CPRC Bulletin – June 21, 2026
Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 21 June, 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
The Prophecy of Habakkuk (4)
Jehovah’s Description of the Babylonian Forces [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 28:36-52
Text: Habakkuk 1:7-11
I. Militarily Considered
II. Spiritually Considered
III. Practically Considered
Psalms: 84:1-6; 25:15-22; 10:13-18; 137:1-9
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
Preparatory
The Gift of the Holy Spirit [youtube]
Scripture Reading: I Corinthians 2
Text: Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 20
I. In the History of Redemption
II. In the Application of Salvation
III. In the Gifts to Christians
Psalms: 104:28-33; 26:1-7; 51:6-13; 143:7-10 (AOS)
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 Calvin: “By saying that the Chaldeans would be terrible and dreadful, he praises not their virtues; but, as I have already reminded you, he shows that they would be prepared to do his service by executing his vengeance: and he so regulated his judgment, that he used their cruelty for a good purpose. Thus we see that the worst of men are in God’s hand, as Satan is, who is their head; and yet that God is not implicated in their wickedness, as some insane men maintain; for they say—That if God governs the world by his providence, he becomes thus the author of sin, and men’s sins are to be ascribed to him. But Scripture teaches us far otherwise—that the wicked are led here and there by the hidden power of God, and that yet the fault is in them, when they do anything in a deceitful and cruel manner, and that God ever remains just, whatever use he may make of instruments, yea, the very worst” (Comm. on Hab. 1:7).
O. Palmer Robertson: “The Almighty God, who is jealous that he alone be acknowledged as God, shall raise up a nation whose stated policy builds on the premise that it is totally self-determining. This nation shall not look to God for a criterion for righteousness; it shall determine its own standard of truth. Even its own honor (lit., ‘its lifting up’) it shall accord to itself. No glory for its accomplishments shall go up to God. Only its own name shall be its concern. Like Nietzsche’s Ubermensch, G. B. Shaw’s Superman, Goethe’s Prometheus, and W. W. Henley’s Invictus, this great memorial to self shall declare boldly its lack of indebtedness to anyone but itself” (The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, p. 152).
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
This evening will be a preparatory service with the view to partaking of the Lord’s Supper on 28 June.
Tuesday Bible study meets this week at 11 AM to consider Paul’s missionary report at the end of his first missionary journey, etc.
Family visitation (Titus 2-3) continues this week:
Wednesday – 1 PM: Tommy; 2 PM: Hilary; 3 PM: Trevor
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. Spriensma is entitled “O Zion, That Bringest Good Tidings” (Isa. 40:9).
BRF Conference: Castlewellan is charging £12/day for day visitors plus £9/meal or you can book in for the whole week as a visitor and get all your meals for £155. Please let Kristin or Mary know if and when you are planning to visit the conference.
Offerings: £2,603.80.
Translation Additions: 1 Polish and 2 Urdu (videos from the Pakistan conference on “The Doctrine of God”).
I Have Refrained My Feet (2)
Herman Hoeksema, an article in the Standard Bearer, vol. 21, issue 20
“I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word” (Ps. 119:101).
Old things are passed away!
No longer is he a slave of sin, chained with a thousand shackles from within, acknowledging corruption as his master and lord.
And so, though he is surrounded by powers of darkness that would lead him astray, he keeps the way of God’s precepts.
Though often he may appear to suffer defeat, he has the victory! He restrains his feet!
Wonderful testimony!
Blessed consciousness!
For blessed is the man that is able to say: I have refrained my feet from every evil way!
Blessed is he, who every day, as another stretch of the way is finished, and another stage of the spiritual battle is over, and he lays down his weary head to rest, may testify: I have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith! …
I have refrained my feet!
For, let us note that this is the position of the psalmist as he expresses it in this confession. He does not look forward to the future, as he did in the ninety-third verse of this same psalm; he looks back upon the way travelled. He does not make a vow that he will keep the precepts of the Lord, or express confidence that he will continue in the way of Jehovah, as he did there; he declares what thus far he had done: he had fought the battle and won.
And that is blessedness indeed!
Blessedness, mark you well? not because he is glorying in his own accomplishments, and expects others to glory with him in the work of man, Such is the boast of the world, and it is vain and wretched precisely because God is not in it. Not so the poet. It is not of his own power and goodness and faithfulness that he speaks. He is extolling the Word of God. That Word of God he loves. It is sweet to his taste. In it he has his delight. To know that Word, to appropriate it, to trust in it, to keep it, is his delight. And he understands clearly that this is all of grace. It is not of himself that he loves the law of Jehovah. The very inclination of his flesh, the motions of sin that are in his members, the fact that his feet are always inclined to slip into the ways of evil, remind him constantly of the truth that by nature he is only an enemy of God, dead in trespasses and sin, standing in enmity against God and against His precepts, ignorant and foolish, and loving the darkness rather than the light. But the Word of Jehovah quickened him …
And that he now loves the law of the Lord is all of grace!
Of grace it is, too, that he refrained his feet from every evil way! That he is conscious of this, is evident also from the following verse: “I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me!”
Not his own work, but God’s work in and through him; not his own goodness, but God’s grace; not his own faithfulness, but God’s unchangeable Word he extols.
It is to him a manifestation of grace, of the marvellous power and efficacy of the Word of God, the same Word that quickened him, that he refrained his feet from every evil way!
And note the all-comprehensiveness of the statement: from every evil way.
O, the poet does not intend to speak with the boast of the perfectionist. The meaning of his declaration is not that day by day, and week after week, and year after year, he had lived without ever committing sin, and that he had never felt the need of God’s forgiving mercy. He does not mean that he never stumbled in the way. For “who shall understand his errors?” That frequently he did what he would not was the experience of the poet as it was of Paul, and as it is of every child of God in this world.
But he had fought the battle!
And he had not slipped into any evil way so as to live in it. When he stumbled he rose again. When he departed he returned. When evil tempted him he hated it. When he sinned he confessed and found mercy and forgiveness. Always he had refrained his feet from walking in any evil way.
Every evil way he had hated.
The statement allows for no exceptions. Nor could it. For it is not possible that we refrain our feet from some sins, while we walk in others. Nor does the love of God and of His law make such a distinction. If that love is in our hearts, we hate sin radically, hate it because it is sin, and the result will be that we refrain our feet from every evil way. And although believers, even the very holiest of them, have but a small beginning of the new obedience, this beginning is a principle, and by it they are so governed that it is their delight to walk, not only according to some, but according to all God’s commandments!
And in the way of His commandments there is joy and peace, fellowship with God …
In that way there are pleasures for evermore!
Walking in that way, we taste that the Lord is good!
Blessed assurance! Glorious fruit!
That I might keep thy word!
To refrain our feet from every evil way is the indispensable requisite unto the keeping of the Word of God, and the latter is the blessed fruit that is attainable only in the way of the former.
Thus I would understand the declaration of the psalmist.
He does not, in this second part of the verse, merely declare positively what he had already declared negatively in the first part, as if he meant to say: I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might obey thy commandments. Rather does he conceive of the whole Word of God in all its riches and power of salvation and promise of life and blessing, and not simply from its aspect of Jehovah’s commandment to him. For that reason, he employs the widest term, and speaks simply of the Word of God. That Word he loves. It is the Word of salvation, of forgiveness, of redemption, of fellowship with the living God, of grace and mercy and eternal life.
That Word he would keep, continue to hear, to believe, to appropriate.
In the sphere of that Word of life and salvation, he would fain continue to live. Upon its blessed hope he would continue to lay hold.
And this strong desire motivated him in the battle against sin.
For clearly he realized that in the way of sin that blessed Word of salvation and glory and fellowship with God would forsake him.
In the way of sanctification we lay hold on the Word of life!
Teach us, O Lord, to refrain our feet, that we may keep Thy Word!
And rejoice in Thy salvation!