Sovereign Grace Missionary Baptist Church
1217 Dillon Dr. (Wake Village) Texarkana, Texas 75501
June 25, 2006 
Elder Randy Johnson, Pastor                                          Bro. Ronnie Henderson, Song Director  
Pastor E-Mail: sgmbcpastor@countrybaptist.org                Web Site: www.countrybaptist.org/sgmbc

"Where the truths of God’s word are taught"
You Were Asked To Pray For:


Ronnie & Sarah Henderson, Ricky Riggs, Wendell Henderson, Joe Henderson, Jaycee Henderson, Steve Williams, Virgil and Alice Hoskins, Helen Maggard, Renee Jackson, Larry & Linda Mollette, Larry Mollette II, Danny & Nita Mollette, Jerry Latham, Shawn Bradford and Family, Kerry Pennington, Kim Butler, Nita Jo Marsh, Donna Johnson, Fay Johnson, Jim & Linda Meier, Jacob, Nathan, and Timothy, Mrs. Nita Bookout, Justin and Holy Bookout, Zee Mink Fuller and Family, Her son Bryan Armstrong, Daughter Shannon, and Brother Philip & Sondra Thornberry, Leroy Sherwood, Bro. & Mrs. Hammond, Archie and Barbara Griffin and son Daniel, Larry Platt, Edna Garvin, Bro. Kluth, Brother & Sister Bob Keller, The Lopez Family, Wanda Fowler, Brad Hensley, Brother Bonnet, Sovereign Grace Baptist Church Mansfield Ohio, Mike Sherwood, Kimberlee McCool, Dina Taylor, Ernie & Lynn Ashworth and Family, Ms. Foster, Bro. Sergey Mochalov and the Churches in Russia, And All of Our Military, Their Family’s & All the Civilian Workers in The Middle East.

A Thought For The Week:

No Man Can Come
According to John 6:44 and 6:65, no man has the ability to come to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation unless and until God the Father graciously grants him this ability and effectually draws him to Christ. The word draw in John 6:44 and 12:32 means "to drag or pull by inward power or divine impulse without meeting with any resistance or opposition from the person or thing being dragged or pulled." These verses, then, do not teach that some or all men have the natural ability to come to Christ if they are only willing to do so, but rather that no man is able to come to.

Christ at all until he is made willing to do so by being effectually drawn to Him by God the Father. Based upon a misunderstanding of John 12:32, many students of the Bible believe that all men without exception are given the ability to come to Christ and are drawn or attracted toward Him in some general sense by God the Father. These Bible students also are of the opinion that all men, by an act of their supposed free will, can successfully resist or oppose this divine drawing or attracting power and thereby thwart or defeat God’s intention or purpose. This common misunderstanding is reflected in the following words from Arminian Baptist writer John R. Rice: "Hyper-Calvinists insist that man is fallen, depraved, dead in trespasses and in sin. That is all true. They say that a sinner, unaided, cannot turn to Christ, and that is true. But they ignore and fail to see this other great truth. Every lost sinner in the world is called, is attracted, is moved, so that he could repent and be saved" (The Son of God, p. 252). The same confusion is demonstrated in the following quotation from Arminian Baptist author Curtis Hutson: "Some Calvinists use John 6:44 in an effort to prove total inability . . . But the Bible makes it plain in John 12:32 that Christ will draw all men unto Himself . . . All men are drawn to Christ, but not all men will trust Christ as Saviour" (Why I Disagree With All Five Points of Calvinism, pp. 5-6). In John 12:32, however, the expression "all men" refers to all elect men without distinction, or elect men of all nations, kindreds, peoples, and tongues (Rev. 7:9), not to all men without exception. These elect men from every part of the globe are inwardly and spiritually dragged or pulled by God the Father to God the Son, and they offer no resistance or opposition as they come to the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance and faith.

The popular Calvinistic Baptist writer Arthur W. Pink states it correctly when he writes as follows: "The ‘all’ plainly refers to all of God’s elect. The scope of the word ‘all’ here is precisely the same as in John 6:45—‘And they shall be all taught of God.’ It is the same ‘all’ as that which the Father has given to Christ (John. 6:37)" (Exposition of the Gospel of John, p. 274). Elder Tom Ross, a Sovereign Grace Landmark Missionary Baptist author, adds the following truthful insight: "It is obvious from the general teaching of the Scriptures that when Christ died He did not draw all men to Himself in a saving relationship. What this verse (John 12:32) is teaching is that the power of Christ’s saving work will draw all kinds of men from among many nations. To believe otherwise you must deny what happens in Matthew 25:41 when Jesus says to the goats: ‘Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels’" (Abandoned Truth: The Doctrines of Grace, p. 150).

To repeat, no man can come to Christ unless he is effectually drawn to Him by God the Father, and every man who is so drawn will be raised from the dead and given a glorified body by Christ at the last day. There are no exceptions to this clear teaching from God’s Word.
By: John Kohler

A Thought From C. H. Spurgeon:

"A certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto Him, Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But He said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." Luke 11:27,28

It is fondly imagined by some that it must have involved very special privileges to have been the mother of our Lord, because they supposed that she had the benefit of looking into His very heart in a way in which we cannot hope to do. There may be an appearance of plausibility in the supposition, but not much. We do not know that Mary knew more than others; what she did know she did well to lay up in her heart; but she does not appear from anything we read in the Evangelists to have been a better-instructed believer than any other of Christ's disciples. All that she knew we also may discover. Do you wonder that we should say so? Here is a text to prove it: "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant." Remember the Master's words

 

--"Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." So blessedly does this Divine Revealer of secrets tell us His heart, that He keepeth back nothing which is profitable to us; His own assurance is, "If it were not so, I would have told you." Doth He not this day manifest Himself unto us as He doth not unto the world? It is even so; and therefore we will not ignorantly cry out, "Blessed is the womb that bare thee," but we will intelligently bless God that, having heard the Word and kept it, we have first of all as true a communion with the Saviour as the Virgin had, and in the second place as true an acquaintance with the secrets of His heart as she can be supposed to have obtained. Happy soul to be thus privileged!

Happy Birthday:

Pastor Johnson June 27th
Bible Conference:

We will hold a Bible Conference on September 2nd here in Texarkana, Texas. It will start at 9:00am and finish about 3:00pm. We invite everyone to please come if possible and help us get the word out. We have four speakers as to date scheduled to speak and hope to have the last two spots filled soon (please visit our web site for updates). Brother Kelly Hinson from Ft. Worth, Texas, Brother Harace Hammond from Sulphur Springs, Texas, Brother Keith Kennison from Mansfield, La., Brother Archie Griffin from Telephone, Texas and if all spots are not filled we will select the other two speakers from the visiting Ministers or Brother Johnson will fill one himself. Please remember our church and bible conference before the throne of grace and all of our speakers. All messages will be uploaded to our web site soon after the conclusion of the conference and audio CD’S will be made available for a small cost.