Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 1 January, 2023
“And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and
heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
The Mosaic Law: Illustration, Expostulation & Allegory (6)
Christ Formed in You [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Galatians 4:8-25
Text: Galatians 4:19-20
I. The Bold Illustration
II. The Text’s Exposition
III. The Practical Application
Psalms: 84:1-6; 52:6-9; 48:2-9; 116:9-19
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 28:15-35
Text: Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 4
I. The Impossible Command
II. The Certain Punishment
III. The Just Mercy
Psalms: 66:1-7; 53:1-6; 58:1-6; 130:1-8
For CDs of the sermons and DVDs of the worship services, contact Stephen Murray
If you desire a pastoral visit, please contact Rev. Stewart or the elders
CPRC Website: www.cprc.co.uk • Live Webcast: www.cprc.co.uk/live-streaming
CPRC YouTube: www.youtube.com/cprcni
CPRC Facebook: www.facebook.com/CovenantPRC
Quotes to Consider
John Eadie on Galatians 4:19: “Christ in them, and abiding in them: His light in their minds, His love in their hearts, His law in their conscience, His Spirit their formative impulse and power, His presence filling and assimilating their entire inner nature, and His image in visible shape and symmetry reproducing itself in their lives (Rom. 8:29).”
Martin Luther on Galatians 4:19: “Paul indicts the false apostles. He says: ‘I have begotten you Galatians through the Gospel, giving you the form of Christ. But these false apostles are giving you a new form, the form of Moses.’ Note the Apostle does not say, ‘Of whom I travail in birth again until I be formed in you,’ but ‘until Christ be formed in you.’ The false apostles had torn the form of Christ out of the hearts of the Galatians and substituted their own form. Paul endeavours to reform them, or rather reform Christ in them.”
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
Standard Bearers and Beacon Lights are available for subscribers, and a new Covenant Reformed News is also on the back table.
Bible reading programmes for 2023 are on the back table. Both card stock and standard paper copies are available.
Monday catechism classes do not meet this week but start again on 9 January.
Tuesday Bible study at 11 AM will meet to continue our discussion on faith and reason, looking at John Calvin on natural theology, etc.
Belgic Confession Class meets this Wednesday at 7:30 PM. In connection with article 37, we will consider the signs of our Lord’s return in creation.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. Bruinsma is entitled, “Making A Stand” (I Sam. 17:38-51).
The Council meets next Monday, 9 January, at 8 PM.
Offerings: £1,341.66. Donations: £1,150 (New Jersey), £100 (Malaysia), £200 (England).
Translation Additions: 1 Polish and 2 Spanish.
PRC News: Rev. DeBoer (Edgerton, MN) declined the call from Doon PRC. Hosanna PRC called Rev. W. Langerak (Trinity, MI).
Dear congregation, Thank you for your gifts, encouraging words and especially for your prayers in this past year. The Lord has been with us and blessed us, but He has also placed great burdens and cares on some of you. Be assured of our continued love and prayers for you all, and more importantly rest in the knowledge that “The Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed” (Deut. 31:8). Pastor & Mary
New Year’s Blessedness
H. C. Hoeksema (an excerpt from an article in the Standard Bearer, vol. 40, issue 7)
“Thy blessing is upon thy people” (Ps. 3:8).
“A happy new year to you” is the cry that rings out in every quarter at this dawn of the year.
But how hollow is the sound of these words, how meaningless they become, how empty of genuine content, when uttered by godless lips, in a godless, essentially unhappy world, to godly and ungodly men alike, and without regard to the question what constitutes true happiness, or whether and how such happiness is possible.
For how shall a man be happy in such a world as ours—a world full of cursing and bitterness, a world at war against God and against man, a world which can know no contentment even in the midst of abundance of things, a world in which even natural joys are never unmixed and unspoiled by misery and fear and sorrow? How shall a man be happy in a world of sin and death? How shall a man be happy in a world that lives and moves in the vicious circle of vanity? How shall a man be happy in a world where the wrath of God is revealed from heaven over all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness?
And how mocking is the very sound of the words of him who shouts, “Happy New Year!” Yea, and how, indeed, must a man’s own conscience from within testify, even as he utters these words, that he knows how empty, how impossible, how fundamentally vain his wish is! For what is true happiness? It consists in this, that the blessing of Almighty God is upon a man.
What constitutes a genuinely happy new year? Only this, that in that year the blessing of Jehovah accompanies a man, step by step, throughout his way. In what sphere is it possible truly to wish one another a happy new year? Only in the sphere of that blessing of Jehovah: in any other sphere that wish is absolutely vain! Happiness there can never be; except in the sense of the psalmist’s words, “Thy blessing is upon thy people.”
In the confession that the blessing of Jehovah is upon His people, they that fear the Lord may bid one another a happy, a blessed, new year. And their wish may be at the same time a prayer, “Let the blessing of Jehovah be upon us, His people.” And the wish and the prayer may both be uttered with the full and firm assurance that they are not and will not be in vain. For His blessing is upon His people! It always has been; and it always will be upon them. And it will never be on any other.
Thy blessing … It is the blessing of Jehovah, the I AM, the eternal and unchangeable and ever-blessed God, the blessing of God who is really GOD, of which the psalmist is speaking here. God’s blessing is a Word of God, a divine Word, a Word of the God who speaks, and it is done, who commands, and it stands fast. For one who blesses, according to the original term in the text, is one who speaks a good word upon him that is the object of that blessing …
But man’s efforts to bless man are all in vain. They are impotent. A man may bestow many gifts upon his fellow man; but blessing is not in mere things … For man’s word cannot realize what it expresses. Man’s word cannot create that which it ardently desires. Man is only a creature, not the Fountain of all good. In the deepest sense, man cannot even provide gifts and wealth and abundance of good things much less, bless anyone.
God’s Word of good-will, however, is entirely different: it is distinctively divine! The Almighty makes no mere wishes. The Lord expresses no vain hopes. To bless, really to bless, is a divine right and power. When God blesses, that blessing goes into action! God’s Word of good-will is the Word of Him who speaks, and it comes to pass! His Word is a creative speech. God speaks before things are, and He causes them to be. He calls the things that are not as if they were. When He speaks well upon a creature, that blessing comes. When He speaks ill, who shall prevent His certain curse?
Thy blessing, Jehovah, is upon thy people … Thy powerful, almighty, creative Word for their good is constantly upon them, always accomplishing that which it expresses. Ponder it, meditate upon it, embrace the truth of it. And then utter the prayer: “Lord, let thy blessing be upon us. For then only can and dare we wish one another a blessed new year.”
Thy blessing is upon thy people!
Nay, my brother, judge not of blessing and blessedness according to your own, human, sinful, this worldly criterion of blessing. For it is of blessing, genuine blessing, that the text speaks. You and I are inclined to judge all things in the light of this world and of this present time. Frequently we think of blessing only in terms of the immediate present, the passing moment … Our human criterion of blessing is, in the first place, subjective: the fulfilment of our own desires we consider good, while failure to reach a desired end we consider evil. That human criterion of blessedness is, in the second place, earthly: we confuse blessing with success and prosperity, and we can weep and wail when our chastisement is there every morning. Our own little criterion of blessing is, in the third place, short-sighted and foolish: we forget that what appears to be a good may be an evil in disguise, and that what seems to be evil may be very good for us. We are apt to inquire only whether the road is broad and smooth, without caring for the direction of that road. We foolishly would avoid the rougher and deeper and steeper stretches of the road, forgetting that without them we cannot reach the promised heavenly country. And thus we obtain an altogether warped and twisted view of things. A man prospers in his business, and he claims that a “kind Providence” is blessing all his efforts. We forget that the almighty word of God may be in all his goods, cursing him to damnation. A farmer’s fields yield abundantly, and he must increase his barns: it is considered a good, a blessing. We fail to consider that “this night” God may take his soul and cast him into destruction. And thus, a nation is blessed when it prospers and grows mighty; an army is blessed when it has the victory; and a church is blessed when it grows in numbers and in standing in the eyes of men.
But that crucial question concerning blessing cannot be answered thus. Whether anything is a blessing or a curse—and, you understand, it is either a blessing or a curse—is a question that can be answered only in the light of eternity. And then, that only is a blessing which is conducive to our everlasting salvation. A blessing in time, but not for eternity, a so-called blessing of common grace, there is not: it is a contradiction in terms.
God’s blessing is the Word of His grace!
That blessing is upon a man when every word of God over that man flows from God’s everlasting good pleasure unto his eternal glory, from His counsel of salvation. That blessing changes every apparent evil into an eternal good. It is the cause, the reason, that all things work together for good. It is the irresistible operation of God’s grace through every means; through all the way, through every experience, every circumstance, leading inevitably and with absolute certainty unto the joy and the happiness of God’s everlasting tabernacle!
One, exclusive, particular, and therefore, sure, is that divine blessing!
Thy blessing is upon Thy people … Thy blessing, Lord, is for Thy people only, and for all Thy people. The others it excludes; instead, the curse follows them to the grave and to hell. For this reason, we know, too, that Thy blessing is sure. For even as the blessing is Thine, so also we, Thy people, are Thine, Thine in the most absolute sense of the word. We are not self determined. We did not choose Thee. Thou hast chosen and ordained us, chosen sovereignly, ordained us in Thy eternal thoughts and purpose. Ordained, we are, to be partakers of Thy fellowship and of everlasting bliss in Thy tabernacle. We are in Thy counsel as the objects of Thy love, ordained to eternal glory in Christ Jesus. And from that same counsel Thy blessing proceeds: it is Thy Word toward the objects of Thy sovereign choice, Thy Word of good-will and sovereign grace. Thy glory Thou didst purpose to reveal in Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Head, and through the myriad of elect members of His body. And all other things in Thy counsel are but means to that end. Nothing is excluded. That counsel is all-comprehensive. Never is there a mistake; all is ordained in infinite wisdom. Everything, according to that counsel, moves and works around and toward that one purpose of the revelation of Thy glory in Christ and His church. All is subordinate to that one purpose.
Hence, Thy blessing must be upon Thy people.
And the central revelation of that blessing we behold in the gift of Thine only begotten Son.
Therefore we exclaim, too: “How shall he not with him freely give us all things?”
And thus, Lord, we look to the year [ahead].
For we know not only that Thy blessing shall be upon us in the end. It is upon us now. The Word of Thy goodwill proceeds toward us continuously, surrounds us, meets us, guides us, watches over us, fills us, permeates our food and drink, wards off the enemy, guards us, strengthens us, comforts us, assures us, follows us all the way to the eternal inheritance …
