Note: The prayers are prayers by Charles Spurgeon, I have collated the order of worship.
Call to Worship
Receive God’s gracious call to worship.
Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. 3 For the Lord is the great God, And the great King above all gods. (Psalm 95:1–3)
Adoration
Offer this praise to God:
O You who are King of kings and Lord of lords, we worship You. “Before Jehovah’s awful throne We bow with sacred joy.” We can truly say that we delight in God. There was a time when we feared You, O God, with the fear of bondage. Now we reverence, but we love as much as we reverence. The thought of Your Omnipresence was once horrible to us. We said: “Whither shall we flee from His presence?” and it seemed to make hell itself more dreadful, because we heard a voice, “If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.” But now, O Lord, we desire to find You. Our longing is to feel Your presence, and it is the heaven of heavens that You are there. The sick bed is soft when You are there. The furnace of affliction grows cool when You are there, and the house of prayer when You are present is none other than the house of God, and it is the very gate of heaven. Come near, our Father, come very near to Your children.
The Law
Hear God’s perfect requirements.
Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven…Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:19–20, 48)
Confession of Sin
Confess and repent of sins before God.
Oh! help us, we pray You, now. As You have already washed Your people in the fountain filled with blood and they are clean, now…wash us from defilement in the water. With the basin…, O Master, wash our feet again. It will greatly refresh; it will prepare us for innermost fellowship with You. So did the priests wash before they went into the holy place. Lord Jesus, take from us now everything that would hinder the closest communion with God. Any wish or desire that might hamper us in prayer remove, we pray You. Any memory of either sorrow or care that might hinder the fixing of our affection wholly on our God, take it away now. What have we to do with idols any more? You have seen and observed us.
Assurance of Pardon
Hear the promise of grace:
Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool (Is 1:18).
Praise
Offer this praise to God:
All through the night I wept full sore,
But morning brought relief;
That hand, which broke my bones before, Then broke my bonds of grief.
My mourning He to dancing turns,
For sackcloth, joy He gives,
A moment, Lord, Your anger burns, But long Your favour lives.
Creed
Testify what you believe of Christian truth:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son, our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary;
suffered under Pontius Pilate;
was crucified, dead, and buried;
the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit;
the holy catholic church;
the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting. Amen.
Catechism
Learn from Spurgeon’s catechism.
1. What is the chief end of man?
Man’s chief end is to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31), and to enjoy him forever (Psalm 73:25-26).
2. What rule has God given to direct us how we may glorify him?
The Word of God which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (Ephesians 2:20; 2 Timothy 3:16) is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify God and enjoy him (1 John 1:3).
3. What do the Scriptures principally teach?
The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man (2 Timothy 1:13; Ecclesiastes 12:13).
Prayer for Illumination
Ask for spiritual understanding before reading God’s Word:
We do not ask to be entranced nor to see an angel in shining apparel, but we do ask that by faith we may see Jesus, and may His presence be so evidently realized among us that we may rejoice as well as if our eyes beheld Him, and love Him and trust Him and worship Him as earnestly as we should do if we could now put our fingers into the print of the nails.
Scripture Reading
Read Scripture with dependence and a desire to obey.
Day 1: Psalm 27 (Trusting in God’s Protection)
Prayer of Intercession
Make your requests with thanksgiving, and pray this prayer.
Oh! that the day might come when even upon earth the Son of the woman, the Man-child, should rule the nations, not with a broken staff of wood, but with an enduring scepter of iron, full of mercy, but full of power, full of grace, but yet irresistible. Oh! that that might soon come, the personal advent of our Lord! We long for the millennial triumph of His Word. Until then, O Lord, gird us for the fight, and make us to be among those who overcome, through the blood of the Lamb and through the word of our testimony, because we “love not our lives unto the death.”
Close with saying or singing the Doxology:
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
