Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
Ballymena
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 22 October, 2006
“That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:6)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM
Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 38; Acts 20:7
I. The Worship Service
II. The Raising of Eutychus
Psalms: 92:1-2, 12-15; 67:1-7; 146:1-8; 103:1-7
Evening Service – 6:00 PM
Reformed Courtship (4)
Psalm 78:63
I. At the Wedding of Their Daughters
II. Before the Wedding of Their Daughters
Psalms: 45:6-11; 68:1-6; 78:1-6; 78:7-11, 63-65
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: https://cprc.co.uk/live-streaming/
CPRC YouTube: www.youtube.com/cprcni
CPRC Facebook: www.facebook.com/CovenantPRC
Quotes to Consider:
John Calvin on Acts 20:7: “And the zeal of them all is worth the noting, in that it was not trouble to Paul to teach until midnight, though he were ready to take his journey [the next day], neither were the rest weary of learning. For he had no other cause to continue his speech so long, save only the desire and attentiveness of his auditory.”
Jay E. Adams: “Let us look at the responsibility that has been laid on the husband. As a Christian, he is responsible to God to head up his family … the husband is responsible for everything that happens in his home. Nothing must go on in the home of which he is not aware. Nothing should happen to his children over which he does not have surveillance and, indeed, the final say” (Christian Living in the Home, p. 90).
Announcements (subject to God’s will):
The 2006 PRC Acts of Synod are on the back table.
Catechism: Monday, 7 PM with the Campbells at the manse. Tuesday, 7 PM at the Murrays. Thursday, 7 PM at the Hamills.
Our Mid-Week Bible Study is Wednesday at 7:45 PM at the manse. We will consider the proper understanding of our baptismal form in connection with the Unconditional Covenant.
The Reformed Witness Hour next Lord’s Day, 29 October (8:30-9:00 AM, on Gospel 846MW) is entitled “Justification By Faith is the End of All Boasting” (Rom. 3:27-28).
Upcoming Lectures: Tuesday, 31 Oct., Limerick, “God’s Unconditional Covenant” Friday, 17 Nov., S. Wales, “God’s Unconditional Covenant” Friday, 12 Jan., S. Wales, subject to be decided.
Last Week’s Offerings: General Fund – £1155.50. Donations: £50 (Building Fund), £5 (CR News).
Website: Three new articles in Portuguese have been added to our website.
Anyone interested in ordering a PRC Missions 2007 Calendar, see the sign-up sheet on the back table.
PRC News: A delegation from Doon PRC and the Foreign Mission Committee plans to visit the mission field in the Philippines next month. They plan to arrive on Thursday, Nov. 9, hear confessions of faith on Friday and Saturday, obtain the approval of Doon’s consistory on the evening of the 11th. The next week includes observing the Pastors’ Training class and a trip to Gabaldon. The public confessions and baptisms are scheduled for the first service on the 19th. In the second service is planned the organisation of the group into an instituted congregation with the installation of office-bearers—a very busy and wonderful day. Let us thank our gracious God for bringing the field to this point and ask for His blessing on the work of the delegation.
Rev. John Heys on keeping the Sabbath day holy:
“An holy day is one set aside by God wherein we may perform spiritual work unhindered by the labour and toil of our natural lives. It is a day, and that is particularly true of the sabbath as an holy day, given him that he may enter into and enjoy the things of God’s kingdom …
Where do you stand as far as the Sabbath is concerned? Or better still, where are you found standing on the Sabbath?
How sincerely can we say with the psalmist, ‘I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord’? If we had to write a Psalm and express our true disposition of mind, would we not write ‘I was glad when it was all over, that I might return home?’ Are we not like the little boy who was asked how he liked church, when he returned from his first church service, and replied, ‘The singing was good, but the commercial was too long?’ And then when the service is over, the whole long afternoon and evening is made for man to use for the earthly pursuits and lusts of man?
Here is one commandment which, by deeds, if we dare not say it with the lips, we consider outdated, not relevant to our times, old-fashioned and meant for another generation gone by. Although God with His finger cut the words also of this commandment into the granite to signify that which time would not wear away, man has succeeded, at least in his mind, to wear the granite smooth so that the fourth commandment is gone! … And it is so often because we have our eyes on the world and the things of the world, which in I John 2:15-17 we are warned not to love, that we have (?) to travel and perform deeds on the Sabbath, lest these material things and our pursuit of them suffer.
No, during the week we do not have the time. During the week it would cost us something of this earth’s goods. And so the Sabbath becomes the holiday that our flesh would not let us take during the week. The holy day becomes a few moments of hurried worship cut short for the sake of the flesh, and the day becomes for the greater part—if indeed our minds even during the short service were not already on what we intend to do for the flesh—an holiday! Meanwhile God has not changed, Who declares, ‘Love ME! And show this on the Sabbath!’
We are not interested in becoming legalistic. Do not bring up that accusation. But we are emphatic when we say that our Sabbath conduct reveals the measure of our love of God. We are stressing the point that a child of God is pictured in Psalm 27:4—and then a New Testament child as well as an Old Testament child of God—when the psalmist says, ‘One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple’…
But do we mean it and do we live that way? Does our action and attitude on the Sabbath as well as during the week show this? Without treating the text itself but using it to bring out the point expressed in our theme above, there are elements here that need stressing. The psalmist speaks of ONE request; and that means that all the desires which he has are controlled by that desire. He SEEKS after it, or as the Psalter versification, he still prays this. He comes to the living God with this prayer. That is how sincere he is and how much he means it. You can tell people that. O, yes, we are glad that we can go to church. We are thankful for the preaching of the Word. We are ready to defend our doctrine—and clamour perhaps for practical preaching, provided it does not find fault with our Sabbath conduct. But the test is whether we tell God these things in prayer and sincerely thank him and ask Him for these. We support it financially and are liberal givers. But are we moral supporters of that preaching and of activities on the Sabbath that show that it is not an holiday for us but an holy day? If you love God, the keeping of the fourth commandment is not difficult at all. For that reason we said that our Sabbath conduct—what we allow and what we disallow, where we go and from what we will stay away—reveals the measure of our love to God.
Are we a peculiar people, or are we more and more becoming a worldly people? Are we a royal priesthood of God, or are we in the service of the kingdom of darkness on the Sabbath? Is our rest a peculiar rest of a peculiar people? Or does this word even have an unpleasant sound in our ears? We do not want to be a different and distinct people. We do not want the world to see that we are different from them and that we are pilgrims and strangers here below. And so their holiday crowds more and more into our holy day in our hearts and lives …
If the glow of the Sabbath does not remain on Monday, there is also something wrong. If with the last ‘Amen’ of the worship service suddenly the Sabbath falls away and we are ready to talk business … The Sabbath has not been so different after all. Different habits, different hours were kept, but the same old activities of the things of our natural life were sought; and the spiritual was still shelved for a ‘more convenient time.’ Is this perhaps also the reason why on Monday or the following days of the week we are not interested in group or society discussion and study of the Word? Have we too many holidays during the week that we cannot get out of the habit on Sunday? The world gets such a grip on us, you know. We have to know on Sunday what the world is doing in the field of sport. It gets such a grip on you that you cannot leave it alone one day in a week. The day is not different because we are not different inside. O the new man in Christ is different—the exact opposite of the old man of sin. But who rules us on the Sabbath? Be sure that it is the new man in Christ. Be sure that you walk in His fear on the Sabbath.”
(“Holiday or Holy Day,” The Standard Bearer, vol. 42, pp. 472-473, vol. 43, p. 10).
