15 May 2022
Call to Worship: Psalm 96:1-3
Opening Hymn: 157 “When Morning Guilds the Skies”
Confession of Sin
Most merciful God, Who are of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and hast promised forgiveness to all those who confess and forsake their sins; We come before You with a humble sense of our own unworthiness, acknowledging our manifold transgressions of Your righteous laws. But, O gracious Father, Who desires not the death of a sinner, look upon us, we beseech You, in mercy, and forgive us all our transgressions. Make us deeply sensible of the great evil of them; And work in us a hearty contrition; That we may obtain forgiveness at Your hands, Who are ever ready to receive humble and penitent sinners; for the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ, our only Savior and Redeemer. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon: Psalm 103:17-19
Hymn of Preparation: 216 “Praise to the LORD, the Almighty”
Old Covenant Reading: Proverbs 8:12-36
New Covenant Reading: James 1:19-21
Sermon: Quick, Slow, Slow
Hymn of Response: Hymn 500 “Father, I Know That All My Life”
Confession of Faith: Ten Commandments
Doxology (Hymn 568)
Diaconal Offering
Closing Hymn: 265 “In Christ Alone”
Evening Service
Hymns: 212, Psalm 2B, 243
OT: Psalm 2:1-12
NT: 2 Timothy 3:1-9
Sermon: In the Last Days
Suggested Preparation
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Monday (5/9) read and discuss James 1:19-21
James 1:19–21 (ESV)
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
Craig Blomberg and Mariam Kamell write:
For James’s community, these mandates prepare the way for his more explicit teaching on careful speech as a corrective to the problem of too many wanting to teach (3:1–12) and too many wrangling with each other and speaking half-truths about one another because of improper personal ambition and desire (4:1–12). For Christians in every age, it is not “any reluctance to confess Christ that is meant, or any slackness in the work of mission, but rather patience to listen to God attentively before trying to speak in his name, and such a sense of the majesty and mystery of God and of the reverence due to His Word as kills cocksureness and glibness and makes men humble both in their theological activity and in their witness.” (C. E. B. Cranfield, “The Message of James,” SJT 18 (1965): 186).
MEMORY WORK
Q. 11. What are God’s works of providence?
A. God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.
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Tuesday (5/10) read and discuss James 1:16-18
James 1:16–18 (ESV)
16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
John Calvin writes:
Do not err. This is an argument from what is opposite; for as God is the author of all good, it is absurd to suppose him to be the author of evil. To do good is what properly belongs to him, and according to his nature; and from him all good things come to us. Then, whatever evil he does, is not agreeable to his nature. But as it sometimes happens, that he who quits himself well through life, yet in some things fails, he meets this doubt by denying that God is mutable like men. But if God is in all things and always like himself, it hence follows that well-doing is his perpetual work.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 12. What special act of providence did God exercise toward man in the estate wherein he was created?
A. When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death.
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Wednesday (5/11) read and discuss Proverbs 8:12-36
Proverbs 8:12–36 (ESV)
12 “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. 13 The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. 14 I have counsel and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength. 15 By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; 16 by me princes rule, and nobles, all who govern justly. 17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me. 18 Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. 19 My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver. 20 I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice, 21 granting an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries. 22 “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. 23 Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. 24 When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, 26 before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. 27 When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, 28 when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, 29 when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, 30 then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 31 rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. 32 “And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways. 33 Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. 34 Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. 35 For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, 36 but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death.”
Derek Kidner writes:
First, wisdom is what Yahweh as Creator counted primary and indispensable. Second, wisdom is both older than the universe, and fundamental to it. Not a speck of matter (26b), not a trace of order (29), came into existence but by wisdom. Third, wisdom is the spring of joy, for joy breaks out whenever (30b) and wherever (31) the Creator’s wisdom is exercised. Joy of creation and joy of existence—the Maker’s and the creature’s delight—both flow from the exercise of divine wisdom; that is, from God’s perfect workmanship….
The New Testament shows by its allusions to this passage (Col. 1:15-17; 2:3; Rev. 3:14) that the personifying of wisdom, far from overshooting the literal truth, was a preparation for its full statement, since the agent of creation was no mere activity of God, but the Son, His eternal Word, Wisdom and Power.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 13. Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?
A. Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.
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Thursday (5/12) read and discuss Psalm 2:1-12
Psalm 2 (ESV)
1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. 5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 6 “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” 7 I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” 10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. 11 Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Mark Futato writes:
“Why are the nations so angry?” sounds rather dissonant against the harmonious, “They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season” (1:3). In Psalm 2 the reality of hostility resounds in the believer’s ears. The nations are raging against the Lord and his anointed king (2:2b). There is a conspiracy afoot (2:2a), and the goal of this conspiracy is autonomy: liberation from God’s authority, and that means from the authority of his anointed king (2:3). The Davidic kings were certainly the objects of this raging from time to time and to varying degrees, but this raging reached its climax when “Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, [the Lord’s] holy servant, whom [he had] anointed” (Acts 4:27). The raging of the nations against the Lord Jesus entailed the raging of the nations against his disciples in the apostolic church: “And now, O Lord, hear their threats” (Acts 4:29)—a prayer offered in the wake of Peter and John being arrested for preaching that “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). This raging continues in our own day, whether in the form of physical or political or social attempts to silence those who would proclaim Jesus Christ as the exclusive way to God (John 14:6).
To God, however, such raging is ultimately a colossal waste of time (2:1). So certain is his sovereign rule over the nations that he can “sit” in heaven and laugh. But eventually his laughing changes to scoffing, and his scoffing gives way to angry rebuking, until finally he is found to be “terrifying them with his fierce fury” (2:5). Now, what could possibly strike terror in the hearts of the raging nations? The declaration that God’s “chosen king [is] on the throne” (2:6)!
MEMORY WORK
Q. 14. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.
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Friday (5/13) read and discuss 2 Tim 3:1-9
2 Timothy 3:1–9 (ESV)
1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.
John Calvin writes:
But know this. By this prediction he intended still more to sharpen his diligence; for, when matters go on to our wish, we become more careless; but necessity urges us keenly. Paul, therefore informs him, that the Church will be subject to terrible diseases, which will require in the pastors uncommon fidelity, diligence, watchfulness, prudence, and unwearied constancy; as if he enjoined Timothy to prepare for arduous and deeply anxious contests which awaited him. And hence we learn, that, so far from giving way, or being terrified, on account of any difficulties whatsoever, we ought, on the contrary, to arouse our hearts for resistance.
In the last days. Under “the last days,” he includes the universal condition of the Christian Church. Nor does he compare his own age with ours, but, on the contrary, informs Timothy what will be the future condition of the kingdom of Christ; for many imagined some sort of condition that would be absolutely peaceful, and free from any annoyance. In short, he means that there will not be, even under the gospel, such a state of perfection, that all vices shall be banished, and virtues of every kind shall flourish; and that therefore the pastors of the Christian Church will have quite as much to do with wicked and ungodly men as the prophets and godly priests had in ancient times. Hence it follows, that there is no time for idleness or for repose.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 15. What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created?
A. The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created was their eating the forbidden fruit.
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Saturday (5/14) read and discuss James 1:19-21
James 1:19–21 (ESV)
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
Craig Blomberg and Mariam Kamell write:
Controlling one’s temper remains a challenging task for many Christians. Anger must be dealt with in a constructive fashion that addresses the causes for someone becoming upset. V. 19, in fact, suggests one crucial way for people to become slow to anger—by first being quick to listen and slow to speak. In other words, try first to understand a situation from the perspective of those who are upsetting you and let your speech be based on that understanding. At the same time, being “slow to anger” is not the same as simply suppressing or stifling one’s rage. The OT prophets regularly denounced the sins of their contemporaries in harsh, even sarcastic language (e.g., Isa 44:6–20; Jer 7:1–8:3; Am 4 and 6). Christ cleared the moneychangers from the temple in righteous indignation over the misuse of a place of worship (Mk 11:15–19 pars.). Jesus and Paul both regularly ranted against the hypocrisy of the conservative religious insiders who failed to demonstrate love and justice for others in their zeal to uphold the law (see esp. Mt 23; Gal 1:6–9; Php 3:2–6). Indeed, most all the biblical woes about future judgment against sin reflect some anger. The key difference is that in each of these cases, it is God’s perfectly holy wrath that is unleashed against injustice, not merely human rage (v. 20).
MEMORY WORK
Q. 16. Did all mankind fall in Adam’s first transgression?
A. The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity; all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression.