We have gathered to call upon the name of the Lord, and the joyful solemnity of this privilege should be resting upon our shoulders like a mantle of glory. How is this possible? We do not want to overcomplicate the answer to the question. Our forms of worship and teaching are in deep sympathy with …
How Wisdom Tastes
The apostle Paul teaches us that ultimately there are only two tables in the world—the Table of the Lord and the table of demons. These tables are set in a way calculated to exclude one another—it is not possible to eat from both with any kind of consistency. We see the same thing in the …
Sinners as Open Book
Father, we bow before You now in confession, acknowledging that You are in fact the God who tests the minds and hearts of all men. We pray as part of a sinful generation, one which believes that You do not see all things, and that You cannot read the thoughts and intentions of the heart. …
Revealed in Meals
The Lord loves to reveal Himself in meals. The Lord loves to feed us with food, which is not surprising, but He also loves to feed our souls when we sit together to break bread. This is true on an ordinary level, in each of our families, and it true here, as we sit down …
Real Revival
In a moment we will confess our sins. The message last week was about confession of sin, and how God is dealing with us so that we will deal honestly with Him. So what is it to confess? What is this duty, and to whom is it owed? In 1 John 1:9, we are told …
Delivered From Mere Externals
Father, when men do not know You in truth, they of necessity gravitate to the externals. The Spirit of God always marries the inside and the outside, and it is the sin of man that seeks to divide them. We confess that we live among a people whose hearts are far from You, and yet …
More Like a Presbyterian in the Shower
The message this morning will begin the next decade of psalms—in the weeks to come we will be working through Psalm 51 through 60. As we do this, the choir will be teaching us to chant them, which we will begin doing as a congregation when this series of messages from the psalms is completed. …
Not Thin Commons
The Lord comes to us in order to deal with our sinfulness, and our resultant sins. The Lord deals with us; He does not let us continue on as before. But at the same time, God deals us with in surprising ways. He deals with us by means of His grace. He washes us, teaches …
Not Basically Good at All
Father, Your Word says that no one does what is right, and our national catechism impudently contradicts this, saying that everyone is basically good. Father, we not only confess to You how bad we are as a nation, but we confess the lies that we tell ourselves about how bad we are. We pray that …
A Table That Disciplines All We Bring to It
As you bring your little ones to this Table, take care in two areas. The first is to remember that you as parents don’t hold the power of the keys. This means that you should not be conducting church discipline in your family row, withholding the bread, for example, if your child was being fussy …