Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 6 June, 2021
“O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness:
fear before him, all the earth” (Ps. 96:9)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
John’s Witness of Christ’s Resurrection (2)
Christ Appears to Mary Magdalene [youtube]
Scripture Reading: John 20:1-25
Text: John 20:11-18
I. Why Do You Weep, Mary?
II. Whom Do You Seek, Mary?
III. Why Did God Choose Mary?
Psalms: 147:1-8; 30:1-7
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
Praying for the Forgiveness of Sins [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Psalm 32
Text: Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 51
I. The Hindrances
II. The Petition
III. The Resolution
Psalms: 66:1-7; 25:6-12
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
Quote to Consider
Herman Hoeksema on Lord’s Day 51: “We ask [God] ‘to forgive’ our debts. The Greek word translated as ‘forgive’ means to ‘send away, to dismiss.’ This denotes that forgiveness is something very wonderful and that the prayer for forgiveness is a bold and amazing request. It means that we implore God to dismiss or to cancel our debts. This implies that he dismisses them from his heart and mind; he will never recall them or mention them again; he completely obliterates them from his book of remembrance; and he so blots them out that they cannot be found. When we implore God never to impute our sins to us anymore, this means that God will never hold it against us that we have always missed the mark, always trampled his glory underfoot, and always violated his good commandments. Still more, in the judgment of God we cannot appear as neutral persons. Therefore the prayer for the forgiveness of sins implies something positive. It means not only that God will not impute our sins unto us and that he cancels our debts, but also that he will judge us righteous and so consider us as if we had always been nothing but obedient children who never once transgressed his holy law” (The Perfect Prayer, pp. 155-156).
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
New Standard Bearers and Beacon Lights are available for subscribers. Volume 1 of the superb new church history book, Christ and His Church Through the Ages, by Prof. Hanko is also available for RFPA book club members.
Catechism classes:
Monday, 5:00 PM: Jason & Sebastian (Juniors OT)
Monday, 5:45 PM: Eleanora, Hannah, Jorja, Penelope & Somaya (Beginners OT)
Monday, 6:30 PM: Angelica, Bradley, Josh, Samuel & Taylor (Seniors OT)
Monday, 7:15 PM: Alex, Jacob & Nathan (Essentials)
The Council meets tomorrow night at 8 PM at church.
Tuesday Bible study at 11 AM will meet upstairs to discuss the relationship between faith and works.
Saturday night Bible study will meet this week at church and on-line to consider Hebrews 9:23-10:10.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. R. Kleyn is entitled, “The Only Unforgiveable Sin” (Mark 3:28-30).
Offerings: General Fund: £535. Donations: £200 (England), £100 (N. Ireland), £100 (Malaysia), £30 (Scotland).
Translation Addition: 1 Polish.
PRC News: Prof. Dykstra accepted the call to Byron Center PRC. The PRC Synod begins this Tuesday with part of its work being the examining of Josiah Tan, a seminary student of the CERC in Singapore.
A Covenant Home: What Is It Like? (1)
Herman Hanko (an excerpt from the Standard Bearer, vol. 60, issue 11)
Some years ago, on a visit to the South, I found myself in front of a home, which had, hanging over the front door, a sign upon which were the words: “In This House Christ Is King.” I found this intriguing and immediately thought of the firm statement of Joshua to Israel just before his death: “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
It would be equally appropriate for a covenant family to have a sign hanging over the front door of its home, with the words engraved on it: “This Home Is a Covenant Home.” Such a family would want all who visited it to understand that the home they were about to enter was a special kind of home, a unique home, a home which differed from countless thousands of homes throughout the country or the world.
If you saw such a sign appropriately fixed above the front door of a house, what precisely would you expect to find inside? Would you enter with some firm ideas concerning what to expect? Or would you say, “I have no idea of what a covenant home is like.”
What is a covenant home? This is not, of course, such an easy question to answer. There are at least two reasons why it is so difficult. One reason is that, while it is relatively easy to describe an ideal covenant home, no home ever reaches that ideal in this world of sin. An ideal covenant home would be a home in which all the members of the family walk faithfully and without sin in the ways of God’s covenant. You won’t find such a home anywhere. It might be worth our while, sometime, to describe such a home, for it is certainly an ideal for which we ought always to strive. But it is not attainable, that much we know.
The second reason why this question is so difficult to answer is that a covenant home has a certain “atmosphere” about it which, while it immediately tells you that it is indeed a covenant home, nevertheless defies analysis and escapes description. Anyone can tell when he is in a covenant home and when he is in a worldly home. But when pressed to explain precisely why the one home differs so radically from the other, he is hard-pressed to explain this difference. He might finally say, “Well, there is just something about it.”
Nevertheless, it is certainly worth our while to try to explain the inexplicable, to try to define the indefinable, to try to describe that which cannot readily be described. Our efforts are worthwhile simply because God’s covenant people want covenant homes. We must, of course, take our starting point with the truth that a covenant home is a place where covenant people, covenant parents with covenant children, live. This goes without saying. But it is important to understand that these covenant parents with covenant children are what they are because God has Himself established His own covenant of grace with them. They are His covenant people. This is important because God’s covenant people are often described in Scripture in terms of a family. The whole church is a covenant family. And the Scriptures do this because our covenant families are earthly representations of the great family of the elect. Our covenant homes are, therefore, covenant homes to the extent that they reflect, in their life, the covenant family of God.
There are various aspects to this, which we can briefly mention. The relation between God and His people in Christ is often pictured in Scripture in terms of a marriage relation—and this is a covenant relation. So, a covenant home is one where husband and wife, in their life together, reflect the relation between Christ and His Church. The people of God are often described in terms of being God’s sons and daughters, i.e., God’s children whom He has begotten again by the wonder of regeneration. In that family God is emphatically Father, who assumes all responsibility for the care of His children, who makes a will in which His children are His heirs, heirs of the great treasures of salvation which He gives to them at the end of time. In that same family, Christ is the Elder Brother, the Firstborn, the One who opens the way through sin and the grave into the blessedness of heaven for all His brethren to follow, who has all the rights and privileges of the Firstborn because He is the Heir of the birthright of the Father. It is even a home in which there is much eating and drinking, much joy and laughter, much fellowship and happiness, as the family gathers around the table to celebrate the great feast of the marriage supper of the Lamb. But it is also a family in which there is great need for instruction, for discipline, for warning and admonition, for chastisement, for encouragement, for comfort. It is that kind of a family because our Father knows that we are little children who need all these things in our “naughtiness,” our struggles, our weaknesses, our sins.
A covenant home is, therefore, a home in which one finds a kind of picture of heaven’s family, a reflection of the family of the church, a representation both of what things are like now while the church is in the world and what things will be like when the church is in heaven.
What, then, specifically, does one find when one enters the door over which hangs the sign: “This Home Is a Covenant Home”? What does one find if he hangs his hat and stays for a while in a home such as this?
Well, for one thing, the house has very little, if anything, to do with it. I have been in palatial houses which were not even homes, much less covenant homes. There are plenty of these in the world: houses costing tens of thousands of dollars, furnished with great taste and costly luxuries, staffed by many servants, with closets filled with many clothes, with new and powerful cars in the garage, with bars and recreation rooms, dens and fireplaces, art and tasteful decorations abounding; but such places are not necessarily homes. I have also been in very humble dwellings, in my childhood, in places where there was not even electricity, running water, inside toilets or the conveniences of modern life; places where a family lived in great poverty and crowded conditions, but a home for all that. One of Solomon’s proverbs sums it all up: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith” (Prov. 15:17). One cannot determine whether a home is a covenant home by the house. (to be continued …)
