Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 5 July, 2026
“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
Scripture Reading: Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 22
Text: Philippians 1
I. The Argument
II. The Longing
Psalms: 90:1-7; 27:6-10; 16:6-11; 73:24-28
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
The Prophecy of Habakkuk (6)
Habakkuk’s Second Theological Perplexity [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Habakkuk 1
Text: Habakkuk 1:13-17
I. The Basic Problem
II. The Manifold Aggravations
Psalms: 5:1-8; 27:9-14; 10:1-6; 22:1-7
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
O. Palmer Robertson: “What could epitomize more dramatically the cruelty of the Chaldeans than the historical witness of their own monuments? Not just figuratively but literally they carried on the Assyrian tradition of driving a hook through the sensitive lower lip of their captives and stringing them single file. In such a diabolical method they enforced docility … By a second and related figure, the prophet enforces his depiction of the brutality of the Babylonians. If not led with a hook, the faceless captives are dragged in a net. Again the inscriptions of Babylon enforce the soberness of the prophet’s description. In one relief, the major Babylonian deities Ningirsu, Shamash, Enlil, and Marduk drag a net in which their captured enemies squirm” (The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, pp. 162, 163).
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
The Council meets tomorrow night at 7 PM.
Tuesday Bible study meets this week at 11 AM to continue our study of Acts.
Family visitation (Titus 2-3) continues this week: Wednesday – 6:30 PM: Reids; 7:30 PM: John
Men’s Bible study is this Saturday, 11 July, at 7:30 PM on-line, treating Psalm 130, using A 30 Day Walk With God Through the Psalms.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. Spriensma is entitled “The Covenant With Creation” (Gen. 9:9-11).
Offerings: £1,446.70. Donations: £112 (S. Korea), £500 (England).
Translation Additions: 3 Polish and 3 Urdu (the remaining videos from the Pakistan conference on “The Doctrine of God”).
A provisional BRF Conference programme was e-mailed out and there are a few copies on the back table. Castlewellan Castle would like to know numbers for meals and dietary requirements, if any, a couple of weeks ahead, so please let Kristin or Mary know by 19 July what days you are planning to visit and what meals you would like. Payment can be made later.
Rev. Hanko will be preaching for the CPRC on 26 July. Prof. Huizinga will be preaching for us on 9 August. With most of the congregation at the BRF conference on 2 August, sermons on DVD will be shown.
PRC News: Faith PRC called Rev. Eriks (Unity, MI). Southwest PRC called Rev. D. Holstege (Wingham, ON). Rev. J. Holstege (First, MI) is considering the call to be minister-on-loan to Provident PRC in the Philippines. Heritage PRC will call from a trio of Cand. Feenstra, Rev. Maatman (Southeast, MI) and Rev. Smidstra (Holland, MI). Calvary PRC has a new trio of Rev. Engelsma (Crete, IL), Cand. Feenstra and Rev. D. Holstege.
Destroyed for Lack of What?
Rev. Tom Miersma, an article in the Standard Bearer, vol. 66, issue 11
The problem with the various Reformed denominations today including our own, according to many, particularly if you talk occasionally with those who go by the name “Reformed” or “Presbyterian” outside of our churches, is a kind of stuffy, dead orthodoxy. We are supposed to be afflicted with a kind of mouldy, old-fashioned conservatism or traditionalism, which is stifling, and which kills the life of the church and all enthusiasm or zeal. This is usually further equated with a quenching of the life of the Spirit and an inability to do the work of evangelism and missions. This opinion usually also has a corollary attached to it: that if you defend the truth and speak seriously or pointedly about error you are either lacking in love or worrying about doctrinal minutiae, fine points which are merely matters of hair-splitting or concerns about issues that are really only matters of semantics. All of this stuffy, dead orthodoxy is supposed to have very little to do with the real meaning, purpose, or calling of the church of Christ. It is after all irrelevant to the Christian life, or “my Christian life,” or so the criticism goes.
Now, a word of explanation is probably in order at this point. In the first place, the foregoing description is not a mere cartoon or caricature. One does not have to have that much contact outside our churches to hear opinions such as these. Sadly, one also hears these or similar words sometimes within our churches. Nor would one deny that dead orthodoxy, mere intellectualism, or mere traditionalism are serious errors to which the church of Christ is prone in sinful complacency. But in the second place, it must be pointed out that it is exactly the attitude which regards doctrine as a mere intellectual form, mere tradition, which gives rise to the opinions represented above. It is exactly at the point at which the doctrine of God’s Word ceases to live in our hearts, to move us because it is the truth of God and our salvation and becomes empty form, that it is in danger of being set aside for something that stimulates and excites the mind or emotions, or is attractive to itching ears as new and different. It is precisely the person who regards doctrine out of the spirit of dead orthodoxy, who regards it as basically irrelevant to actual Christian living, who is most wide open to doctrinal corruption. It is exactly such an individual who does not see any real need for purity, precision, and faithfulness in confession, other than traditionalism, who finds a heartfelt zeal for the truth a nuisance, a majoring in minors, and considers such an attitude to be “unloving.” He does so exactly because a love of the truth is not in his heart. Such dead orthodoxy leads to a formal traditionalism which has lost the foundation and which may therefore be altered, changed, and disregarded. The net result is usually increasing doctrinal ignorance through indifference while maintaining for a time an appearance of orthodoxy. A decline in any real understanding of the truth of God’s Word takes place, particularly in the generations, and the church is open to more blatant departures from the truth. The one who makes these charges is usually himself a product of dead orthodoxy.
It is exactly for this reason that this charge of dead orthodoxy is often levelled at what is in fact fervent, biblical, and principled Reformed orthodoxy. It is a charge of rigidity levelled against one who takes seriously God’s law, His Word, and the truth set forth in that Word and which we, confess from the heart. For the fact of the matter is that orthodoxy has never destroyed the church. The truth of God’s Word set forth in the Scriptures is the foundation of the church. It is that truth we confess in our creeds and confessions. That truth, though the church develops in its understanding of it, does not change from generation to generation or with the whims of theological fashion. It is the truth of the God who changes not.
Not doctrine, but doctrinal ignorance destroys the church. Not a faithful, orthodox confession of that truth from the heart, but a heart that forgets God’s law, either by dead orthodoxy and formalism or by apostasy. The trouble in many Reformed denominations of our day is not orthodoxy but the lack of it. The trouble lies with a man-centred approach to the truth which does not receive the truth of God out of the obedience of faith but would evaluate it out of man’s perception, in his judgment of its utility. If I am not moved by the truth, the doctrine, the practice taught in God’s Word or if it doesn’t produce the results I think it ought to have in the church or on the mission field, then it is the doctrine or the historic, biblical, Reformed practice which is judged to be at fault. The question whether, in fact, the problem lies with me doesn’t arise or, if it does, it is rejected. The question whether an unbelieving attitude, a sinful indifference, man-made notions of what ought to be, a real ignorance of Reformed doctrine and God’s Word or lack of understanding, a weakness of faith or unbelief, or a failure to regard God and His Word, seldom if ever seems to be considered the cause of the trouble, though it is the real cause of the trouble.
For, you see, a love of the truth, a fervent zeal for faithfulness in doctrine according to the Word of God, for orthodoxy in doctrine and practice, is never a cause of trouble. On the contrary, we read in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” Not doctrine, not a careful attention to God’s Word, His law, and its meaning, destroy the church, but lack of it. Not fine distinctions concerning the truth of God and His will, the fine points of doctrine and practice, but the lack of them, a spiritual indifference to God’s Word, an empty shallow, superficial treatment of God’s Word and its doctrine, a forgetting of His Word, that destroys the church. That is a matter of both the head, knowledge, and the heart, remembrance, for it is a matter of the assured knowledge of faith from which the confidence of faith also springs.
Where a heartfelt knowledge of the truth is rejected, God also judges. It is thus that God speaks to Israel, “Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me.” An apostate people cannot serve God or offer unto Him the sacrifice of praise. Where God’s will and His Word are forgotten, God also says, “I will forget thy children.” Doctrine and life are inseparable. Where the truth of the Word of God is set aside, neglected with indifference, or ignored through unbelief, where instruction ceases because there is no love for it in the heart, there also God cuts off in judgment the generations to come. For it is by faith that we stand from generation to generation.
Nor is that difficult to understand God’s work through means, means of grace. It is by the means of grace, the teaching, preaching, and instruction in sound doctrine that God works faith in our hearts, keeps and preserves us as His people and gathers His church from generation to generation. The means of grace have as their content the truth of the gospel, the Word of God, the doctrine both of salvation and godliness, and by it God works the knowledge of faith and confidence. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge …” The trouble with many Reformed churches and other denominations of our day is not stuffy old doctrine but the lack of doctrine and knowledge, spiritual ignorance and an unbelieving attitude which regards doctrine as stuffy and old-fashioned. It is destroying what was once called Reformed on every side of us like a rampant spiritual disease. Neither is it a virus to which we as Protestant Reformed Churches are immune. God has given us a rich heritage of the truth of His Word. This is a gift of His grace and a blessing whose proper spiritual fruit is a gratitude which shows itself in thankfulness for His blessings and that concretely, by a fervent love and knowledge of the truth. This love will manifest itself in a delight in the preaching of God’s Word, a zeal to instruct our children in that truth in catechism, and in a faithful attendance and participation in our Bible studies.
