Call to Worship
Receive God’s gracious call to worship.
Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great: You are clothed with honor and majesty, Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment, Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain. (Psalm 104:1–2)
Adoration
Offer this praise to God:
Blessed God, our heart praises You, our inmost soul rejoices in Your name, for the Lord is good, and His mercy endures for ever.
Your people praise You, O God, for all that You have been unto them, and we can each one set forth Your worthy praise based on our personal experience of Your goodness. You have dealt well with Your servants, O Lord, according unto Your Word.
We bless You for teaching us from our youth, for some of us have known You, even from our childhood, and Your Word was precious to us even in our earlier days, when, like young Samuel, we were spoken to of the Lord.
Now You have borne and carried us these years in the wilderness with unchanging love and goodness… You have made and You do carry; You do not forsake the work of Your own hands. “Your mercy endures for ever,” and let Your praise endure for ever also.
O Lord, we would cling to You more firmly than ever we have done: we would say, “Return unto Your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with You, for You have delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears and my feet from falling.”
We would this morning “take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.” …Blessed be the name of the Lord, we have been brought low, but the Lord has helped us; we have oftentimes wandered, but He has restored us; we have been tried, but He has preserved us; yea, we have found His paths to be “paths of pleasantness” and all the ways of His wisdom to be “ways of peace.”
We bear our willing witness to the testimony of the Lord, we set our seal that “He is true” and we cry again “Bind the sacrifice with cords, even with cords unto the horns of the altar.” From henceforth let no man trouble us, for we “bear in our body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”
We are His branded servants henceforth and for ever. Our ear is nailed to our Master’s doorpost, to go no more out for ever.
The Law
Hear God’s perfect requirements.
Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him (Colossians 3:5–10)
Confession of Sin
Confess and repent of sins before God.
Have You commanded and shall it not come to pass? We are utterly ashamed and full of confusion, because we have to confess that we have doubted You. Many of our actions have been atheistic. We have lived at times as if there were no God.
Lord, forgive us that death in life, in which so many of our years were spent, when we found something in the world apart from Thee, and were content with the things of the hour, the vile shadows, transient gusts of things which truly are not, for You alone are all in all.
We have repented, as You know, through Your grace, most bitterly of that time of death in which we tried to live; and now You have given us to see our pardon in the wounds of Jesus, and our soul puts its trust in Him. God incarnate is the ground of our hope that we are accepted and forgiven, notwithstanding that previous life of ours. But Lord, the worst of it is, that in many of our actions, even since then, we manifest a disbelief of You. Like the children of Israel in the wilderness, You may well say of us, “How long will it be ere they believe Me, though I have shewn all my signs and wonders among them?”…
And now blot out the sin of Your servants.
Once again let this unbelief of ours be forgiven, and let us stand, with no sin upon the conscience, but absolved through Jesus’ blood, in the enjoyment of such confidence with You, that we may lift up our face without a cloud, and may trust in You henceforth without a doubt, and go on our way rejoicing whatever that way may be.
Assurance of Pardon
Hear the promise of grace:
Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:14–18)
Praise
Offer this praise to God:
To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. (2 Peter 3:18)
Creed
Testify what you believe of Christian truth:
By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. (1 John 4:2–3)
Catechism
Learn from Spurgeon’s catechism.
59. Which is the eighth commandment?
A. The eighth commandment is, “Thou shalt not steal.”
60. What is forbidden in the eighth commandment?
A. The eighth commandment forbids whatever does or may unjustly hinder our own (1Ti 5:8; Pro 28:19; Pro 21:6), or our neighbour’s wealth, or outward estate (Eph 4:28).
Prayer for Illumination
Ask for spiritual understanding before reading God’s Word:
We trust we can say also that we love the Lord, but Oh that we loved Him more!
Let this blessed flame feed on the very marrow of our bones. May the zeal of Your muse consume us, may we feel that we love the Lord with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, with all our strength, and hence may there be about our life a special consecration, an immovable dedication unto the Lord alone.
O Lord Jesus, deepen in us our knowledge of You.
You have made the first lines of Your likeness upon our character; go on with this work of sacred art till we shall be like You in all respects.
We wish that we had greater power in private prayer, that we were oftener wrestling with the covenant angel.
We would that the Word of God were more sweet to us, more intensely precious, that we had a deeper hunger and thirst after it.
Oh that our knowledge of the truth were more clear and our grip of it more steadfast. Teach us, O Lord, to know the reason of the hope that is in us, and to be able to defend the faith against ill comers.
Scripture Reading
Read Scripture with dependence and a desire to obey.
Day 24: Romans 8:1-17 (Life in the Spirit)
Prayer of Intercession
Make your requests with thanksgiving, and pray this prayer.
O Lord, we beseech You, save our unconverted friends and neighbours from this gall of bitterness, this horrible yoke of iniquity which consists in disbelieving God and His Christ. And, then, deliver any of Your children that have back-slidden, and have got into a state of mis-belief. May they be brought back; may they come with weeping and lamentation, and again trust the ever-blessed Father; and may our confidence become strong that our peace may be like a river, and our righteousness like the waves of the sea.
God bless our beloved church! Give to it more faith may the prayers that go up before You be salted with faith…and may all that is done of the brotherhood for Christ, be done in simple confidence in God. We know that if we believe not we shall never be established.
….Give a blessing…we pray You, to us all; may we make a distinct advance in the divine life; may we get to a higher platform; may we leave the mists of doubt and fear below us in the valley, and quit the marshes of the plain, and climb the glittering hill-tops of eternal security in Christ and blessed oneness with Him, by simply believing Him who cannot lie — who has sworn by two immutable things and cannot from His purpose turn, nor from His word draw back. O God, grant this faith to the entire church.
We believe the world will be brought in, when the church believes her God, the Kingdom will come, and the glory shall be made visible to all flesh, when once we have the confidence we ought to have in Him who is worthy to be praised, and to be trusted evermore.
And now by the precious blood of Jesus accept this feeble prayer of ours, and send down a shower of benedictions; and to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, be glory for ever and ever.
Amen.
Benediction
Close with the blessing of God.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. (Philippians 4:23)
