Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Father and Jehovah God, You called forth the heavens and earth out of nothing. You separated the night from the day, and the waters from the dry land, and the woman from the man. Father, we worship and adore You, the Lord …
Gird Up Your Loins
Always beware of unexamined assumptions. When we speak and act, we do so on the basis of what we instinctively know to be the case. When we are right, this is right and proper—it is how we were created to live. We cannot be examining all our assumptions constantly. We have to live on the …
The Taste of Fear
The Bible does not teach us that the Table must be protected from unfaithful people. Rather, the Bible teaches us that unfaithful people must be protected from the Table. This Table is a winnowing fan, a fan that separates the wheat from the chaff. This Table deals with us as we come to it. To …
Advice to God
A few entries ago, I posted an exhortation that noted that believers are friends of God, and that part of our duty in worship is to give Him counsel. I gather that this has excited comment in some quarters, and so perhaps I should develop a bit further what I mean. First, what I do …
State of the Church 2005
Introduction: The Church continues to hampered in the work of reformation by certain “unquestionable truths” that are still circulated among us. The Text: “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Ex. 20: 2). Overview: The Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, …
Holiness and Thunder/Psalm 29
There is little doubt that the inspiration for this glorious psalm was a monumental thunderstorm. In this inspired account we find a true and biblical description of glory, beauty, and holiness. “Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty, give unto the LORD glory and strength . . .” (Ps. 29:1-11). The psalm divides readily into …
Wisdom and Application
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11) Growing Dominion, Part 29 Christian maturity comes down to making applications from the Bible. The Bible commends the wise, for example, and condemns the foolish. And so, if we are wise, the Bible praises us. If we are foolish, the Bible rebukes us. …
Deliverance Now
Minister: Lift up your hearts! Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord! Father of our Lord Jesus, You are the one who cast down Pharaoh, and drowned his entire army in the Red Sea, and You did this because Your loving kindness endures forever. You destroyed Og, the king of Bashan, because your mercy …
Friends of God
You are entering into the heavenly courts, and you are doing so as a congregation that has every right to be there. This is because we present ourselves at the gates as a people who are clothed in the righteousness of our head, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are accepted on that basis. Knowing …
Looking for a City
The Word and the sacrament go together. Without the sacrament, the Word by turns gradually evolves into mere lecturing, or, if it is excited, a hectoring of God’s people. On the other hand, the sacrament without the Word gradually turns to superstitious and blind observance, at the end indistinguishable from rank paganism. The two go …