Weekly Catechism

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Catechism Supplement – 61-65

Westminster Shorter Catechism – Q 48

Psalm of the month – 44A  (http://psalter.org/tunes/show/foundation1)

Memory Verse – Psalm 14:1

Q61. What should all Christians do with their faith?

Testify about the grace of Christ to unbelievers. Matt. 28:19; Luke 10:27.

Q62. What does someone need to know about themselves in order to want Christ and the gospel?

That they are totally depraved and under the wrath and curse of God unless they repent of their sin and turn to Christ for salvation. John 3:6, 3:18; Gal. 3:10.

Ecclesiology

Q63. What is the session?

The pastors and elders of a particular congregation who rule the church, preside over the worship, disciple its members in the faith, and exercise spiritual discipline according to the word of God. Acts 14:23; Tit. 1:5; Acts 20:28-31.

Q64. What is the deacon board?

The deacons of a particular congregation, who minister mercy, oversee the work of the treasurer, prepare the annual congregational budget, and teach principles of giving as needed.

Q65. How many offices are there in the church?

There are two offices, the office of minister of the word and sacraments (teaching elder) and ruling elder, and the office of deacon. Eph. 4:11; 1 Tim. 3:1-15; 5:17.

Q. 48. What are we specially taught by these words before me in the first commandment?

A. These words before me in the first commandment teach us, that God, who seeth all things, taketh notice of, and is much displeased with, the sin of having any other God.

Psalm 44:20-21 If we had forgotten the name of our God Or extended our hands to a strange god, 21 Would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.

Todah Prayer

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Daniel Sermon Series

Daniel 9:1-19
In the midst of shifting geopolitical circumstances, Daniel consulted the scriptures to discern the times. As Daniel consulted the prophecies of Jeremiah, he understood that the fulfillment of the 70 weeks prophecy was playing out before him. But Daniel also understood that fulfilled prophecy called for urgent action: confession of sin in order to secure covenant renewal and restoration. Leviticus 26:40-42 called for Israel to confess sin publicly and corporately after a season of unrepentant sin and the experience of national calamity on account of their sin. As Daniel lifts up his voice in this todah prayer of confession of sin, he fulfills obligation of Leviticus 26 and seeks to obtain for Israel that experience of covenant renewal which the Law promised for a penitent nation. This message concludes with application of the todah prayer to the contemporary situation.

Play Audio!  64kbps | 59:41 min.
Download MP3  (28.7MB)

 

 

The Small Horn Prophecy

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Daniel Sermon Series

Daniel 8
In back-to-back chapters, Daniel prophesied of two figures who would savagely persecute the church in the future, the “little horn” and the “small horn.” A commonly encountered misinterpretation of these two chapters, Daniel 7 and 8, is that these two figures are the same person and point to a future antichrist. The details of the these texts make it clear that they are not the same figures and that they would persecute the church at very different times historically. A decisive detail which distinguishes the “small horn” of chapter 8 from the “little horn” of chapter 7 is that the small horn emerges from the Greek kingdom (Daniel 8:9,21-22) rather than the Roman kingdom. This “small horn” prophecy has been fulfilled in the vicious persecution perpetrated upon the Jewish people by the 2nd century BC Seleucid king, Antiochus Epiphanes. This message expounds the rise of the “small horn,” surveys his character and actual persecution of the church and desecration of the Temple of the Lord, and then applies the principles of the text to the current situation of the church.

Play Audio!  64kbps | 63:53 min.
Download MP3  (30.7MB)