Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 10 May, 2020
“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies,
kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering …” (Col. 3:12)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
The Kingdom of God Versus the Kingdoms of Man (16)
Belshazzar’s Drinking Party [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Esther 1
Text: Daniel 5:1-4
I. The King’s Historicity
II. The Party’s Character
III. The Spiritual Lessons
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
The Kingdom of God Versus the Kingdoms of Man (17)
The Writing on the Wall [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Daniel 5:1-16
Text: Daniel 5:5-9
I. What Belshazzar Saw
II. How Belshazzar Reacted
III. What Belshazzar Did
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
Joyce Baldwin on King Belshazzar: “Three chapters of Daniel are dated by reference to this ruler, and yet, as any king-list of Babylon shows, there was no king of this name in the Neo-Babylonian period. Bel-sar-usur as his name transliterates from cuneiform, was the eldest son of the last king of Babylon, Nabonidus, and is frequently named on the contract tablets because as crown prince he acted as regent in the absence of his father. Since Nabonidus was campaigning in Arabia for as long as ten years, and did not return until after the fall of Babylon, Belshazzar was in effect king there for more than half of the seventeen-year reign. Moreover his father ‘entrusted the kingship to him’ and Belshazzar’s name appears associated with that of the king in the oath formulae of that reign. Since this happened to no other king’s son in all Babylonian history, Belshazzar is shown to have been king in all but name. There is evidence that he received royal dues and exercised kingly prerogatives, but he could not bear the title king in the official records because, while his father lived, he could not perform the New Year Festival rite of ‘taking the hands of Bel’, an act carried out only by the king. Since Belshazzar was to all intents and purposes king, it is pedantic to accuse the writer of the book of Daniel of inaccuracy in calling him ‘Belshazzar the king’. This is especially out of place in the light of Daniel 5:7, 16, 29, where the reward for reading the mysterious writing was to be made third ruler in the kingdom. Evidently the writer knew that Belshazzar was second to his father Nabonidus” (Daniel, pp. 21-22).
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
In God’s goodness, Ariana gave birth to a baby girl, Denisa, on Tuesday morning and Anga gave birth to a baby girl, Lara Zoe, on Wednesday evening. Both mothers and daughters are home and doing well.
Rev. Stewart (via phone link) will discuss regeneration on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio this Thursday from 4-6 PM (Eastern Time in the US) or 9-11 PM (GMT) (www.ironsharpensironradio.com).
Both the Standard Bearer and the Beacon Lights are available on-line: www.rfpa.org/pages/the-standard-bearer and www.beaconlights.org.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. R. Kleyn is entitled, “The Praiseworthy Woman” (Prov. 30:10-31).
The next Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, 1 June, at 7:30 PM on Zoom.
Offerings: General Fund: £1,025. Donation: £600 (England).
Translation Additions: 3 Indonesian, 2 Hungarian and 1 Italian.
PRC News: Rev. Guichelaar received the call from Edmonton PRC. Kalamazoo PRC will call from a trio of Revs. Haak (Georgetown, MI), Key (Loveland, CO) and R. Kleyn (Spokane, WA).
Contentment
Rev. Cornelius Hanko (Standard Bearer, vol. 69, issue 19)
Contentment. A spiritual virtue. It is the peace of heart and mind that remains unperturbed in the midst of all the trials and hardship that we may meet on our earthly pilgrimage. It is the assurance that we have everything that can be desired.
The very opposite is covetousness, which is the greedy desire for things that we do not have or possibly for things God has entrusted to our neighbour.
Israel was guilty of the sin of covetousness when they craved the onions, the garlic and the leeks they had enjoyed in the past, and which were still being enjoyed by the Egyptians.
Scripture calls this sin the root of all evil. All other sins—slander, stealing, adultery, murder and so many more—find their source in this evil.
Think of the greed that creates jealousies, discontent, grumblings and complaints about the many trials of life.
A grasping, avaricious person is never satisfied but always craves more. Even the rich fool of the parable, who boasts of “my fields,” “my grain” and “my barns,” in which he expects to find contentment for many years, still talks of more grain and bigger barns.
Contentment is the opposite of all that but it is the opposite of more besides. It is the direct opposite of worry. The word “worry” we often associate with a dog taking a rat by the neck and worrying it, shaking it back and forth until its neck is broken. Worry creates a troubled, tempest-tossed soul that can find no rest. Its companion, anxiety, can lead to frustration and despair. That is a far cry from contentment.
Nor does contentment have anything in common with cold stoicism. A stoic proudly boasts, “I have will power, I can take it.” He refuses to flinch or cry out in severest trials. He may seem ever so strong, yet he trusts in Self. The peace of contentment he can never know.
Contentment is a gift, a spiritual gift, attained only by a living faith in the God of our salvation. It is the knowledge that God is God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Almighty Sustainer, who upholds and governs all things by His sovereign power, who supplies us with all things necessary for time and eternity.
More than that, it is the assurance that this God is my God now and forever. He loves me with an eternal love in sovereign mercy. Why me and not the thousands upon thousands who perish in their sins? I’ll never know, except that I do know that it is His sovereign good pleasure that fills me with humble self surrender.
This God is the God of my salvation in Jesus Christ. He did not spare His only begotten Son but gave Him over unto the accursed death of hell to save me from my sins. I stand amazed at the thought that God would rather give His Son unto the horrible death of utter isolation in hell than to let me, along with all His people, perish in our sins.
He entrusts to me His holy Word, and gives me eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. He makes me a citizen of that kingdom, an heir of eternal life, with a foretaste of that eternal blessedness in my heart, a peace that passes all understanding, a joy unspeakable and full of glory.
That peace and joy give me contentment. That was Paul’s confession. Is it yours?
Contentment implies a certain need. It is in connection with his own daily need that Paul made this confession. In fact, the apostle wrote the epistle to the Philippians toward the close of his life, while he was a prisoner at Rome, where he would die a martyr’s death …
Indeed, the apostle always had a need to one degree or another. Yet he had learned, in whatsoever state he might find himself, to be content.
We also have need. In fact, we always have many needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, companionship, a place in our families, a place in the church, labour for our hands, medicine for our ailments and many, many more.
In these affluent times, our carnal inclination would be to add many luxuries to that list, as necessities to make our life complete. But our Lord has taught us to sum up all our needs in a few words: Bread for today. That teaches us to be satisfied with the mere necessities and at the same time to let God determine those necessities. We learn to say, “Thy will be done.” We place ourselves in Father’s care, for He knows best. That is the basis for true contentment.
The apostle speaks of being content “in whatsoever state I am.”
Contentment is a spiritual attitude but it is more than that. It is the ability to stand unmoved, unshaken in every crisis that we meet along life’s way, to persevere with a peace of heart and mind that exceeds our fondest imagination.
… The apostle [Paul] reached a point in his life that he was sure that nothing, absolutely nothing, could shake his faith, could deprive him of the peace that passes all understanding, the assurance that, come what may, all is well. It was in that personal confidence that he wrote in his victor’s song, Romans 8, “Nay, but in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
“I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”
You and I might hesitate to say this, because it sounds so much like an idle boast. Yet boasting was far from the mind of the apostle. On the contrary, he was filled with deepest humility. He might have gone on to say, “I have the best of teachers, none other than the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who delivers me from my sinful self. I was taught under the most trying circumstances; my training was in the way of trials and afflictions, which some might refer to as ‘the school of hard knocks.’ I was not the most willing student, but my Instructor never failed me.”
Blessed gift! Have you learned it? Do you seek it?
You may say, “But Paul never suffered what I suffer; he never faced what I must face.” Were you unjustly cast into prison? Were you beaten five times over with forty stripes? Were you in peril of your life over and over again? Or did you suffer any of those trials that Paul writes about in II Corinthians 12?
When we lay our cross next to the crosses of others and find out what each cross implies, we would not trade our cross for any other but take ours up again quite willingly.
We do so the more willingly, because we know that the path we tread, as difficult as it may seem, is the path that God has planned from all eternity to be the one and only way that can bring us to glory. It is our way, because it is God’s way for us. And He knows best.
Along with all the other wonderful gifts of grace—rebirth, daily conversion, faith, assurance of our righteousness before God, growing in grace, perseverance throughout all the trials of life—God also gives that amazing gift, which He alone can bestow in the human heart: the gift of contentment!
Blessed gift! Attained only through godliness and prayer.
We look back upon our way and we say, “I have fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord” (Ps. 27:13-14).
