Westminster Wednesday: Refreshment for the Weary

The Lord's Day assembly is the day, the place and time, when the Christian hears from the Lord, "You are in My favor, My child. My Son, your Lord and Savior, has satisfied My covenant requirements. Be comforted, and live in the benefits that He has purchased for you through His fulfillment of the mission that I had placed upon Him. Walk in My ways for therein is life, and life truly."

Sadly, one would be hard-pressed to find such an announcement coming from the pulpits of most churches today.

J. Gresham Machen observed:

Whatever the solution there may be, one thing is clear. There must be somewhere groups of redeemed men and women who can gather together humbly in the name of Christ, to give thanks to Him for his unspeakable gift and to worship the Father through Him. Such groups alone can satisfy the needs of the soul. At the present time, there is one longing of the human heart which is often forgotten — it is the deep, pathetic longing of the Christian for fellowship with his brethren. One hears much, it is true, about Christian union and harmony and co-operation. But the union that is meant is often a union with the world against the Lord, or at best a forced union of machinery and tyrannical committees. How different is the true unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace! Sometimes, it is true, the longing for Christian fellowship is satisfied. There are congregations, even in the present age of conflict, that are really gathered around the table of the crucified Lord; there are pastors that are pastors indeed. But such congregations, in many cities, are difficult to find. Weary with the conflicts of the world, one goes into the Church to seek refreshment for the soul. And what does one find? Alas, too often, one finds only the turmoil of the world. The preacher comes forward, not out of a secret place of meditation and power, not with the authority of God's Word permeating his message, not with human wisdom pushed far into the background by the glory of the Cross, but with human opinions about the social problems of the hour or easy solutions of the vast problem of sin. Such is the sermon. And then perhaps the service is closed by one of those hymns breathing out the angry passions of 1861, which are to be found in the back part of the hymnals. Thus the warfare of the world has entered even into the house of God. And sad indeed is the heart of the man who has come seeking peace.

Is there no refuge from strife? Is there no place of refreshing where a man can prepare for the battle of life? Is there no place where two or three can gather in Jesus' name, to forget for the moment all those things that divide nation from nation and race from race, to forget human pride, to forget the passions of war, to forget the puzzling problems of industrial strife, and to unite in overflowing gratitude at the foot of the Cross? If there be such a place, then that is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive the weary world. (Christianity and Liberalism [1923], 180-81)

The Pipameister

It was one of those rare afternoons when I was able to get off from work early and visit the Cubao-Edsa branch of Philippine Christian Bookstore (PCBS), the largest Christian bookstore franchise in the country. They close shop at 7PM, and I think I started rummaging through the "Sale" section at around 6:30. It didn't take long for me to discover treasure.

If I'm not mistaken, the phenomenon of discovering confessionally Reformed books in Christian mega-bookstores is as much enigmatic in the Philippines as it would have been in the U.S. (as enigmatic as hearing confessionally Reformed preaching in megachurches). On this trip, however, I was in the Twilight Zone—I found a copy of Joseph Pipa, Jr.'s "The Lord's Day!"

I discovered the book early on in my having embraced the confessionally Reformed faith and it formed the foundation of my understanding of the Sabbath—its creational warrant and eschatological import, to name just a couple of points (I still owe my pastor a book review!).

In gratitude, I'd like to share Joseph Pipa, Jr.'s Sermon Audio page, with 278 of his sermons available for your download and edification.

Might Infrequency Lead to Lethargy?

In contrast to the mysticism that is the staple in broad evangelicalism, Reformed theology, piety, and practice recognize that growth in sanctification is wrought primarily through participation in the means of grace, i.e., the hearing of the Word of God (Gospel) preached and the partaking of the Sacraments, wherein the Holy Spirit unites the recipient of the water in baptism and the bread and wine in the Supper to the thing signified, the substance, which is Christ, hastening the growth of faith even as small as a mustard seed.

In the weekly Sabbath assembly, the proclamation of the promises of the Covenant of Grace is declared through the ordained mouthpiece of Christ, the pastor, and is ratified in the physical representation of the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. But what if the Supper is not administered weekly? Could this lack somehow account for some, if not many, of the instances of spiritual torpor among the sheep of Christ's flock? If it be in the capacity of the church to celebrate the Supper weekly, should it not do so for the love of those for whom Christ lived and died, that they may be conformed ever increasingly to His image and likeness?

"Calvin and other reformers argued that the Supper should occupy a central place alongside preaching each week. Yet its strange absence from the regular gathering of many churches today impoverishes the saints, weakens the diet and the sinews that connect us to our living Head and to each other as members of his body, and dampens the gratitude that feeds our missionary zeal. It is the Eucharist, along with preaching and baptism, that not only generates a church in the first place, but keeps its focus on Christ's presence in action as well as his absence in the flesh, generating our longing for his return." (Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009], 203).

The Enduring Sabbatism of Hebrews 4

"The next place to be cited is Heb iv. 9. This verse (with its context, which must be carefully read) teaches that, as there remains to believers under the Christian dispensation a hope of an eternal rest, so there remains to us an earthly Sabbath to foreshadow it. The points to be noticed in the explanation of the chapter are: That God has an eternal spiritual rest; that He invited Old Testament believers to share it; that it is something higher than Israel's home in Canaan, because after Joshua had fully installed Israel in that rest, God's rest is still held up as something future. The seventh day (verse 4) was the memorial of God's rest, and was thus connected with it. It was under the old dispensation, as under the new, a spiritual faith which introduced into God's rest, and it was unbelief which excluded from it. But as God's rest was something higher than a home in Canaan, and was still offered in the ninety-fifth Psalm long after Joshua settled Israel in that rest, it follows (verse 9) that there still remains a sabbatism, or Sabbath-keeping, for God's people under the new dispensation; and hence (verse 11) we ought to seek to enter into that spiritual rest of God, which is by faith. Now, let it be noted that the word for God's 'rest' throughout the passage is different one from 'Sabbath'. But the apostle's inference is that because God still offers us His 'rest' under the new dispensation, there remaineth to us a Sabbath-keeping under this dispensation. What does this mean? Is the sabbatism identically our 'rest' in faith? But the seventh day was not identically that rest; it was the memorial and emblem of it. So now sabbatism is the memorial and emblem of the rest. Because the rest is ours, therefore the Sabbath-keeping is still ours; heaven and its earthly type belong equally to both dispensations."

- Robert L. Dabney, Discussions, 535 (as cited in Joseph A. Pipa, The Lord's Day, pp. 128—129).