REFORMED CHURCH, BELLVILLE: SUNDAY 18
NOVEMBER 2001: MORNING SERVICE
Our help is in the Name of the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
Beloved, grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and the Lord
Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit.
AMEN.
Psalm of praise: 89:1
Nicene Creed
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and
earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all the worlds; God of God, Light of
Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance
with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made
man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered
and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the
Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of
the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the living
and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life;
who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the
Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by the prophets.
And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I
acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
AMEN
The Law : Ex. 20:1-17
Psalm 40:4.
Prayer
Hymn 45:1,12.
Scripture reading: Revelation 2
Text: Revelation 2: 10c
Be
faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
Note how the Lord announces Himself to His congregation in this letter:
He is the Lord who
- will be the first and the last,
- who was dead and has come to life again.
In this greeting there is a message not only for Smyrna. It is for us
as well, because this message is also directed to the church which
remains alive during the last of days.
- That will be a time in which the church will undergo great
hardship, for it will be a time of tribulation.
- The tribulation will be so severe that the faithful will suffer
martyrdom.
For that reason this letter of encouragement is directed to a church
which will find itself facing the sword and death:
- Do not lose hope when you are confronted by death, because death
does not have final authority over you.
- Keep your eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
- He was also dead.
- But He did not remain in the realm of the dead.
- He returned to life.
- If someone is going to kill you, you must look beyond the anxiety
of the moment: look upon Jesus Christ who will support you in your
suffering and who will let you rise again from the dead so that you may
live once more.
The congregation at Smyrna endured great hardship. There were not many
wealthy people in the congregation. The disdain, oppression and
persecution by the community in which they lived, resulted in the
Christians withdrawing into isolation.
The Lord pointed out to the congregation two matters for consolation:
- one was that those who gave themselves all manner of airs, and
who caused the misery, were not whom they pretended to be;
- the second was that the wealth of a believer - and of a church -
did not consist primarily in material things.
- It consisted in belonging to the Lord as the Saviour of the
Church.
- The congregation of Smyrna were wealthy, because they belonged
to the Lord and were, with Him, fellow-heirs of all the world (Romans
8:17).
The Lord reveals that a large proportion of the suffering to be borne
by the Church will be caused by troublemakers. This undermining of the
church has a specific character:
- The devil establishes himself in a congregation and then uses
members of that congregation to thwart whatever is to the honour of the
Lord.
- He achieves this by using people, who pretend to be believers, to
persecute and slander those who are sincere in their faith.
The Lord calls these people a synagogue of Satan.
- It shows that these people do not understand the true nature of
the church, and therefore busy themselves in all kinds of external
superficialities.
- This situation finally reaches the point where these people are
nothing but demonic in their actions.
- Therefore the Lord declares that these people are a synagogue of
Satan, and follows with the statement that the devil will cast some of
us into prison.
In prison the believers will suffer hardship, because many of the
sincere believers will be killed. The Lord says:
- "Be faithful until death..."
- The Lord says this within the context of His having been killed
and having risen again.
- We must therefore live with a full awareness of impending death.
For that reason the Lord reveals that there will be tribulation for ten
days. That is a symbolic declaration which simply means that God will
limit the extent of the devil's oppression and offensive against us.
- In his onslaught upon us the devil cannot do as he wishes.
- God limits the extent of the evil so that it remains within
bounds.
And if we die, we must die with our eye upon the life hereafter.
We must remember that the Lord Jesus announced Himself to be the holder
of the keys of life and death.
The Lord also affirms this message to us in the celebration of
communion.
- He has borne the wrath of God for all our iniquities.
- That means that He also died for any form of suffering which
might await us.
- You must remember that Jesus' death was preceded by the most
terrible suffering and agony.
- For that matter, His entire life was one of humiliation and
rejection by His own people.
The Lord returned to life from the realm of the dead, and opened a way
to eternal life.
- Along this path He takes with Him all who serve Him faithfully
until death.
- He not only lets them rise from the dead - He gives them the
crown of life.
Come, let us join in the celebration of communion, and realize that
this resurrection from the dead to eternal life, where we will be for
all eternity as those crowned by the Lord Jesus, is our final
destination through the body and blood of our Lord Jesus, which was
broken and shed for us.
AMEN.
Prayer
Hymn: 8:1
FORM OF SERVICE FOR THE CELEBRATION OF
THE LORD'S SUPPER
Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, attend to the words of the
institution of the holy communion of our Lord Jesus Christ, as they are
delivered by the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 11:23-29):
For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that
the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and
when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, "This is my body,
which is for you: do this in remembrance of Me." In the same way He
took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant
in my blood: do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the
Lord's death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks
the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body
and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so
doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats
and drinks, eats and drinks judgement to himself if he does not judge
the body rightly.
That we may now celebrate the Lord's Supper to our comfort, it is
necessary, before all things, rightly to examine ourselves; and
further, to direct it to that end for which Christ has ordained and
instituted the same - namely, to His remembrance.
The true examination of ourselves consists of these three parts:
(1 Cor. 11:27-29 & Ps. 51) Let every one consider by himself his
sins and accursedness, that he may abhor himself and humble himself
before God with sincere remorse for these transgressions. We must
believe the firm promise of God that all our sins have been forgiven
solely on the grounds of our redemption in Christ and that His
perfect righteousness has been imputed to and freely given us. We must
have the earnest desire to show thankfulness to God in our entire life,
to walk sincerely before Him, and to live in true love and harmony with
our neighbour.
All those, then, who are so minded, God will certainly receive in grace
and count them worthy partakers of the table of His Son Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, those who transgress against God's law obstinately
and without remorse, eat and drink judgement upon themselves. Wherefore
we admonish all idolaters, all who resort to or confide in sorcery, all
blasphemers, all who seek to raise discord and mutiny in Church and
State, all perjurers and those disobedient to lawful authority, all
murderers and quarrelsome persons, adulterers, fornicators,
drunkards, thieves, robbers, gamblers and covetous persons, to abstain
from the table of the Lord. Because those who lead loveless and
offensive lives have no share in the Kingdom of Christ.
Yet we do not come to this supper to testify thereby that we are
without sin and perfect in ourselves; on the contrary, we come
precisely because we seek our life apart from ourselves in Christ.
Thereby we confess that we are in our own nature dead through sin. We
have indeed, still many shortcomings: lack of true faith, lack of zeal
in the service of God, lack of love towards God and our neighbour.
Nevertheless, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we repent heartily of
our sins and desire sincerely to live according to all the
commandments of God. Therefore we rest assured that God receives
us through His grace and makes us worthy partakers of this heavenly
food and drink.
(1 Cor. 5:11; Eph. 5:5; Ex. 20:12-17;; Lev. 19:12; Zech. 8:17; Gal.
5:19,21; Eph. 2:1)
The Lord teaches us to what end He instituted the Supper when He says:
Do this in remembrance of Me. To do this we must sincerely believe that
He was sent by the Father to this world, that He became true man and as
sinless Lamb bore throughout His earthly life the wrath of God for our
sins. He fulfilled with perfect obedience God's Law for us. He bore the
reproaches due to us so that we should never again become an object of
divine reproach. Although innocent, He was sentenced to death so that
we might be acquitted before the judgement seat of God. He was nailed
to the cross so that the certificate of our debt, consisting of decrees
against us, could be so nailed to the cross as well. In this way He
took from us the curse and assumed it upon Himself that He might fill
us with His blessing. He suffered the pains of hell and anguish and the
terrible desolation of separation from God when He cried out with a
loud voice: My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? that we might be
accepted of God, and nevermore be forsaken of Him. He has finally
confirmed with His death and the shedding of His blood the eternal
covenant of grace with the words: It is finished.
(1 Cor. 11:26; Heb. 4:15; Matt. 27:46; John 19:30; Col. 2:14)
Whenever we so think of Him, the signs of bread and wine gives the
assurance that He delivered Himself in our stead and that He as
certainly nourishes us with His body and blood as we eat and drink of
the bread and wine. So the living Christ wishes to assure us through
His Spirit of His love and bring about in us the firm knowledge that we
also belong to this covenant of grace. And every time we partake of
communion, we proclaim His death until He comes. Therefore the
celebration of communion lets us look forward with great yearning to
the bridal feast of the Lamb.
(Matt.26:29; Rev. 19:9)
Communion so teaches us to embrace in faith the unique sacrifice on the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ as the only foundation and ground of our
salvation. There His body was broken and His blood was shed to the
perfect remission of all our sins, and so He became for us the true
food and drink of life eternal. Through His death He also won for us
the lifegiving Spirit, which binds us to Christ in true communion with
Him and lets us partake of all His riches and benefits. The same Spirit
binds us also together in sincere love as members of one body. Because
we have all partaken of the same bread, we are all one body. Therefore
all of us who have been incorporated in Christ through faith, we must
manifest this unity in love by word and deed towards one another. May
God through His Spirit help us to do so.
(1 Cor. 10:17)
AMEN.
Let us now humble ourselves before God and pray to Him in sincere faith
for the blessing of His grace.
Merciful God and Father,
We thank You that we may celebrate the comforting occasion of the
bitter death of Your Son, Jesus Christ. We pray You, grant us a sincere
confidence in our hearts to surrender ourselves ever more completely to
Your Son, so that we may be refreshed by Him, the heavenly Bread, so as
not to live any longer in our sins but in Him. Grant us the assurance
that You are our merciful Father, and we Your children and heirs. Help
us to deny ourselves, to confess our Saviour, and with longing to await
His return, when He will take us to be with Him eternally.
Psalm 118 (at the beginning and at each sitting).
Lift up your hearts to Jesus Christ, our Advocate at the right hand of
the heavenly Father, and be assured that the Holy Spirit will
strengthen you just as certainly with the body and blood of Jesus as
you receive the signs of the bread and wine in remembrance of Him.
The
bread we break is our communion with the body of Christ. Receive it,
eat, remember and believe that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ was
broken to the complete remission of all our sins.
The cup of thanksgiving which we bless
in gratitude, is our communion with the blood of Christ. Receive it,
drink everyone of the cup; remember and believe that the precious blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ was shed to the complete remission of all our
sins.
Psalm 116 (As the members of each sitting return to their seats).
Thanksgiving after Communion:
Beloved, because the Lord has refreshed us with the heavenly bread, let
us now together with one accord praise His Name with the words:
(Psalm 103:1-4; 8-13; Rom.8:32)
Merciful God and Father,
We thank You and praise You that You by this communion confirm to us
the glorious promises of the gospel. We thank You that You gave Your
only-begotten Son as Mediator and sacrificial offering for our sins. We
thank You for the true faith, whereby we are enabled to partake of the
sacrifice of Your Son. We pray You, let the proclamation of the death
of our Lord by the working of the Holy Spirit daily strengthen and
enable us to grow in the faith and in glorious communion with Christ,
for His Name's sake.
AMEN.
Closing Hymn 24:1
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
AMEN.
Rev. M.J. du Plessis,
Reformed Church, Bellville,
18 November 2001.
Scripture quoted from NASB.