Stir Up Sunday
Stir Up Sunday is an informal term in the Anglican Church for
the last Sunday before the season of Advent. The term comes from the opening
words of the collect for the day in the Book of Common Prayer:
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STIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful
people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of
thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Through an association of ideas, the day subsequently became
connected, especially in England, with the preparation of Christmas puddings in
readiness for Christmas. Also, though with no real religious significance, Stir Up Sunday is
located just the right time of the year to make the fruit cakes, Christmas
Puddings and the like to be consumed on Christmas. In many English culture homes, the afternoon of Stir
Up Sunday is dedicated to measuring, stirring
and cooking the Christmas Pudding!
The Christmas pudding is an important part of the Christmas Day
celebrations in the UK. Christmas
pudding is a round, rich and heavy pudding made from fruit, eggs, sugar,
breadcrumbs, suet, spices, and alcohol such as brandy or rum. Many families
have their favorite pudding recipe, which is often passed down through
generations of family members.
Stir-up Sunday is traditionally the day for making your
Christmas pudding; giving it a month to mature before eating it on Christmas
day. Stir-up Sunday is on the 20th November this year.
According to tradition, everyone in the family (especially the
children) takes a turn to stir the pudding and makes a wish while stirring.
Traditionally, the pudding should be stirred from east to west in honour of the
three Kings who travelled from the East to see Jesus; and it should also have
13 ingredients to represent Christ and his disciples.
It used to be common for people to put a coin in their Christmas
pudding. This was supposed to bring wealth in the coming year to the person who
found it.
Christmas puddings are popular in the UK, but many people now
buy their puddings from their local supermarket.
In the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 and later, this collect is
listed for "The Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Trinity", with accompanying
rubric specifying that this collect "shall always be used upon the Sunday
next before Advent". This reinforced the significance of this day as forming
part of the preparation for the season of Advent. The rubric is necessary
because the last Sunday before Advent does not always fall on the twenty-fifth
Sunday after Trinity: Trinity Sunday is a moveable feast and the Advent season
is fixed, so the number of weeks in between varies from year to year. The 1928
Book of Common Prayer solves this dilemma by marking only 24 Sundays after
Trinity and setting this Sunday apart as “Next before Advent.”
On
Point
Someone asked, where do the quotes come
from? The answer is from the
people who uttered them. But, how
did you find them? Oh, that. Some from Bishop Jerry, many from Rev
Bryan Dabney, a few from other places, some from Rev Geordie Menzies-Grierson, but
overall mostly from Bryan. He
always has a few great ones to share. On to the On Point quotes –
Duty is never a burden, it is an honor.
Hap
Arnold
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in
human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
James
Madison
President of the United States and Founding
Father
I Surrender
In an army hospitals lay a wounded officer, about to enter the valley
of death. While strong and rich he resisted God; but now, when conquered, was
willing to listen to the terms of surrender. At first he could not understand
them. At last the words, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved," applied to his soul with power by the Holy Ghost, reached his
heart. His face grew brilliant. He raised himself from the pillow and,
stretching out his arms, exclaimed with thrilling earnestness, "I accept
the terms: I surrender!" That was his last word.
625 New Bible Stories and Illustrations
We are not made righteous by doing righteous deeds; but when we have
been made righteous we do righteous deeds.
Martin
Luther
1. The Spirit awakens a person’s heart.
2. The Spirit teaches a person’s mind.
3. The Spirit leads to the Word.
4. The Spirit convinces of sin.
5. The Spirit draws to Christ.
6. The Spirit sanctifies.
7. The Spirit makes a person spiritually minded.
8. The Spirit produces inward conflict.
9. The Spirit makes a person love the brethren.
10. The Spirit teaches a person to pray.
These are the great marks of the Holy Spirit’s presence. Put the
question to your conscience and ask: Has the Spirit done anything of this kind for
your soul?
JC
Ryle
Having the Spirit
Do you think that you are getting no good from the Bible, merely
because you do not see that good day by day? The greatest effects are by no
means those which make the most noise, and the most easily observed. The greatest
effects are often silent, quiet, and hard to detect at the time they are being
produced. Settle it down in your mind as an established rule, that whether you
feel it at the moment or not, you are inhaling spiritual health by reading the
Bible, and insensibly becoming more strong.
JC Ryle
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber
barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who
torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the
approval of their own conscience.
C.
S. Lewis
20th century English author
Propers
The propers for the Sunday next
before Advent can be found on Page 225-226:
The
Sunday next before Advent
The Collect.
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TIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the
wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit
of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
Dru Arnold
read the Epistle for today, which came from the Book of Jeremiah, the
Twenty-Third Chapter, beginning at the Fifth Verse. Foretelling the arrival of Jesus, Jeremiah prophesied,
“I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and
prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah
shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he
shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” He prophesied the New Covenant, moving reference of the Lord
from Egypt to Israel and the return to one people of those driven out of their
homeland across the world.
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EHOLD, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David
a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute
judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel
shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD
OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they
shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out
of the land of Egypt; but, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the
seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries
whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.
Jack Arnold
read the Holy Gospel for today which came from the Gospel according to Saint John, the Sixth Chapter, beginning
at the Fifth Verse. John relates one of the feeding the
masses in the wilderness events.
This forshadows the arrival of the Christ at Christmas coming to feed
our spiritual needs in the wilderness of this world.
With five thousand men with them looking for food in
the wilderness, “One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith
unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small
fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down.
Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down…” Reminding us that if the Son of God
gave thanks to God for His food, so ought we, “Jesus took the loaves; and when
he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them
that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they
were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain,
that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve
baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and
above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle
that Jesus did, said, ‘This is of a truth that prophet that should come into
the world.’”
Compare to saving our souls and
feeding the inner hunger we have for God’s love, feeding a mere 5,000 men is
child’s play, but then Jesus said we should accept God and His love through Him
as the children do. So perhaps it
really is child’s play.
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HEN Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come
unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?
And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. Philip
answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that
every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon
Peter’s brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley
loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said,
Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat
down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had
given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that
were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were
filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that
nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve
baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and
above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle
that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the
world.
Sermon –
Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action
Today’s sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and
Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above.
The
Sunday next before Advent
The Collect.
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TIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the
wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit
of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
As is oft the case, today’s
propers are all tied together. As
is usual, they call for action not just thoughts. In fact the collect is among the most direct, asking God to
stir our hearts that we might ACT in a manner which will result in good
things! Jeremiah prophesies the
coming of Jesus out of the branch of David that He might unite God’s people as
one under a New Covenant. Christ
is the key piece to the puzzle of the Old Testament Prophecies. John tells us
Jesus not only comes to fill our hunger, literal in that if we follow Him we
will do much better here on earth than if we do not, and figurative only He can
fill the hunger in our hearts for God.
We are spiritually starving creatures that need His love, and that our
spiritual hunger can only be sated by seeking His love, by acting upon His
Words and filling our hearts with His Word, can we truly be satisfied.
We shall never be satisfied with
the riches and the cares of this word, like junk food, but like food that is
truly healthy for us, we will always be satisfied with His Word. If we keep on
learning the Word and acting upon it everyday, something that everybody in some
way needs to work on, not least myself, we will become more like Him and that
is what He asks of us. He asks of us nothing special, but to do our very best
and not just say it.
Interestingly, He tells the
disciples to “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” It seems He is talking about the sheep
that He tends to, He wishes to “gather up the fragments that remain”, meaning
the people that are apart from His flock, that “nothing be lost”, meaning that
their souls may not be lost for eternity. Think about that and take what it is
offered before it is no longer on the menu! And be thankful for All His
Blessings in our lives, for our friends and our family that He has placed in
our lives.
We should be fortunate that we
are in a spiritually rich group (The Anglican Orthodox Church) and are in
communion with some very good men and women across the Earth in the AOC
Worldwide Church, that hold true to the principles of Scripture. God has
blessed us all by bringing us together. I am thankful for each and every person
in the AOC Church and my family and friends. As we near Thanksgiving, we should
be thankful most of all for God sending His Son to die for us, that we might
have eternal life instead of eternal misery.
As they say, actions speak louder
than words, but coupled with well meaning words and actions, we can do many
marvelous things in the lives of people around us, through His Spirit and Word
and we will help to fill people’s spiritual hunger, through acting through His
Word, in thought, word and deed.
Heaven is at the end of an
uphill trail. The easy downhill
trail does not lead to the summit.
The time is now, not tomorrow. The time has come, indeed. How will you ACT?
It is by our actions we are known.
Be of God - Live of God - Act of God
Bishop
Dennis Campbell’s Sermon
Bishop Dennis is a brilliant
speaker. He is able to take
biblical precepts and make them perfectly understandable, even to me. Oft he provides the text of his sermons
and I take the utmost pleasure in passing them on:
Christians and Ministry
Psalm 90, Ecclesiastes 12, Hebrews 13:1-21
Sunday next before Advent
November 24, 2013
“I will
build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt.
16:18). “Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Mt. 28:19).
“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13).
“[T]he church, which is His body (Eph. 1:23). And he gave some, apostles;
and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers… for
the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11, 12).
The
Church was God’s idea. Not just the spiritual church, not just an
intangible feeling of unity, not just believing the same things other
Christians believe; but the visible tangible organisation with hymns and
liturgy and clergy and creed. That Church was God’s idea, established to
be His unique people, to edify and bless His people, to continue in The Faith
given by Christ to the Apostles and through the Apostles to the Church, and to
proclaim that Faith to all people for as long as this earth shall last.
We can easily discern several major ideas in the verses I just read.
First, the Church belongs to Jesus. Second, He is its builder.
Third it has an organised, identifiable membership. Fourth, it has an
organized, identifiable ministry, clergy. Fifth, it has an organized and
identifiable creed, a body of belief. Sixth, baptism, though it has many other
meanings, is baptism into this organized visible Church.
I want
to take make two of these ideas the subject of the sermon today. The
ideas are, the Church’s ministers, and the Church’s members.
Let’s
talk about the ministers first. In one sense, every member is a
minister. It is also true that God has ordained an official clergy for
His Church. In times past the clergy included Apostles and
prophets. The office of Apostle passed when the last Apostle, probably
John, died in the early second century A.D. The office of prophet, a much
different office from that imagined by most people today, passed when the New
Testament was written. Apostles and prophets were extraordinary offices
because they were temporary and limited to a very few men. The ordinary
offices, those that remain in the Church until the Lord returns, are Deacons,
Presbyters, and Bishops. Deacons assist in the worship and care of
souls in the local congregation. The presbyter, sometimes called a
priest, is the pastor of a local church. The Bishop ordains ministers and
ensures that the clergy and churches in the diocese proclaim and live the
Biblical Faith.
All of
that is an introduction, because what I really want to talk about today is what
every true minister wants for his congregation. If we look back to
Hebrews 13:7,8, we see three important phrases. First, “who have spoken
unto you the word of God.” A true minister preaches the word. He
preaches the Bible. He does not preach his own ideas. He does not
preach sentimental stories. He does not preach idle chatter. He
does preach the Bible. His sermons will be true to the Bible. They
will explain the Bible’s meaning, and will show how it applies to life.
His explanation of the Bible will be in conformity to the faith once delivered
to the saints. If we look back through the history of the Church we will
see that it has always followed a carefully preserved body of belief. It
has a creed. Yes, there have been disagreements over some issues, but the true
church has always clung to the faith. Likewise the true minister believes
and teaches that faith.
The
second phrase is, “whose faith follow.” The true minister wants everyone
in the congregation to follow the true faith. Please look at Hebrews
13:9. “Be not carried about with diverse and strange doctrines.” Now
picture a river, a swift, wild river. The river has strong currents,
which can carry you away. They can harm you, they can even kill
you. So anyone who goes onto the river has to be careful of the
currents. Diverse and strange doctrines are teachings that are alien to
The Faith, and they are like those river currents. People get caught in
them and get carried away from the true faith. Watch out for the
currents. Be not carried away by them. I say again there is a body
of belief, a body of doctrine that has been preserved and handed down through
the Church from the beginning. It was given to the Apostles by
Christ. It consists of all He taught and did and commands. The
Apostles preached it to the world and preserved it in the New Testament
Scriptures. The Church has believed and preserved it for us today. Follow
that faith.
The
third phrase is, “considering the end of their conversation.” The end and
goal of a true minister’s conversation is “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and
today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). He wants you to know Jesus Christ.
He wants you to know the forgiveness of sins. He wants you to know the
peace that passes all understanding. He wants you to have a home in that
House of many Mansions. He wants you to have peace with God.
You
noticed that Hebrew 13:7 opens with, “Remember them which have the rule over
you.” Who are “them which have the rule over you”? They are those
who have “spoken unto you the word of God.” Hebrews 13:17 elaborates on
this saying, “Obey them that have the rule over you” and identifies them as
those who “watch for your souls” No true minister wants to be your lord and
master, and that is not what the Bible is teaching here. The Bible is
teaching us to develop a cooperative and respectful spirit toward His
ministers. We should always address them in respectful tones, just as we
should always address one another in respectful tones. Our respect for
each other should be evident in our voices and actions. God has charged
His ministers with preaching the Gospel and caring for our souls, and we should
honour them and follow them, unless we have good evidence they are teaching and
asking us to go against Scripture. I think the meaning of all that I have
been trying to say here is well summarized in Paul’s words to the Corinthians,
“Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” He says something
similar in 1 Thessalonians 1:6, “Ye became followers of us, and of the
Lord.” A true minister directs you to Christ and says, “I am going with
Him, come with me.”
Let us
now turn to the members of the Church. It is clear that true Christians
will attempt to follow a true minister, attend a true Church, and believe the
true faith. That’s not all. If you look at Hebrews 13:21 you read
Paul’s prayer for his fellow Jewish believers, asking God to make them “perfect
in every good work to do His will. The word, “perfect” means to have a
sanctified mind, a mind turned toward God. The result of having such a
mind is to do the will of God. That’s the point I want to make. The
true Christian wants to do the will of God. He does not live in
resentment against God. He does not live in rebellion against God.
He does not consider the commandments of God as intrusions on his fun. He
knows the will of God is good, and he seeks to do it.
Second,
the true Christian wants to be “well-pleasing” to God. In one sense the
only way to be well pleasing is to have our displeasingness covered by Christ’s
atoning sacrifice and transformed by the Holy Spirit. But Paul is talking
about our will, our goal, our desire, and the actions that come out of
them. He is talking about what happens in our lives when we have that
sanctified mind I just spoke about. Our actions and our attitudes and our
values and our words and the way we treat others are changed. They go from
being displeasing, to being well pleasing to God. True Christians want to
be well pleasing to God.
Finally,
true Christians “suffer the word of exhortation.” I know some of you
think you have suffered this word of exhortation long enough, but be patient
for a few more minutes, please. Paul is talking about receiving the
faith. He is talking about being patient to receive Biblical preaching
without needing to have your ears tickled with fluff. The Bible tells us
to eat spiritual meat, but most people want sugar. Eat the meat.
Listen to Biblical preaching. Tune your mind to hear it. Train your
mind to listen to it. “Suffer the word of exhortation.”
Obviously, not all
who call themselves ministers are true ministers. Likewise, not all who
call themselves Christians are true Christians. Let that not be so of
us. I resolve this day to be a true minister. And, if I go the way
of the Lord, come with me.
--
+Dennis Campbell
Bishop, Anglican Orthodox Church Diocese of Virginia
Rector, Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
Powhatan, Virginia
Rev Bryan Dabney
of Saint John’s Sunday Sermon
We are fortunate to
have Bryan’s Sunday Sermon. If you
want people to come to The Truth, you have to speak the truth, expouse the
truth and live the truth. This is really a good piece and I
commend it to your careful reading.
Sunday next before Advent
In his first epistle to the Corinthians (11:17-29), St. Paul discussed
a major deficiency in that church regarding the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
He noted with disapproval that there were divisions or schisms which had
created a good deal of disharmony amongst the membership. The body of Christ
must have unity of purpose, mind and spirit; but such cannot be made manifest
if the members of the church cannot agree on what is and what is not acceptable
conduct for worship. Quarreling does not engender godly love and those who are
filled with the excesses of this world will poison the atmosphere of any church
of which they are members through their resistance to the truth and their
insidious advancement of heretical notions. You cannot achieve unity in the
Spirit through division and that is why the apostles counseled the faithful to
be of one mind (Romans
12:16; 15:6; I Corinthians 1:10; II Corinthians 13:11; Philippians 1:27; I St.
Peter 3:8).
St. Paul had labored to strengthen the body of Christ and to that end,
his epistles contain the very mechanics of our faith and practice. From his
epistles, we understand that Christian churches are supposed to be conduits for
the offering of the good news of Jesus Christ to the world by means of a
doctrinally sound episcopate as well as a biblically informed laity. God’s
expectation has been from the beginning that every true Christian body is
supposed to be populated by regenerated souls who have been born again of the
Holy Ghost. Said churches are also supposed to be places where the pure word of
God is preached, taught and lived, where God’s ordinances are properly
observed, and where worship is done in reverence and good order in all
holiness.
Sadly, much of modern Christendom is in need of a refresher course
concerning the content and meaning of St. Paul’s epistles because they have
deviated mightily from the truths he proclaimed. If we know anything about God,
we know that he hates sin; and anything that he despises ought to be avoided at
all costs. Unfortunately, much of modern Christendom possesses a noticeably
different understanding of God’s word written. And on account of such, these
errant churches stand in mortal danger of having their candles snuffed out
(Revelation 2:5). The Bible tells us that from the church’s inception, Satan
has worked to foster within it all manner of false doctrine, heresy and schism
for the purpose of dividing and perplexing its members with the end result
being the overthrow their faith. The epitaph of Christopher Wren reads, “If you
seek his monument, look around” and is a fitting tribute to a man who did much
to beautify the city of London. In an inverse fashion, Lucifer has a large
number of monuments to his efforts only they are not marvels of construction
but of destruction. He has wrecked a host of churches, doing his best work from
within rather than from without. Nowhere is this more apparent than his
deception with regard to the sacraments, particularly the ordinance of the
Lord’s Supper.
In our world today, a sizeable number of Christians are unfamiliar with
the word sacrament largely because of changes in denominational linguistics
since the Protestant Reformation. For all intents and purposes, a sacrament is
best defined as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
We Anglican Orthodox Christians recognize two: baptism and the Lord’s Supper
because they were blessed by our Lord’s participation and they are to be observed
per his commands to us— the former in the Great Commission and the latter at
his celebration of the Last Supper prior to his arrest and crucifixion.
Sacraments are signs because those who participate in them are affirming their
commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the service of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, we hear the
following words of institution given us by our Lord: do this in remembrance of
me. We also hear the words, this is my body and this is my blood. Satanic
influence has led some to believe that these words of institution affirm the
false doctrine of transubstantiation, or, that the elements of communion once
blessed, become the actual physical representations of our Lord. Admittedly,
without a proper bible understanding of this sacrament, one could miss its true
meaning.
J. C. Ryle once observed that, “The conduct of the disciples at the
Lord's Supper forbids us to believe that the bread they received was Christ's
body and the wine Christ's blood. They were all Jews taught from their infancy
that it was sinful to eat flesh with the blood (Deut. 12:23-25). Yet they were
not startled by our Lord's words as if they perceived a change in the bread and
wine. Our own senses forbid us to believe that there is any change in the bread
and the wine. Our own taste tells us that they are really and literally what
they appear to be. Things above our reason the Bible requires us to believe,
but not what contradicts our senses. Our Lord's true human nature forbids us to
believe that his body can be in more than one place at one time. If our Lord's
body could sit at table and at the same time be eaten by the disciples it is
perfectly clear that it is not a human body like our own. But this we must not
allow for one moment. It is the glory of Christianity that our Redeemer is
perfect man as well as perfect God. The language in which our Lord spoke made
it quite unnecessary to interpret his words literally. The Bible is full of
similar expressions. Our Lord spoke of himself as a door and a vine so we know
that he used emblems and figures to describe himself. There is therefore no
inconsistency in his using figurative language in instituting the Supper.”
What Bishop Ryle has written about the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
is based not on a pronouncement of some earthly body or council, but upon the
very words of God. We cannot escape the fact that in our eating of the bread
and drinking of the cup we are memorializing his death and sacrifice—
remembering his passion and giving thanks for his free gift of grace to us. But
there is more. When we hear the words of the Invocation (page 81 of the BCP),
that we “be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body
with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him,” we have a clearer understanding
of this sacrament: that we are joined with him via the Holy Ghost who resides
within every born-again believer. And so, in our partaking of the communion
elements, we are affirming the very presence of our Saviour within us. Holy
Communion then is more than just a memorial feast, it is a spiritual linking of
ourselves to Jesus Christ.
St. Paul warned the Corinthian church not to take lightly their
participation in the Holy Communion when he penned the following admonition,
For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s
death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this
cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord (I Corinthians 11:26- 27).
Still, many Christians will partake of the Holy Communion and never
give a moment’s thought to their true spiritual standing with the Lord. They
will not make any serious attempt at self-examination prior to partaking of the
communion elements; and upon their leaving the church, they will continue to
live as they did prior to stepping through the church door. To put it another
way, they will show up at church, say the prayers in the bulletin, or in the
prayer book, or on the screen, hear the word spoken, partake of the communion
and walk away unchanged. Hell contains a host of those who knew about Jesus
Christ but never knew him as their Saviour; who attended a church body but
never became part of his body; who did some good works in the name of our Lord,
but never accepted the atoning work he did for them; who heard from various
sources the word of God, but never took his word to heart; who sought to
placate God with their bodily attendance at weekly worship, but never sought to
please God by being obedient to his word and commandment; who lived lives
attuned to the spirit of this world, rather than having lived as a people born
again of his most holy Spirit. My how the devil smiles when such persons attend
church. He knows their end, but sadly, they do not as they seem to care not one
wit concerning what awaits them in the next world.
Many will say on that fateful day of Judgment, “Did we not participate
in the Lord’s supper? Were we not baptized in the church? Did we not do this or
that good deed in thy name? The true believer in Jesus Christ knows that
partaking of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is not something that is
trivial or merely for show. It is not something “to-do” on Sunday and then
forget about until the next time. It is not a work that saves, but a work that
reveals that one is saved.
Consider again the words of the apostle on this subject: Wherefore
whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily,
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. To partake of this sacrament
in an unworthy manner will bring God’s judgment as witnessed by the apostle’s
admonition: But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread,
and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and
drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause
many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge
ourselves, we should not be judged (I Corinthians 11:28-31). Clearly, God will
judge us if we will judge not ourselves, and the consequences of such judgment
might be dire. Nothing brings an errant soul quicker to God than illness and
the thought of impending death. God desires his own to come to him and be made
whole via confession. If a person is outside of his hedge of protection, the
devil will come and work his will upon such person. All too often, it only when
a wayward Christian is beset with troubles that he or she will likely come to
God. The apostle’s admonition was meant to encourage Christians to do those
things which are pleasing to God rather than the opposite. I was told in my
youth that “a word to the wise is sufficient” and such was the intention of the
apostle for each member of the body of Christ.
To recap, the sacrament of the Lord’s supper is not to be taken without
self- judgment, followed by confession of what we have found amiss in our lives
as per the commandments and ordinances for holy living as set forth within the
pages of Scripture. Then and only then can we truly partake of the communion
elements in a manner acceptable to God. And after we have received the elements, we are to praise and
thank our Lord for his sacrificial act on our behalf. Only then are we ready to
receive God’s peace and blessing which every born-again believer needs in his
or her daily life. God’s peace and blessing will come if we believe on Jesus
Christ as the only begotten Son of God, and if as part of our belief, we are
obedient to his word written. Therefore, come forth and receive the elements of
the Supper of the Lord, but remember to give God due consideration in this very
sacred time and avoid the satanic insincerity of mind and heart that might make
any partaking of this sacrament a detriment to you.
Let us pray,
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ather, we come before thy throne beseeching thee
to grant us true repentance and amendment of life so that we might do all such
things as thou has purposed for us to do in thy service; for this we ask in the
name of him who was, and is, and ever shall be our Lord and Saviour, even Jesus
Christ. Amen.
Have a blessed week, Bryan+
Notes from the
Mother Country
Bishop Jerry is on travel to England to visit AOC
people there and to participate in the consecration of a new Bishop with the
Church of England (Continuing), Bishop Malcom.
I had the pleasure of attending Morning Prayer at Saint
Mary's this morning - a member church of the Church of England (Continuing).
The Church is a beautiful and well-furnished structure built in 1798. Charles
Simeon was a close friend of the church and hails from Reading as well.
The people were so very kind and attentive to
newcomers.
I must say that I heard one of the most meaningful
and well-delivered sermons from Bishop Malcolm that I have ever had opportunity
to hear. His sermon text came from the lectionary text for the day: "In
the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou
knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both
shall be alike good. " (Eccl 11:6) It was a sermon for our time, and
delivered with articulate conviction. Bishop Malcolm did not make any
noticeable reference to notes, which indicates a total familiarity with his
sermon material. I was much moved and convinced by the sermon, which obviously
was not manmade, but given to the bishop through inspiration of God.
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