Lord’s Day, Vol. 10 No. 21
Special Thanksgiving Service
We shall gather, God willing, next Lord’s Day, for a Special Thanksgiving Service to praise the Lord for sustaining and strengthening His Church in the past two years during the course of the pandemic. Let us gather to recount God’s grace and goodness toward the church.
The church went online when physical worship was suspended on 22 March 2020 to 28 June 2020 for a period of thirteen weeks.
“I believe the Lord has allowed this pestilence to plague the entire world for the good purpose of awakening the world to return to their Creator God whom they have rejected. This alienation from their Creator God grieves the heart of the Father in heaven and He allows this alarming proliferation of the virus so that men may be awakened to their frailty and the brevity of life and be willing to receive the remedy for sin and death through Jesus Christ our Lord.
All who are bound by the shackles of sin, fearful of death, downcast and overwhelmed with cares, let them not be affrighted. There is hope with God. We are to put faith first. We take God at His Word. We will receive God’s comfort. Jesus Christ paid for our sins on the cross and three days later rose victorious from the dead in the resurrection for our justification.” [Lord’s Day, Vol. 8 No. 12]
Because Jesus lives, we live, because Jesus rose from the grave, so will we.
Thanksgiving for Resumption of Worship
Recall on 28 June 2020 Newsletter:
Psalm 29:2Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.
This Lord’s Day, 28 June 2020, the church is gathered once again for worship at the Worship Centre. Our last gathering was thirteen weeks ago on 22 March 2020. We thank the Lord that we can be physically gathered in the church for worship.
By the grace of God, the church remained open for in-person worship every Lord’s Day from 28 June 2020 till 30 January 2022 when the church commemorated her 8th Anniversary Thanksgiving Service.
From 6 February 2022 to 24 April 2022, for 12 weeks, Church Service was in the format of a Bible Class to facilitate those attending regardless of vaccination status with the firm belief that there should not be any differentiation in the church of Jesus Christ.
Galatians 3:28 (KJV) There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
From 1 May 2022, the church resumed Church Service in the format of a Worship Service. Praise the Lord for enabling church members and friends to boldly gather for worship over the past 2 years as a witness to the world of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
We praise the Lord for enabling His people to fulfil this biblical exhortation to meet in person on the Lord’s Day for holy worship.
Hebrews 10:25 (KJV) Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
It is unprecedented for the church not to have in-person assemblies. This verse seemed to speak particularly to believers who are living nearest to the day of the Lord’s return where the assembly is restricted or inhibited due to persecution. The exhortation, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together”, is used to encourage believers to obey the Lord continually, come together and meet with Him.
John Owen, the puritan writer observed well when he said, “The end of these assemblies were twofold: (1) The due performance of all solemn stated, orderly, evangelical worship, in prayer, preaching of the word, singing of psalms, and the administration of the sacraments. (2) The exercise of discipline, or the watch of the church over its members, with respect unto their walking and conversation, that in all things it be such as become the gospel, and give no offence: so to admonish, exhort, and “provoke one another to love and good works;” to comfort, establish, and encourage them that were afflicted and persecuted; to relieve the poor, etc. Such assemblies were constantly observed in the first churches.
Two things are evident herein:
(1) That those assemblies, those comings together in one place, were the only way whereby the church, as a church, made its profession of subjection unto the authority of Christ in the performance of all those duties of sacred worship whereby God was to be glorified under the gospel. Wherefore voluntary neglect and relinquishment of those assemblies destroy any church if it to be persisted in.
(2) That those assemblies were the life, the food, the nourishment of their souls; without which they could neither attend unto the discipline of Christ, nor yield obedience unto His commands, nor make profession of His name as they ought, nor enjoy the benefit of evangelical institutions: whereas in due observance of them consisted the trial of their faith in the sight of God and man. For as unto God, whatever reserves men may have in their minds, that they would continue to believe in Christ though they attended not unto His discipline in these assemblies, He regards it not; because therein men do openly prefer their own temporal safety before His glory.
And as unto men, it is not so much faith itself, as the profession of it in those assemblies that they hate, oppose, and persecute. Wherefore believers in all ages have constantly ventured their lives in the observance of them through a thousand difficulties and dangers, esteeming them always aliens from their communion by whom they were neglected.” [Lord’s Day, Vol. 8 No. 34]
Truly, the Lord has kept His church in the past 2 years through a thousand difficulties. Let us come together to recount His grace and goodness on 29 May 2022. Amen.
Yours lovingly
Pastor Lek Aik Wee