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Archive for October, 2025
RPM: Preaching again at Iglesia Buenas Nuevas
Posted in Reformed Parish Mission (RPM) Posts on October 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“Of the Assembling of the Congregation, and their Behaviour in the Publick Worship of God”
Posted in Church of Scotland, Westminster Assembly & Standards, Worship, True & False on October 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »
WHEN the congregation is to meet for publick worship, the people (having before prepared their hearts thereunto) ought all to come and join therein; not absenting themselves from the publick ordinance through negligence, or upon pretence of private meetings.
Let all enter the assembly, not irreverently, but in a grave and seemly manner, taking their seats or places without adoration, or bowing themselves towards one place or other.
The congregation being assembled, the minister, after solemn calling on them to the worshipping of the great name of God, is to begin with prayer.
“In all reverence and humility acknowledging the incomprehensible greatness and majesty of the Lord, (in whose presence they do then in a special manner appear,) and their own vileness and unworthiness to approach so near him, with their utter inability of themselves to so great a work; and humbly beseeching him for pardon, assistance, and acceptance, in the whole service then to be performed; and for a blessing on that particular portion of his word then to be read: And all in the name and mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The publick worship being begun, the people are wholly to attend upon it, forbearing to read any thing, except what the minister is then reading or citing; and abstaining much more from all private whisperings, conferences, salutations, or doing reverence to any person present, or coming in; as also from all gazing, sleeping, and other indecent behaviour, which may disturb the minister or people, or hinder themselves or others in the service of God.
If any, through necessity, be hindered from being present at the beginning, they ought not, when they come into the congregation, to betake themselves to their private devotions, but reverently to compose themselves to join with the assembly in that ordinance of God which is then in hand.
Read the rest of the Directory for the Public Worship of God (1645)
Demonic Nephilim, hold the hybrid?
Posted in Anthropology, Biblical Interpretation, Gender & Sexuality, Spiritual Warfare; the Occult, WPE Editor on October 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Who were the Nephilim of Genesis 6? I have long defaulted to the traditional Protestant interpretation, that they were the product of the lawless blending of the Sethite line with the heathen. Given the analogy of faith, Matthew 22:30 appears to close that door for us rather firmly. The angels “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” And the thought of a mongrel tertium quid between humans and demons just opens a theological Pandora’s box in my mind.
Yet, I am open at least to a variant option. Meredith Kline advanced a unique interpretation of Genesis 6 and the “sons of God.” In the article appended below, Kline argues that these “sons of God” who married the “daughters of men” were princes of the earth (following Psalm 82), and/or heroic, quasi-legendary figures. Maybe even degenerate Sethites drunk on power and glory? In any case, if Kline is on to something, what if these “sons of God” made a Faustian bargain with demonic powers in order to advance their intellectual and physical prowess for even greater domination and glory? Then genetic alteration happens (or a kind of reversal of post-fall physical decline?) along the lines of the Gadarene demoniac, etc. Then these demonically ‘souped-up’ heroes procreate with reckless abandon. And thus you get the Nephilim-giants with demonic sexual influence—something that has been increasingly entertained within evangelicalism in more recent years, such as with Michael Heiser—yet without recourse to the problematic man-demon hybrid theory.
And as always, standard caveats! I am hardly a “Klinian.”
High places and Halloween
Posted in Heathenism, Sabbatarianism & the Church Calendar, Spiritual Warfare; the Occult, Worship, True & False on October 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The following post was written by my friend, Rev. Jerrold Lewis, of the Free Reformed Churches.
* * * *
“They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good…” (Hosea 4:13).
What was found in the Qumran caves was nothing new to Israel. In Hosea’s day, heart religion had long become a relic. Over generations, the fire of first love had all but gone out. Historically, slipping happens in stages. Typically, the first generation is passionate, the second grows complacent, and the third rebels. It’s a story as old as time. When the heart of religious man turns from the living God, it will fill that heart with other things. Oh, how each generation needs a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit! By the time we meet Israel in Hosea, the covenant people are in the third stage, rebellion.
Yet, this rebellion was not easily spotted. They still brought their sacrifices to the altar. They still offered their tithes and observed the holy days. The priests still performed their duties, just like past generations. To the casual eye, things appeared status quo. Outwardly, at least, Israel’s calendar was full, their altars were hot, the priesthood was sacrificing.
The golden chain
Posted in Holy Scripture, The Decrees & Federal Theology on October 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Chalmers on the parish missionary
Posted in Missiology, Parish Theory & Practice, Thomas Chalmers on October 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“There should be the previous working of a Home Missionary among the families of the locality for which it is destined. . . . We set a parish missionary amongst them, who can give his whole time to the work, and who, by his unwearied ministrations among the sick, and the dying, and the ignorant, and the young, has created such a demand for Sabbath attendance, that his preaching-hall, which holds 300, is filled to an overflow; and we feel encouraged to build a church (to be set about immediately,) in the confident hope that many hundreds, who till now have been living in heathenism, will be reclaimed to the good old habits of their forefathers.”
“But wherever a new parochial economy is meant to be set up, it is in all cases most desirable that a moral preparation should go before the erection of the material apparatus. I do not know a more useful set of labourers than our local missionaries, who ply the families through the week, and congregate them at preaching stations, either on week-nights or on the Sabbath” (Chalmers, Works 18:228-29, 270).
Binning on the hard way of sin
Posted in Church of Scotland, Covenanters, Experimental Religion & the Cure of Souls, Practice of Piety on October 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The way of the Lord on which the Christian walks “hath all the properties of a good way, none so pleasant and plain;—how sweet and pleasant sights all the way! It is an alley of delight,—the way of his commandments; it wants not accommodation in it to refresh the traveller. The most delightful company is here; the Father and the Son, who sought no other company from all eternity, but were abundantly satisfied and rejoiced in one another. This fellowship the Christian hath to solace himself with, and he is admitted to be partaker of that joy. There is nothing that doth disburden the soul so of care and anxiety, nothing doth rid a man of so many perplexities and troubles, as this way. But the way of sin in itself is most laborious, most difficult. It hath infinite by-ways that it leads a man into, and he must turn and return, and run in a circle all the day, all his time, to satisfy the infinite lusts and insatiable desires of sin. O how painful and laborious is it to fulfil the lusts of the flesh! How much service doth it impose! How serious attention! What perplexing cares and tormenting thoughts! How many sorrows and griefs are in every step of this way! Do you not perceive what drudges and slaves sin makes you,—how much labour you have to satisfy your lusts? And you are always to begin, as near that which you seek in the end of your years, as in the beginning. How thorny, how miry is the way of covetousness! Are you not always out of one thorn into another, and cut asunder, or pierced through with many sorrows? 1 Tim. vi. 10; Matt. xiii. 22. Is that a pleasant and easy way, I pray you, that makes all your sorrow and your travail grief, and suffers not your heart to take rest in the night? Eccl. ii. 22, 23. What pains of body! What plotting of mind! What labour and vexation of both must a sinner have as his constant attendance in this way! The way is intricate, deep, unpassable, that leads to that satisfaction you desire to your lusts. Your desires are impotent and impatient, the means to carry you on are weak and lame, nowise accommodated or fit for such a journey, and this puts you always, as it were, on the rack, tormented between the impatience of your lusts, and the impotency of means, and impossibility to fulfil them. Desires and disappointments, hopes and fears, divide your souls between them. Such is the way after the flesh, an endless labyrinth of woes and miseries, of pains and cares, ever while here.”
Hugh Binning, The Sinner’s Sanctuary
Neo-pagan appropriation of Halloween
Posted in Sabbatarianism & the Church Calendar, Spiritual Warfare; the Occult, Worship, True & False on October 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I could not bring myself to watch all of this, it’s just so idolatrous. But the observation is, if modern pagans take Halloween as their own, should it not raise some serious second thoughts among Christians who participate? “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”
The dumbification of America
Posted in Contemporary Issues, Culture on October 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“Is the decline of reading making American politics dumber?” The opening piece is so tragic; and it bodes very ill for America if things are not reversed. Christians, you who are “salt and light,” resist the great dumbing down! Take up and read!
Make me to understand
Posted in Holy Scripture on October 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »
West Port Experiment 