw closer to God and each other as believers or some give in to Satan’s baited traps and fall away and become enemies of each other therefore some not keeping themselves in God’s love. Beloved walking in holiness is an effort on the part of every single believer and in doing so means we are walking in the love of God and that we are being blessed daily by Him. It is when we allow ourselves to be subjected by Satan’s baited traps that we fall out of God’s love, not His love of election, nor His love of the cross, nothing can ever change that, but of His love of blessings. The one single thing we as believers can learn from Israel is when we pull away from God’s permissive will He will pull away from us. Just as God stopped sending Prophets and Ministers to Israel He will remove a candle stick from a church or exclude a church from His Bride, so to speak.

Beloved unlike what Israel done lets keep ourselves close to God’s love by walking in His blessed will and not allow Satan to bait us into ignorance. We did nothing to earn God’s love just as we can do nothing to separate ourselves from it because His love is eternal, however we can cause God to get angry at us and cause Him to bring disappointment in our lives by not walking in His will. Beloved let’s all keep ourselves in the love of God and keep "looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."
Happy Birthday:

Dawana Reigel February 15th