Worship service 06/21/26.

Greetings and call to worship.
—Greetings and good morning, saints and the beloved congregation of the Lord, called out of darkness, and into the marvelous fellowship of the grace of Jesus Christ. Grace, mercy and peace be with you through the obedience and righteousness of the Son of God through the Spirit. We come before Him once again on the holy Sabbath to worship, honor and serve Him as He hath commanded us in His word. Psalm 106:1-3 says, “Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? who can shew forth all his praise? Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times.” Truly God calleth those blessed who keep judgment, that is those who with a constant and pure mind hold fast His doctrine and truth as He has revealed it in His holy word, so for those who continually and daily practice righteousness, as the apostle calls us those that “doeth the truth”.

A Puritan minister writes, “The holy exercises which we are to be employed in, or the works which we are principally commanded to do on the Sabbath-day, are the public and private exercises, especially the public exercises of God’s worship, such as hearing the word, prayer, receiving the sacrament, singing of psalms, in the public assemblies of God’s people. “And it shall come to pass that, from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.” –Isaiah 66:23. “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbathday, and stood up for to read.” –Luke 4:16. “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them.” –Acts 20:7.

Prayer unto the public reading of the Holy Scripture:
Our holy and righteous Father,
full of glory, justice, mercy, and truth;
the covenant God who will by no means clear the guilty,
yet showeth mercy unto thousands that love thee and keep thy commandments:

We come before thee solemnly,
as those whom thou hast chosen in Christ,
redeemed by His precious blood,
called out of darkness,
and brought into the fellowship of the gospel
and the kingdom of thy Son.

We bow before thy throne in all reverence,
acknowledging the severity of thy law,
the holy requirements of the gospel,
and our own vileness and unworthiness
to draw near unto thee.

We confess, O Lord,
that apart from the obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ
we lie under thy wrath and curse,
without access to the covenant promises.
For we are guilty and polluted by nature,
unable of ourselves to repent, believe, or return unto thee.

Therefore we rest wholly upon thy free grace:
upon the Father’s electing love,
the Son’s righteousness for our justification,
and the Spirit’s work for our sanctification.
Pardon our iniquities,
cleanse us by the blood of Christ,
sanctify us by thy truth,
strengthen our faith,
subdue the lusts of the flesh,
and enable us to perform this holy service
in the strength which thou dost so freely supply.

And now, as we come to the reading of thy holy word,
grant a special blessing upon this portion of Scripture.
Make it effectual by thy Spirit
to build up thy Church,
and establish thy kingdom.
Open our hearts to receive the word with meekness;
give us eyes to see and ears to hear;
and cause us to live by it,
that we may grow up into Christ in all things—
Our Prophet, Priest, and King.

All this we ask in His most worthy name,

Amen.

 

Devotional and doctrinal exposition on the Psalms:

Psalm 28 [10]: 1 Being in great fear and heaviness of heart to see God dishonored by the wicked, he desireth to be rid of them. 4 And crieth for vengeance against them: and at length assureth himself, that God hath heard his prayer, 9 Unto whose tuition he commendeth all the faithful.

A Psalm of David.

1 Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

2 Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.

3 Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but malice is in their hearts.

4 Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their inventions: give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert.

5 For they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands, therefore destroy them, and build them not up.

6 Blessed be the Lord, because he hath heard the voice of my petitions.

7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.

8 The Lord is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed.

9 Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance: feed them also, and exalt them for ever.

Exposition:
—Previously we saw that David, confident of the Lord’s help, calleth Him his strength and shield. For we must ever bear in mind the tremendous danger these enemies bear to us: how the devil watches for our soul, that he may devour it; the enemies of the church, namely Antichrist and his instruments, watch for our bodies, that they may destroy them; and the lusts of the flesh, which swell so naturally within us due to the odious presence of indwelling sin, labour to overwhelm us and drag us into perdition. Knowing therefore their nature, their malice, and their machinations, we must be ready to do battle against them according to the strength of the LORD within and without us.

David therefore encourages himself, and others also, taking great delight in the salvation and help of the Lord, saying, “my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.” For we must bear in mind: 1. That the Christian hath great joy in his heart. 2. That this joy hath a cause. And 3. That this cause is concrete, objective, and can be declared to the encouragement of others.

This runs directly contrary to the abstract and nebulous religion that passes for Christianity in the modern day; wherein those in the church, while some of them are more than willing to speak of their opinions of the faith, cannot draw any practical conclusions from it, nor encourage others upon that basis. They wear “Jesus saves” upon their shirts without knowing in what manner Jesus saves, they hang the cross of salvation about their necks, and carry none of the doctrine of salvation in their hearts. They constantly harp, “Faith over fear,” because they do fear, and because they have no faith; and they cannot apply what relation faith hath to fear, because they have never been exposed to sound teaching. They are ignorant and follow hard after ignorance.

But true faith is directed to a clear and definable object. God giveth His people knowledge of His salvation, and the true believer identifies the cause, and is able to make it known to the benefit of others. He is able to say, “my heart trusted in him, and I am helped,” and, “The Lord is their strength”; whereas hypocrites in the church can only babble about their experiences in this world—experiences which have nothing to do with the faith, do not require the gift of the Holy Spirit, and avail nothing to others.

They may say, “Jesus saved me from drugs, from addictions, from bad company”—all which may be spoken without the doctrine of the gospel and without the Spirit; and in the same breath they will call them Christian who remain consumed by the very same habits. But Christ came not to save a person from one realm of darkness to another. He came not to deliver men out of addiction into Arminianism, nor out of sottishness into self-righteousness. The prisoner is no better for being removed from the axe to the sword. 

Therefore the believer knoweth the cause of his joy, the substance of it, and the end of it. He can speak with clarity on the fundamentals of the gospel, and how a soul is brought from darkness to light by the truth of sound doctrine; and he can do so because he has experienced it. Therefore those called from darkness to light no longer call the way of darkness truth. They do not call evil good and good evil. They can clearly demonstrate that faith and love cast out fear, because the objects of faith and love are holy and heavenly, and the doctrine whereby they have received these graces is sound and stable.

And those who have grown in like measure can also demonstrate the means of such growth: how they are brought to greater and higher aspirations of the glory of Christ through the diligent study of the word and experience of the troubles that come with it. So, quite unlike the world and the hypocrites today, who say they believe in Jesus, but cannot identify how Christ saves, or what He saves from, or how others are saved in the same manner, the Christian is able to conclude that he hath joy because God hath saved him. The Lord is his strength and shield; his joy is immortal; the world gave it not, and the world shall not take it away.

Thomas Manton— “What is the wisdom of God in the way of salvation prescribed by the gospel? The sum of the gospel is this: that all those who, by true repentance and faith, do forsake the flesh, the world, and the devil, and give themselves up to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as their creator, redeemer, and sanctifier, shall find God as a father, taking them for his reconciled children, and for Christ’s sake pardoning their sins, and by his Spirit giving them his grace; and, if they persevere in this course, will finally glorify them, and bestow upon them everlasting happiness; but will condemn the unbelievers, impenitent, and ungodly to everlasting punishment. That this is the sum of the gospel appeareth by Mark xvi. 15, 16: ‘Go, preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned;’ where you have all the Christian religion laid before you in one short view and prospect. It concerneth either the end or the means.

1. The end. The apostle telleth you that God ‘hath brought life and immortality to light in the gospel,’ 2 Tim. i. 10; or clearly discovered a happiness and a misery in the world to come.
2. .The means. He hath pointed out a sure way for obtaining the one and avoiding the other. As to the means, Christian religion is considerable, either as to the entrance or the progress of it. Our Lord telleth us, Mat. vii. 14, ‘Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life.’ He speaketh of a gate and a way. The gate noteth the entrance; the way, the progress therein. In other scriptures we read of making covenant with God, and keeping covenant with God: the covenant must not only be made, but kept. So again we read of dedication and use; of devotedness to God, and faithfulness to him; of our purpose and progress, choice and course; all which expressions tend to the same effect.

[1.] As to the way of entering into covenant with God, there is required:—

(1.) True repentance and faith: ‘Repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Acts xx. 21. Repentance respects God as our end, and faith respects Christ as Mediator, as the only way of returning to God, from whom we have strayed by our own folly and sin.

(2.) In the exercise of this repentance and faith, there must be a forsaking the devil, the world, and the flesh, and a giving up ourselves to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as our creator, redeemer, and sanctifier. For the former, there are three great enemies to God and us—the devil, the world, and the flesh; reckoned up, Eph. ii. 2, 3,
‘In time past ye walked according to the course of this world, after the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.’ There all your enemies appear abreast: the devil as the grand deceiver and principle of all wickedness; the world with its pleasures, honours, and profits, as the bait by which the devil would deceive us, and steal away our hearts from God, and divert us from looking after the one thing necessary; the flesh, as the corrupt inclination in us, which entertaineth and closeth with these temptations, to the neglect of God, and wrong of our own souls. This is importunate to be pleased, and is the proper internal cause of all our mischief; for every man is enticed and drawn away by his own lusts. Now these must be renounced before we can return to God by Jesus Christ; for, as Joshua told the Israelites, so must we say to all of you: Josh. xxiv. 23, ‘Put away the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.’

First, There must be a renouncing of our idols before our hearts can incline unto the true God. We must be turned from. Satan to God, Acts xx. 18. And the world must be renounced, Titus ii. 12: ‘Denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts.’ And we must not look upon ourselves as debtors to the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof, Rom. viii. 10. God will have no copartners and competitors in our hearts.

And then the second part, in exercising of our faith and repentance, is giving up ourselves to God the Father, Son, and Spirit, as our creator, redeemer, and sanctifier. And therefore in baptism, which is our first entrance and initiation into the Christian religion, we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Mat. xxviii. 19, which implieth a dedication and giving up ourselves to them, according to their personal relations. To the Father, as our creator, to love him, obey him, and depend upon him, and be happy in his love as dear children. To Christ as our Redeemer, to free us from the guilt of sin and the wrath of God. To the Holy Ghost, to guide and sanctify us, and comfort us with the sense of our present interest in God’s love, and the hopes of future glory.

[2.] As to our progress and perseverance, which is our walking in the narrow way, three things are required; and that—

(1.) As to the enemies of God and our souls. As there is a renouncing required at first, so at length there is requisite an overcoming the devil, the world, and the flesh: Rev. ii. 7, ‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.’ We overcome the devil when we keep up our resistance, and stand out against his batteries and assaults: 1 Peter v. 8, 9, ‘Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour; whom resist stedfast in the faith.’ We overcome the world when the terrors and allurements of it have less force and influence upon us: 1 John v. 4, 5, ‘Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that over cometh the world, even our faith: who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?’ and Gal. vi. 14, ‘But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.’ We overcome and subdue the flesh when we have ‘crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts,’ Gal. v 24; when we get the mastery over the passions and affections thereof; and though we be sometimes foiled, yet the drift and bent of our lives is for God and our salvation.

John Calvin— “By this means, in extolling solely the power of God which advanced him to the kingdom, he attributes nothing to his own policy or power. In the meantime, we may learn, that when one is satisfied of the lawfulness of his calling, this doctrine encourages him to entertain good hope with respect to the prosperous issue of his affairs. In particular, it is to be observed, as we have briefly noticed in another place, that the fountain whence all the blessings God bestows upon us flows is, that he hath chosen us in Christ. David employs salvations or deliverances in the plural number, because he had been often and in various ways preserved. The meaning, therefore, is, that from the time when God had anointed him by the hand of Samuel, he never ceased to help him, but delivered him in innumerable ways, until he had accomplished the work of his grace in him.”