Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 22 November, 2020
“O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness:
fear before him, all the earth” (Ps. 96:9)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
Choose You This Day! [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Joshua 24
Text: Joshua 24:14-15
I. The Various Choices
II. The Godly Example
III. The Further Exchanges
Psalms: 116:1-8; 128:1-6
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
The Departure of Jehovah’s Glory (5)
A Gracious Heart Transplant [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 11:14-25
Text: Ezekiel 11:14-25
I. What It Is
II. What It Effects
III. What It Realizes
Psalms: 100:1-5; 37:29-37
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
Prof. Robert Decker on Joshua 24:15: “Today, just as really as in Joshua’s day, we have only two alternatives: God or idolatry. The idols of today may not be of wood or stone, but they are just as real as those of the Amorites! To mention just a very few: there are idols of pleasure, money, sports, science. God or idols—that is the choice. Put in the New Testament terms, the alternatives are: light or darkness, righteousness or sin, Christ or Belial, the narrow way or the broad, God or the devil, the treasures of the world or affliction for a season with the people of God, the world or the Kingdom of Heaven, life or death, heaven or hell, God or mammon … What Joshua is saying, then, is that we will be in God’s employ. We will deny ourselves and give ourselves totally to His service.”
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
New Standard Bearers (2 issues) and Beacon Lights are available for subscribers. Those Standard Bearer subscribers who do not automatically renew this subscription by credit card will receive an invoice inside volume 97, no. 4. You can either pay the RFPA on-line or give Rev. Stewart £32 for him to pay for you.
Our pastor’s letter to the PRC is also available today.
Catechism classes:
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)
Tuesday, 12:30 PM: James, Jason & Sebastian (Juniors OT)
Tuesday Bible study at 11 AM will meet at church to study I John in our consideration of regeneration in connection with assurance.
Belgic Confession Class meets this Wednesday at 7:45 PM to continue with Article 37 looking at Scripture’s references to the two ages.
Saturday night Bible study will meet on-line by video at 8 PM this Saturday to discuss Hebrews 3:1-6.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. Bruinsma is entitled, “Thanksgiving Unto God’s Glory” (I Cor. 4:15).
The civil government is bringing in a 2-week lockdown to limit the spread of Covid-19, beginning this Friday. During this time, our worship services will be live-streamed, and our Bible studies and catechism classes will be cancelled. May the Lord give us patience and peace in these trying circumstances.
Offerings: General Fund: £778.07. Donation: £10,388.07 (USA).
Translation Addition: 1 Spanish.
Remember in prayer the PRC in the Philippines and particularly Provident PRC of Marikina City. The recent typhoon Ulysses brought 10 inches of rain in 14 hours. Many church member homes were flooded to the second floor and the church building was flooded to waist height on the 2nd floor.
Regeneration
Herman Hoeksema in the Standard Bearer, Volume 38, Issue 3
… I will try to define the subject of regeneration. And I do this as follows. Regeneration, in the deepest and narrowest sense of the word is that saving act of the Triune God whereby He takes hold of the elect, who is in himself dead in sins and trespasses, through the Spirit of Christ, translates him in the very depth of his existence, and infuses into him the principle of the new life which is in Christ Jesus, thus translating him in principle out of death into life and placing him in abiding communion with the body of Christ. That, therefore, would be my definition of the important doctrine of regeneration. It consists in the granting and infusing of new spiritual qualities. It is the circumcision of the heart. It takes place not in the consciousness of the sinner as such, but in the very depth of his heart, in the center of his spiritual, ethical life, from which are the issues of life. We may also say that regeneration in the narrowest sense of the word is the implanting of the seed of the new life as it is not yet sprouted into the consciousness of the sinner. We may even say, on the basis of Scripture, that regeneration is a wholly new creation, through which in principle the sinner becomes a wholly new man in Christ Jesus, so that principally old things have passed away and all things have become new. The Holy Scriptures speak of regeneration in this sense when they refer to an incorruptible seed, out of which regeneration develops, through the Word of God in the consciousness of the sinner. From the point of view of this new principle of life, in regeneration the new man is principally entirely delivered from sin. He cannot sin, according to the apostle John in I John 3:9. He cannot sin, according to the apostle in this verse, “because his seed remaineth in him.” Of this regeneration the Saviour also speaks to Nicodemus in the well-known words: “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And when Nicodemus approaches the Lord with the question, “How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” Jesus again speaks of the new birth as follows: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:3-5). Now then, explaining the definition I just made, we can find the following elements in the grace of regeneration. 1) First of all, regeneration is exclusively a work of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, through the Spirit of Christ. Man, therefore, is in deepest principle wholly passive in the work of regeneration. In it God only acts; man does not. 2) Regeneration, in that narrowest sense of the word, takes place in the depth of man’s existence, or, if you wish, in the depth of a man’s heart. It is a new birth, a being born from the very beginning. It is a new creation, and a regenerated man is a new creature. 3) It precedes all mediate works of God in us. For without this work of regeneration, according to the words of Jesus just quoted, one cannot even see the kingdom of God. It is an immediate work of God, an act of the Spirit in our hearts, without us, in which, therefore, we are entirely inactive. 4) This new creation, however, does not mean that man through regeneration is essentially changed. In regeneration he does not receive another soul in the essential sense of the word. Regeneration has a spiritual, ethical character. Through that work of God the sinner is translated from death into life. 5) Finally, regeneration consists of an infusing, or implanting, of the seed of a new life, of the principle of the life of God as it exists first in the exalted Christ, and from Him flows through the Spirit of Christ into the church and into the heart of the sinner. It is implanted out of Christ into the heart of the sinner, into the center of his existence from a spiritual, ethical point of view.
From all this it ought to be evident that regeneration is exclusively a work of God, wherein man is strictly passive, in the sense that he does not and cannot cooperate in his own rebirth. In the deepest sense regeneration is not even as such a matter of his own experience, seeing that it does not take place within, but below the threshold of his consciousness. It is therefore independent of age, and it can take place in the smallest infant. We may even take for granted that in the sphere of the covenant of God He usually regenerates His elect children from infancy.
… the rebirth; or regeneration cannot by any means be established as the work of man. This impossibility is already implied in the term “rebirth” or “regeneration.” No more than any man can be the efficient cause of his own natural birth out of the flesh, no more can he be the efficient cause of his own spiritual birth and spiritual conception. This too is implied in his natural condition. When he loves the darkness rather than the light, he certainly will not make any attempt to come to the light. He will rather avoid it. He despises and hates the light. He loves darkness rather than the light. When by nature he is in such a condition that he cannot hear the speech of Christ, he certainly is by his very deafness excluded from all influences from without that could induce him to enter into the kingdom of God. When the minding of the flesh, of which he is born by nature, is always enmity against God, so that he is not subject to the law of God, and cannot be subject to that law, it is plain that his very heart is closed against the influences of the love of God in Christ Jesus. For the natural man there is no hope of improvement or reformation in the way of education or in the way of a better example or in the way of exercising himself in the discipline of external virtue. In that way he will never enter into the kingdom of God.
“But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-6). What is impossible with man is possible with God. He is able to create in man a clean heart and to renew in him a right spirit (cf. Ps. 51:10). He is able to circumcise the heart of His people and their seed, in order that they should love the Lord their God with all their existence and life (cf. Deut. 30:6). He is capable and willing to give them a heart to know the Lord; and then they will be His people, and He will be their God; and they will turn to Him with their whole heart (cf. Jer. 24:7). He is willing to give them one heart and put a new spirit within them, and is willing to take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh, in order that they may walk in His statutes and keep His ordinances, to do them. And so they will be His people; and He will be their God (cf. Eze. 11:19-20). He will sprinkle upon them clean water, so that they shall be clean from all their filthiness and from all their corruption. He will give them a new heart and put a new spirit within them; and He will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh. And thus they shall walk in His statutes, and keep His judgments, to do them (cf. Eze. 36:25-27).
This is what the apostles preached when they went with the gospel of the kingdom into a world of darkness. They emphasized the necessity of this radical change through which a man is translated first in the very depth of his inward existence, and then also in his entire conscious life and public walk in the midst of the world …
