Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 21 February, 2021
“O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness:
fear before him, all the earth” (Ps. 96:9)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
Abimelech, the Bramble King (6)
The Conspiracy of Gaal [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Judges 9:22-41
Text: Judges 9:25-41
I. Its Beginning
II. Its End
III. Its Lessons
Psalms: 146:1-8; 2:1-8
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 58
Text: Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 38
I. The Goal of the Sabbath
II. The Activities of the Sabbath
III. The Sacrifices of the Sabbath
Psalms: 122:1-9; 92:1-2, 12-15
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
Matthew Henry on Judges 9:27: “They [i.e., the Shechemites] made themselves very merry in his [i.e., Abimelech’s] absence, as those who were glad he was out of the way, and who, now that they had another to head them, were in hopes to get clear of him; nay, they went into the house of their god, to solemnize their feast of in-gathering, and there they did eat, and drink, and cursed Abimelech, not only said all the ill they could of him in their table-talk and the song of their drunkards, but wished all the ill they could to him over their sacrifices, praying to their idol to destroy him. They drank healths to his confusion, and with as loud huzzas as ever they had drunk them to his prosperity. That very temple whence they had fetched money to set him up with did they now meet in to curse him and contrive his ruin. Had they deserted their idol-god with their image-king, they might have hoped to prosper; but, while they still cleave to the former, the latter shall cleave to them to their ruin. How should Satan cast out Satan?”
Prof. David J. Engelsma: “There is so much to do on Sunday that the day is too short. ‘How long is the Lord’s day?’ some have asked. Give the Lord a full day; it is the Lord’s day, not the Lord’s hour. Really, this is an ominous question. It sounds suspiciously like the question of the Jews in Amos 8:5: ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?’ Nobody talks like this about his vacation. ‘Oh, when will it be over?’ Such questions about the Lord’s day indicate a leak in the dike in my own soul—worldliness is pouring in. The man who tastes something of the rest of Christ talks differently: ‘Oh, when will the eternal Sabbath day dawn?’”
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
Tuesday Bible study at 11 AM will meet in the auditorium to consider more on assurance as of the essence of faith.
Belgic Confession Class will meet and be streamed live this Wednesday at 7:45 PM to continue our discussion on OT teaching on the last days in connection with Article 37.
The Saturday night Bible study will meet via video conferencing this week at 8 PM to discuss Hebrews 6:4-12.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. R. Kleyn is entitled, “The Messiah Comes Preaching” (Mark 1:14-15).
Offerings: General Fund: £921.
Translation Additions: 2 Russian and 1 Spanish.
PRC News: Rev. Smidstra declined the call to Hudsonville PRC.
Rev. Trinidad, pastor of the Maranatha Protestant Reformed Church in the Philippines will begin his emeritation next Sunday, 28 February, due to his advancing age. Because of the lack of eligible men to serve in the special offices, the congregation will also be disbanding, with the members transferring to Provident PRC.
The Sojourner’s Sabbath
(an excerpt from the pamphlet by Herman Hoeksema)
That the Sabbath in its deepest sense has to do with the Lord’s rest is abundantly proven from the Holy Scriptures. It has its beginning in the rest of the Lord on the seventh day after the six days of creative work in which the heavens and the earth were finished. For on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made (Gen. 2:2). Because of this rest from all His work which He had made on that seventh day, He blessed and sanctified it (Gen. 2:3). It is, in the Ten Commandments, called “the Sabbath of the Lord, thy God” (Ex. 20:10; Deut. 5:14). In Leviticus 23:3 we read: “Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, and holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.” And in Isaiah 58:13: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shall honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight in the Lord.” Psalm 95:11 reads: “Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest” …
Now, it is God’s eternal good pleasure to prepare a rest for His people in Christ Jesus, which should be a reflection, a manifestation, of the rest of His own divine covenant life. This rest of God’s perfected covenant with us is the Sabbath that remaineth for the people of God; it is the essential idea of the Sabbath of the Lord our God with respect to us. For it is His eternal purpose that He ordained them whom He foreknew to be conformed according to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren, to call, to justify, to glorify them (Rom. 8:29-30). Yea, the glory of the exceeding great promises, which God gave unto His people, is so great, that by these they even are made partakers of the divine nature (II Pet. 1:4). According to this purpose they are chosen, in order that they should be holy and unblamable before Him in love (Eph. 1:4); that they should be renewed after the image of God in knowledge of Him (Col. 3:10), in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24); that they might have fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ (I John 1:4), might be in the Father and in the Son (I John 2:14), might know Him, love Him, walk with Him, and talk with Him, enter into His secrets, eat with Him and drink with Him, dwell in His house, yea, know Him as they are known, see Him face to face, and be like Him in perfection (John 17:3, 21-23; I Cor. 13:12; I John 3:2; Matt. 5:8; Ps. 17:15, 25:14).
They shall be the temple of God and He will dwell in them, and walk in them and be their God and they shall be His people (II Cor. 6:16). In that perfect rest, when the perfected throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign forever and ever (Rev. 22:3-5).
That heavenly rest, a perfect though creaturely reflection of God’s own Sabbath, of His divine covenant-life, that perfected fellowship of friendship with the living God, is the Sabbath God prepares for them that love Him. And into that rest of God they enter. This entering into God’s perfected work, into His rest, His Sabbath, is the idea of the Sabbath according to Scripture.
Of that Sabbath, indeed, our whole life in this world must be a manifestation. For, also in the midst of the world we must be friends of God, for the friendship of the world is enmity with God, and whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God (Jas. 4:4). We must walk worthy of the calling wherewith we are called, with all lowliness and meekness, be followers of God as dear children, walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, walk as children of light (Eph. 4:1-2; 5:1-2, 8); be blameless and harmless, and sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom we shine as lights in the world (Phil. 2:15); and our conversation must be in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:20). We are admonished always to seek the things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, to set our affection on them (Col. 3:1-3).
There is with respect to these things no difference between one day and another. But the things of this present time, the cares and anxieties of the world, our daily toil and labour have a tendency to draw us downward to the things of the earth; and the battle with the devil, the world, and sin is hard. Neither are we as yet perfectly delivered from sin. What a blessing, then, that one day of the week we may rest from our daily toil, separate ourselves in a special sense from the world about us, and gather with the people of God, to set our minds wholly on the things that are above!
Such, then is the idea of our weekly Sabbath! The vacuum that is created by desisting from our daily toil is no end in itself, neither is one day holier than the other; but the rest from our daily labours must serve the purpose of creating the proper opportunity for the church of Christ in the world to occupy itself wholly with things spiritual and eternal, to set its mind entirely on the things that are above, to be busy with the exceeding great promises only, and thus to be strengthened for that battle that must necessarily be fought, if our whole life is to be a reflection of the eternal Sabbath and we are to be friends of God in the midst of the world, blameless and without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.
… the Christian is really a stranger and sojourner, a pilgrim in a strange country, because principally he entered into the Sabbath of the Lord through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He is begotten again unto a lively hope through that resurrection. When he is regenerated he receives the beginning of that new and resurrection life of the Lord. He ceased from his labour and toil. He rests from sin and the world. And he becomes a new man, the citizen of another country, the heavenly, of the New Jerusalem that will descend out of heaven from God in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. He lives the Sabbath-life. Hence, his whole life is a sabbatic life, a ceasing from sin and an entering into the rest of God’s perfected covenant. But in this world his life is a sojourner’s Sabbath. For, he still sojourns in Babylon. And in Babylon they do not know the Sabbath of the Lord our God. They are strangers to the very idea of the Sabbath, of the rest of God’s tabernacle. Small wonder, then, that in this Babylon they devote the first day of the week to the pursuit of earthly and worldly things, of the things of the flesh. But this is all the more reason why the Christian sojourner, living his Sabbath life in the midst of the world, where he feels that he is a stranger, where he meets with Babylon’s opposition and reproach, where all things tend to draw him downward and to make it difficult to live his life of rest, shall long for the day the Lord in His mercy provided for him and shall insist to keep it holy!
