“Oh, the hard words that I have sometimes read against the holy law of God!”

By On August 5, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In From the Pastor

“How very unlike to those which the apostle used when he said,
“The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.”

How different from the reverent spirit which made him say,
“I delight in the law of God after the inward man.”

You know how David loved the law of God, and sang its praises all through the longest of the Psalms. The heart of every real Christian is most reverent towards the law of the Lord.”  –C.H. Spurgeon

 

Good Times

By On August 4, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In From the Pastor

14 fellas from Christ Community enjoyed breaking bread together this morning.  Happens every 1st Thursday at Perkins’ on Newberry Road.  Book September 1 in your calendar now– it’ll sneak up on you.

 

Charlie Spurgeon on Law & Gospel

By On August 4, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In From the Pastor

It has been said that he who understands the two covenants is a theologian, and this is, no doubt, true. I may also say that the man who knows the relative positions of the law and of the gospel has the keys of the situation in the matter of doctrine. The relationship of the law to myself, and how it condemns me: the relationship of the gospel to myself, and how if I be a
believer it justifies me — these are two points which every Christian man should clearly
understand. He should not “see men as trees walking” in this department, or else he may cause
himself great sorrow, and fall into errors which will be grievous to his heart and injurious to his
life. To form a mingle-mangle of law and gospel is to teach that which is neither law nor gospel,
but the opposite of both. May the Spirit of God be our teacher, and the Word of God be our
lesson book, and then we shall not err.

That is how he opens up his sermon on Matthew 5:18 ” For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
The whole sermon is splendid: http://www.chapellibrary.org/files/archive/pdf-english/pot2.pdf

 

Commemorative & Anticipatory

By On August 4, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In From the Pastor

Sunday @ 8:30 & 11:15, during our worship service we will celebrate the Eucharist. For your thoughts and preparation: “Someone has said that the four most disputed words in the history of the church are “This is my body.” Without entering the lists on all that might be said about this clause, surely we can agree that one of its functions, as it is repeated in the ritual that Christ Jesus himself prescribed, is commemorative: “Do this in remembrance of me” (22:19). It is shocking that this should be necessary, in exactly the same way that it is shocking that a commemorative rite like the Passover should have been necessary. But history shows how quickly the people of God drift toward peripheral matters, and end up ignoring or denying the center. By a simple rite, Jesus wants his followers to come back to his death, his shed blood, his broken body, again and again and again.

It is also an anticipatory rite. It looks forward to the consummated kingdom, when the Passover and the Lord’ s Supper alike find their fulfillment (22:16, 18). We eat and drink as he prescribes “until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26), when commemoration and proclamation will be swallowed up by the bliss of his presence.”

–Don Carson

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Then felt my soul the heavy load

By On August 4, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In From the Pastor

My hopes of heaven were firm and bright,
But since the precept came
With a convincing power and light,
I find how vile I am.

My guilt appear’d but small before,
Till terribly I saw
How perfect, holy, just, and pure,
Was thine eternal law.

Then felt my soul the heavy load,
My sins reviv’d again,
I had provok’d a dreadful God,
And all my hopes were slain.

–Isaac Watts