Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
Ballymena
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 18 September, 2011
“Those that be planted in the house of the Lord
shall flourish in the courts of our God” (Ps. 92:13)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
Public Confession of Faith
What Shall I Render Unto the Lord?
Scripture Reading: Psalm 116
Text: Psalm 116:12-14
I. The Right Question—Gratitude!
II. The First Answer—Prayer!
III. The Second Answer—Vows!
Psalms: 118:1-7; 107:1-9; 31:19-24; 116:9-19
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
Installation/Ordination of Office-Bearers
Scripture Reading: I Timothy 3
I. Reformed Elders
II. Reformed Deacons
III. Our Calling Towards Them
Psalms: 146:1-8; 107:10-16; 82:1-8; 101:3-8
For CDs of the sermons and DVDs of the worship services, contact Stephen Murray
If you desire a pastoral visit, please contact Rev. Stewart
CPRC website: www.cprc.co.uk
CPRC YouTube: www.youtube.com/cprcni
CPRC Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Ballymena-United-Kingdom/Covenant-Protestant-Reformed-Church-N-Ireland/337347932331
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
We rejoice with the Hallidays in the birth of a daughter, Emilia Rose, this past Thursday evening. Leona and the baby are doing well. May the Lord be with Gareth and Leona as they raise her in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
Reminder: Subscribers to the Beacon Lights, please pay Susan £10.
This morning we hear the public confession of faith of Anga Dyck. We pray for the Lord’s blessing on her as takes up her place as a confessing member in the congregation.
This evening we will have the installation of Ivan Reid as elder, William Graham as deacon (3-year term) and the ordination of Philip Hall as deacon (2-year term). We give thanks for the blessing of faithful office-bearers in the church and pray that the Lord will strengthen them in this great task.
Everyone is welcome to stay for tea after the evening service.
Monday Catechism: 6 PM – O.T. Beginners (Alex & Nathan) 6:45 PM – O.T. Juniors (Jacob & Joseph) 7:30 PM – Heidelberg (Timothy, Zoe, Amy & Lea)
Our Tuesday morning Bible study meets at 11 AM. We will continue our study of the Antichrist in Revelation 13:2f. All are welcome.
Belgic Confession Class meets Wednesday at 7:45 PM. We will continue Belgic Confession 12, looking at angels and demons. All are welcome.
Go-karting is being organized for Thursday evening, 22 September. A sign-up sheet will be on the back table. Contact William Graham with any questions.
Ladies Discussion Group meets this Friday at 10 AM at the church to discuss chapter 1 of Lies Women Believe. All women are welcome to join the group at any time. Speak to Susan or Alison for more details.
This Friday and Saturday is our CPRC/LRF “overnighter”. The venue is the Foy Centre, Carlingford, Co. Louth on the Cooley Peninsula, just south of the border. Dinner will be provided on Friday evening as will breakfast and lunch on Saturday. Discussions on the office of believer and the antithesis are planned.
Due to the “overnighter,” Rev. Stewart and Rev. McGeown will exchange pulpits next Lord’s Day, 25 September. Rev. McGeown will do a preparatory service that evening with a view to having the Lord’s Supper on 2 October.
Offerings: General Fund: £441.61.
Upcoming Lecture: S. Wales, Thursday, 6 October on “The Unchangeable God”
PRC News: Pastor-elect Decker sustained his examination by Classis East this past week and will be ordained and installed into the ministry at Trinity PRC on Thursday, 29 September, with his uncle, Prof. Decker presiding. Pastor-elect Brian Huizinga will be ordained and installed in Redlands, California, today.
The Confession of Your Church
Abraham Kuyper
(excerpts from Implications of Public Confession, pp. 19-22, 51-52)
Time and again you hear the remark made that the confession of your church is a comparatively unimportant matter, and that your personal confession ought in no way to be affected by it.
Those who voice such remarks usually talk in this fashion: You belong to Jesus, do you, and the life of God dwells in your heart? Why then, be concerned about the confession of a church? Every church of Christ worthy of the name must open its doors to you, and every church which refuses to do that, thereby forfeits its right to exist! Why all the learning and theology? …
But it is remarkable that the holy apostles have judged of the matter also, and that their judgment is the exact opposite of the judgment of these ultra-spiritualists. What? The common confession of the church does not affect one’s personal confession? It most certainly does. Read what Paul wrote to the church at Corinth: “I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing” (I Cor. 1:10). This “speaking of the same thing” definitely refers to a common confession, for Paul added: “And that there be no divisions among you; but that ye (as a church) be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” Note that Paul urged that they be joined together not in the same feeling, or in the same emotional experience, but in the same mind and judgment. It is the identical plea he addressed to the church at Philippi, when he wrote: “Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing” (Phil. 3:6). The holy apostle John gives expression to the same thought and as definitely relates it to a confession. Paul had written in Romans 10:10: “With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” John affirmed with equal decisiveness: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is the spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is in the world.”
… Let this testimony of the apostles encourage you when you find that you must study as part of your preparation for confession. Let it encourage you in insisting that your children be taught. It is, of course, obligatory that you teach them. You promised to do so when you proffered them for baptism. Upon that occasion you answered affirmatively to the important question: “Do you promise and intend to see these children, when come to the years of discretion, instructed and brought up in the aforesaid doctrine, or help or cause them to be instructed therein?” Nor was that “aforesaid doctrine” a vague and nebulous one, for the immediately preceding one asked: “Do you acknowledge the doctrine which is contained in the Old and New Testament, and in the articles of the Christian faith, and which is taught here in this Christian Church, to be the true and perfect [i.e., complete] doctrine of salvation?” Hence, your baptism, too, bound you to a doctrine, a specific doctrine, and a doctrine which is well-defined and nicely circumscribed …
For that reason study is necessary. A church which does not teach her youth can never hope to retain a pure confession, but relinquishes it, cuts off all contact with the past, divorces herself from the fathers, and forms a new group …
You see, therefore, that by your public confession you are most certainly assuming the obligations of a covenant relationship within a specific church. The church in which you desire to be active took you into her care … Now she is willing to admit you to the holy supper, to let you take your place at the Lord’s table with the other members, provided that you are willing to confess that their confession is yours. She cannot be satisfied by your assuring her that God gave you the Holy Spirit. There is much blindness in you still, in spite of that. It is a blindness, too, which could lead you to ill-conduct and to heresy. In order to offset the possibility of your igniting the church community with these destructive fires of ill-conduct or heresy, she demands that you must confess what she confesses …
You must promise by covenant to regard the other members of your church as your brothers and sisters, and must promise to help them as such, irrespective of whether they be rich or poor, amiable or unamiable. And you must also promise to submit to church discipline willingly, in the event that you should ever break that covenant of unity.
That is the way in which this bond, this covenant, is made. It is a covenant which brings you no earthly profits, and which secures for you no sensual pleasures. It is a bond of peace which demands that we serve the Lord our God together, that we walk together, and that we bear each other’s burdens. For we are fellow-pilgrims to a better fatherland.
Formula of Subscription
We [professors, ministers of the Gospel, elders, and deacons] do hereby sincerely and in good conscience before the Lord, declare by this, our subscription, that we heartily believe and are persuaded that all the articles and points of doctrine, contained in the Confession and Catechism of the Reformed Churches, together with the explanation of some points of the aforesaid doctrine, made by the National Synod of Dordrecht, 1618-1619, do fully agree with the Word of God.
We promise therefore diligently to teach and faithfully to defend the aforesaid doctrine, without either directly or indirectly contradicting the same, by our public preaching or writing.
We declare, moreover, that we not only reject all errors that militate against this doctrine and particularly those which were condemned by the above mentioned synod, but that we are disposed to refute and contradict these, and to exert ourselves in keeping the church free from such errors. And if hereafter any difficulties or different sentiments respecting the aforesaid doctrines should arise in our minds, we promise that we will neither publicly nor privately propose, teach, or defend the same, either by preaching or writing, until we have first revealed such sentiments to the consistory, classis, and synod, that the same may be there examined, being ready always cheerfully to submit to the judgment of the consistory, classis, and synod, under the penalty in case of refusal to be, by that very fact, suspended from our office.
And further, if at any time the consistory, classis, or synod, upon sufficient grounds of suspicion and to preserve the uniformity and purity of doctrine, may deem it proper to require of us a further explanation of our sentiments respecting any particular article of the Confession of Faith, the Catechism, or the explanation of the National Synod, we do hereby promise always to be willing and ready to comply with such requisition, under the penalty above mentioned, reserving for ourselves, however, the right of an appeal, whenever we shall believe ourselves aggrieved by the sentence of the consistory, the classis, or the synod, and until a decision is made upon such an appeal, we will acquiesce in the determination and judgment already passed.
