Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 28 December, 2025
Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone,
a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste” (Isa. 28:16)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM – Lord’s Supper
The Greatest Song Ever (12)
Christ’s Second Speech to His Bride [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Song of Solomon 1
Text: Song of Solomon 1:15
I. The Endearing Address He Uses
II. The Tender Adjective He Bestows
III. The Beautiful Image He Employs
Psalms: 149:1-5; 7:7-12; 55:1-9: 45:9-14 (AOS)
Evening Service – 6:00 PM Applicatory
The Greatest Song Ever (13)
The Bride’s Response [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Song of Solomon 1
Text: Song of Solomon 1:16-17
I. Christ’s Beauty
II. Christ’s Bed
III. Christ’s House
Psalms: 91:1-6; 7:13-17; 92:10-15; 84:1-6
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
Quote to Consider
Matthew Henry on Song of Solomon 1:15: “Christ takes delight in the good work which his grace has wrought on the souls of believers. This should engage all who are made holy, to be very thankful for that grace which has made those fair, who by nature were deformed. The spouse (the believer) has a humble, modest eye, discovering simplicity and godly sincerity; eyes enlightened and guided by the Holy Spirit, that blessed Dove.”
John Gill on Song of Solomon 1:15: “‘Behold, thou art fair, my love.’ These are the words of Christ, commending the beauty and comeliness of the church, expressing his great affection for her, and his high esteem of her; of her fairness and beauty … that she who was so black and uncomely in herself should be so fair and beautiful in his eyes, through his blood, righteousness, and grace; and as a note of asseveration, assuring her of the truth of it, which she might be apt to call in question; and, to prevent which, it is also repeated.”
Matthew Henry on Song of Solomon 1:16: “The church expresses her value for Christ. Thou art the great Original, but I am but a faint and imperfect copy. Many are fair to look at, yet their temper renders them unpleasant: but Christ is fair, yet pleasant.”
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
On the back table are copies of the December Covenant Reformed News with articles on faith and assurance and the new female archbishop of Canterbury, and a Bible reading programme for 2026.
After a week of self-examination, CPRC confessing members in good standing are called to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Your participation in the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood is in part a witness that you repent of your sins, believe in Jesus Christ as your only righteousness, and desire to live a new and godly life. As this heavenly food can be taken to one’s judgment (I Cor. 11:28-30) and as the common reception of the Lord’s Supper is a confession of doctrinal unity (Acts 2:42), the elders supervise the partaking of the sacrament. Visitors who are members of other denominations must already have presented to the Council an attestation from their church that they are confessing members in good standing and have received permission from the Council to partake of the Lord’s Supper.
Monday night catechism classes will resume on 5 January.
Tuesday Bible study will not meet this week but will meet next week, 6 January, to consider the most distinctive feature of Paul’s stay in Iconium (Acts 14:1-7).
The Belgic Confession class on Wednesday will not meet this week (31 December) but will resume on 7 January.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. Haak is entitled “God’s Wise Leading of His Church” (Ex. 13:17-22).
Rev. J. Engelsma will give a lecture on “Biblical Masculinity” on Wednesday, 14 January, at 7:30 PM in the CPRC.
5-a-side football has been arranged for Thursday, 15 January from 9-10 PM at the Sports Hut for men and boys high-school age and older.
The congregational dinner is set for Friday, 16 January, at 7 PM at Dunsilly Hotel in Antrim. Sign-up sheets are on the back table.
Offerings: £1,270. Donations: £1,000 (W. Yorkshire). Solar Panel Refund: £770.76.
Translation Additions: 1 Dutch, 3 Indonesian, 3 Polish, 2 Spanish and 3 Urdu.
PRC News: Rev. Barnhill accepted the call to Hudsonville PRC.
Views on the Sacraments: Lord’s Supper (The Reformed View)
an excerpt from an article by Rev. Herman Veldman in the Standard Bearer, vol 40, issue 21
All the Reformed Confessions emphasize that the eating and drinking which takes place at the table of the Lord is purely spiritual. There is a spiritual food: Christ imparts Himself at the table of communion to believers as the true meat and drink unto life eternal. There is, secondly, a spiritual operation: it is through the Spirit of Christ that He imparts Himself to the believers. And, thirdly, there is also a spiritual mouth, by which we eat and drink; and that spiritual mouth is faith. But this entire mode of operation, this spiritual eating and drinking of Christ, takes place through the means of the signs of the broken bread and wine that is poured out.
He or that which is nourished through the sacrament is, of course, the regenerated man, or child of God, which is created in Christ Jesus. This spiritual life of the regenerated sinner can never be nourished by material food. It must have spiritual nourishment. And this spiritual food or nourishment: righteousness, holiness, light, etc., is in one word: the grace of God. And that grace is all in Christ. He is the Bread and the Water of life. Him we eat and drink, and must eat and drink.
However, we eat and drink Christ only spiritually. This is surely emphasized in all the Reformed Confessions. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that there is an action of Christ through the priest upon that physical and material bread and wine whereby their substance is changed into the actual body and blood of the Lord. But this is impossible and untrue. It is surely impossible because they would then proclaim a lie. And they would proclaim a lie because they, although not bread and wine, would continue to look like bread and wine, taste and act as bread and wine. If one should drink too much of this wine, he would become drunk; and how could anybody ever become drunk when he drinks too much of Christ? When does Christ ever make a man drunk? And therefore the operation in the Lord’s Supper is surely spiritual. O, it is emphatically true that our Lord Jesus Christ is very really present in the signs of the broken bread and the poured out wine, but He is present only in a spiritual sense. He imparts Himself to the believer by an operation of His Spirit, not only mystically, but also through the consciousness of the regenerated child of God, so that he is constantly strengthened in righteousness and holiness, and so grows in the grace of the Lord. And as Christ imparts Himself by His Spirit to this regenerated man, the latter eats and drinks Him, not with his physical mouth but by the spiritual mouth of faith. And this faith, whereby I receive Christ, and eat and drink Him, is surely wrought and strengthened chiefly by the Word of the gospel, but also through the signs and seals of the sacraments, as through the broken bread and the poured out wine.
This explains the significance of the Lord’s Supper. We must not think that a special grace is bestowed upon us through the sacraments and which we receive only when we receive the sacramental bread and wine. What we receive is Christ and we receive Him in all His benefits. Faith also receives Christ and all His benefits. Faith operated through the preaching of the Word and also through the sacraments. Hence, what we receive through the sacraments must be the same as what we receive through the preaching of the gospel. And we receive Christ and all His benefits by faith.
Indeed, the sacraments seal the promise of the gospel. We read this literally in Answer 66 of our Heidelberg Catechism, and we quote: “The sacraments are holy visible signs and seals, appointed of God for this end, that by the use thereof, he may the more fully declare and seal to us the promise of the gospel, viz., that he grants us freely the remission of sin, and life eternal, for the sake of that one sacrifice of Christ, accomplished on the cross.” And in Romans 4:11 we read that the sacraments are signs and seals of the righteousness which is by faith, and we again quote: “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.” The gospel is the proclamation of good news, glad tidings. And it is the proclamation of good tidings exactly because it proclaims the promise. This promise is not an offer, but God’s announcement of His own pledge, His own inviolate Word, of what He, and He alone, can and will do. Imagine if the gospel were merely an offer of salvation. This would mean that the Lord, in the gospel, offers salvation to a sinner, to all sinners who hear the preaching of the gospel. This would mean that the Lord wants all men to be saved, that He extends that offer of salvation to all the hearers of the gospel, and that that sinner will be saved who accepts this offer and consents to the divine work of salvation, allows the Lord to work and operate in his heart. But this would make the salvation of any sinner impossible. In the first place, such an offer must surely imply that God possesses what He offers: salvation to all men, and this must imply that Christ died for all men. But a Christ who died for all men is no Christ, and this for the simple reason that He then would have died also for those who perish. But if He died also for those who perish, then His death never paid for their sins, because they could never perish had He paid for their sins. And so we have a Christ upon the cross of Calvary who never died for the sins of men, and such a Christ surely cannot save anybody. But this also makes salvation impossible for the sinner because who would ever be able to accept an offer of salvation? The sinner is blind and deaf and lame and dumb and dead. One might just as well offer life to the dead in a cemetery or freedom to a man who is chained behind bars, bars which he cannot possibly break. So, if the gospel were merely an offer, no sinner could possibly be saved. Indeed, the promise is not an offer. It is good news, glad tidings, exactly because it proclaims the promise of the Lord, God’s announcement of His own promise, His own inviolate Word, of what He, and He alone, can and will do.
And the sacraments are seals of this promise, not in the sense that God promises us something He will do provided we believe, and therefore dependent upon our faith. But they are seals of the promise in the sense that they are His pledge and guarantee of what He has done. This is emphatically held before us in our Confessions. We read in Answer 67 of our Heidelberg Catechism, “Yes, indeed: for the Holy Ghost teaches us in the gospel and assures us by the sacraments, that the whole of our salvation depends upon that one sacrifice of Christ which He offered for us on the cross.” This we must constantly bear in mind. Our salvation depends upon the cross of Calvary. It is not so that the cross made it possible for men to be saved, provided that they believe, and that therefore what actually saves us is not the cross but our faith. No, but we glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; we are not saved by the cross because we believe, but we believe because we have been saved by the power of the cross. And therefore the sacraments are connected with the cross of Calvary. And that means that the sacraments are just as particular as is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one is a sign and seal of the other. If the cross be particular, the sacrament cannot be general. And this also means that the sacraments are signs and seals of the promise of the gospel as fulfilled and realized. We need not add anything to it. And that includes our faith. Faith never adds anything to the cross, is never a substitute for the cross, always embraces the cross of Calvary. How important it is that we continue to maintain this fundamental truth of our Confessions and of the Scriptures! …
