Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 14 August, 2022
“I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will
I make known thy faithfulness to all generations” (Ps. 89:1)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
The Most Avoided Messianic Psalm (10)
The Prayer and Song of the Poor [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Psalm 69:21-36; 22:16-31
Text: Psalm 69:29-33
I. The Sorrowful Poor
II. The Powerful Prayer
III. The Thankful Song
Psalms: 142:1-7; 37:8-14; 40:1-5; 69:27-32
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
Scripture Reading: I Timothy 6
Text: Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 42
I. What It Forbids
II. What It Requires
Psalms: 15:1-5; 37:15-21; 50:18-23; 62:8-12
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 Phillips: “No doubt the Lord quoted all of Psalm 22 and all of Psalm 69 when hanging on the cross. These closing verses [cf. vv. 29-36] must have greatly encouraged Him and strengthened Him to keep His grip on reality in the face of sufferings which stagger the imagination and which are far beyond our ability to conceive” (Exploring the Psalms, vol. 1: Psalms 1-88, p. 570).
John Gill on Psalm 69:30: “For as it was no lessening of his glory, as Mediator to pray to God when on earth, it is no diminution of it to praise him in our nature in heaven; see Ps. 22:22. This being said to be done with a song agrees with Heb. 2:12, and is an instance of praising God this way, and which could not be prayer-wise: as well as is a confirmation of the practice of New Testament churches, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, by the example of our Lord … Christ, as man, not only prayed, but gave thanks to his Father when on earth, Matt. 11:25-26, John 11:41; nor is it unsuitable to him, as such now in heaven, to give thanks and praise for being heard and helped in a day of salvation; or at the time when he wrought out the salvation of his people, and glorified all the divine perfections.”
Charles Spurgeon on Psalm 69:31: “Here he puts dishonour upon mere outward offerings by speaking of the horns and hoofs, the offal of the victim. The opus operatum, which our ritualists think so much of, the Lord puffs at. The horning and hoofing are nothing to him, though to Jewish ritualists these were great points, and matters for critical examination; our modern rabbis are just as precise as to the mingling of water with their wine, the baking of their wafers, the cut of their vestments, and the performance of genuflections towards the right quarter of the compass. O fools, and slow of heart to perceive all that the Lord has declared. ‘Offer unto God thanksgiving’ is the everlasting rubric of the true directory of worship.”
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
New Protestant Reformed Theological Journals are available free on the back table.
Tuesday Bible study at 11 AM will meet to discuss the Roman Catholic view of faith.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. Haak is entitled, “God Did Not Spare His Own Son” (Rom. 8:31-32).
S. Wales Lecture: Rev. Stewart plans to give a lecture at the Margam Community Centre in Port Talbot, S. Wales on Thursday, 25 August at 7:15 PM.
Everyone is invited to a barbecue at the manse on Friday evening, 2 September, weather permitting.
Offerings: £2,386.52.
Translation Additions: 3 Polish.
PRC News: Zion PRC called Rev. Brummel to be the home missionary. Hudsonville PRC has a new trio of Revs. Brummel, Kortus and Noorman.
Psalm 69 Versus the Free Offer
Rev. Angus Stewart
Part 1
In the very first sentence of his article, “The Free Offer of the Gospel,” John Murray succinctly identifies the key issue in the debate: “It would appear that the real point in dispute in connection with the Free Offer of the gospel is whether it can properly be said that God desires the salvation of all men” (Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 4, p. 113; italics Murray’s).
“All men” includes the elect and the reprobate, those whom “God was pleased … to pass by, and to ordain … to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice” (Westminster Confession 3:7).
“Salvation” surely includes the blessings of union with Christ, regeneration, calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, preservation and glorification (blessings given only to the elect; Rom. 8:29-30).
John Murray rightly argues that if God desires to give the reprobate the end (the blessings of salvation), He must also desire to give them the means to that end, namely repentance and faith: “It amounts to the same things to say ‘God desires their salvation’ as to say ‘He desires their repentance’” (p. 114).
Thus the question is: Does the true God desire to save the reprobate? That is, does God desire to unite the reprobate to Christ and regenerate, call, justify, adopt, sanctify, preserve and glorify them? Does He desire to give the reprobate repentance and faith: What saith the Scriptures?
John 19:28-30 (and the parallel passages in the three other gospel accounts) prove that Jesus Christ is speaking in Psalm 69:21: “They gave me vinegar to drink.” Christ proceeds to pray against the reprobate or non-elect (v. 28). He prays. “Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not” (v. 23; illumination or knowledge is part of faith according to Ephesians 3:17-19). “Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness” (Ps. 69:27; righteousness is God’s gift in justification). He prays to the Most High for their everlasting ruin: “Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them” (v. 24). So far is the Lord Jesus from desiring the salvation of the reprobate that He prays that they not be forgiven or justified (v. 27), that they be damned for their sins and not glorified (v. 24), and that they not be given faith (v. 23).
Remember, these prayers (which oppose the error of the free or well-meant offer) are placed upon our Saviour’s lips as He hung upon the cross, when “they gave him vinegar to drink” (v. 21).
Part 2
Some who hold to the free offer agree that Psalm 69 presents Christ’s will that the enemies of the Messiah be destroyed. Thus they believe that God desires to condemn the reprobate and that He desires to save them (but does not). Yet Job says of God “what his soul desireth, even that he doeth” (23:13). If “a double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8), what about a double minded god who desires two contradictory things? Advocates of the free offer respond that the (alleged) “two ‘wills’ in God” are at two “levels.” But God has only one will and there are no “levels” in Him, for He is one and in no respect two (Deut. 6:4).
Those who believe that God desires to save the reprobate argue from Christ’s prayer in Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” But did this include the reprobate? Some of Christ’s oppressors had sinned against the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:31-32). Christ could not have prayed for them, according to I John 5:16. Earlier Christ had prayed, “Father … thou hearest me always” (John 11:41-42). Did God, who always heard Christ, fail to answer His prayer of Luke 23:34, even in part? Moreover, Christ said just hours before the cross, “I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me” (John 17:9). Christ’s intercession, like His atonement upon which it is based, is always particular and efficacious (Rom. 8:34). His prayer of Luke 23:34 was answered in the salvation of the penitent thief and thousands in Jerusalem (Acts 2:41; 4:4).
The Christ of God loves, desires to save and died for His church (Eph. 5:25), and wills the destruction of the reprobate (Ps. 69:22-28). This biblical Christ must be preached, and all must urgently be exhorted to repent and believe in Him.
