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TRUE LIFE BIBLE-PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
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Mailing Address: 1 Goldhill Plaza, #03-35, Singapore 308899
Email: admin@truelifebpc.org.sg; Website: http://www.truelifebpc.org.sg
(Ring Pastor Jeffrey Khoo 62561189 Anytime)

Vol. XVI No. 37
16 June 2019
“The LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep SILENCE before him.”
Call WorshipDn Tan Beng Lee
Opening HymnJesus, My Lord, My God, My All
Invocation/Gloria Patri
Responsive ReadingProverbs 16
HymnWe Have Not Known Thee as We Ought
Announcements
Music MinistryYouth from Camp
Offerings/HymnI Surrender All
Doxology/PrayerDn Tan Beng Lee
Scripture TextRomans 9:14–29
Pastoral PrayerPastor Jeffrey Khoo
SermonIs God Unjust?
(Pastor Jeffrey Khoo)
Closing HymnHave Thine Own Way, Lord!
BenedictionPastor Jeffrey Khoo
THE TRUE AND FALSE CHURCH COMPARED

John Calvin

The true Church is one where the Word of God is faithfully preached and the sacraments properly administered. But as soon as falsehood has made a breach in the fundamentals of religion, and the use of the sacraments fails, the certain consequence is the ruin of the Church. Christ declares the Church to be “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph 2:20). If the foundation of the Church be the doctrine of the prophets and Apostles, which enjoins believers to place their salvation in Christ alone, how can the edifice stand any longer, when that doctrine is taken away?

As this is the state of things under the Papacy, it is easy to judge how much of the Church remains there. Instead of the ministry of the Word, there reigns a corrupt government, by which the light is extinguished. An execrable sacrilege has been substituted for the Lord’s Supper. The worship of God is deformed with a multifarious mass of superstitions. The doctrine, without which Christianity cannot exist, has been entirely forgotten or exploded. In withdrawing ourselves from all these enormities, there is no danger of separating ourselves from the Church of Christ.

The Papists, however, claim their Church to be the only one, and all who dare to withdraw, are branded schismatics and heretics. And the reason they give to prove theirs to be the true Church is, their perpetual succession of bishops, traced to ancient times. This plea of uninterrupted succession is a vain pretence. If their argument is correct, why are the Greeks also called schismatics, among whom there has never been any interruption of that succession of bishops?

The pretensions of the Romanists are no other than those which appear to have been formerly set up by the Jews, in their blindness and idolatry. For as they boasted of the temple, the ceremonies, and the priesthood, in which things they firmly believed the Church to consist; so, instead of the Church, the Papists produce certain external forms, which are often at a great distance from the Church. We need no other argument to refute them, than that which was urged by Jeremiah against the foolish confidence of the Jews: “Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these” (Jer 7:4). For the Lord acknowledges no place as His temple, where His Word is not heard and devoutly observed. So, though the glory of God resided between the two cherubim in the sanctuary, yet when the priests had completed His worship by perverse superstitions, He departed. If that temple could be forsaken, there can be no reason for their pretending that God is so attached to persons or places, as to be constrained to remain among those who have nothing but the name and appearance of the Church.

In regard to the government of the Church, nothing can be more frivolous than to place the succession in the persons, to the neglect of the doctrine. The Church does not exist by a kind of hereditary right, but rather by a maintenance of pure doctrine.

The true Church is not characterised by the vain glitter, with which the Romanists dazzle the eyes of the simple, but by the voice of the good Shepherd speaking in it: “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice... ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God” (John 18:37; 8:47). In fine, as the Church is the kingdom of Christ, and He reigns only by His Word, those who are destitute of His Word cannot qualify to be His Church.

For withdrawing from the Roman Catholic Church to establish separate assemblies, where we preach a different doctrine from theirs and administer baptism and the Lord’s Supper, we have been branded heretics and schismatics. Augustine says, heretics are those who corrupt the purity of the faith by false doctrines, and schismatics are those that break the bond of affection. But the communion of the Church is preserved by us, in the agreement of sound doctrine, and by brotherly love. This communion, however, must be in Christ our foundation, as exhorted by the Apostle Paul (Eph 4:5). All union which is formed without the Word of the Lord, is a faction of the impious, and not on association of believers.

Though the Romanists have expelled us as heretics with anathemas, because we have withdrawn from their Church, we have done so because theirs cannot possibly be the pure profession of the truth. It was necessary for us to withdraw from them, in order to approach Christ.

The Papists demand that whatever honour, power and jurisdiction Christ has conferred upon His Church, we should attribute the same to theirs. In the steps of Elijah and Micaiah of Israel and of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Hosea of Judah, who withdrew from the company of the false prophets and priests, it is necessary for us also to separate from communion with the Papists.

LETTER FROM DR RAYMOND CARLSON

15 May 2019

Dear Dr Jeffrey Khoo,

Greetings in Jesus’ name. For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to Him alone be the glory.

I’ve just read your church papers, April 7 and on, all five. What a blessing to hear of God’s grace continuing His work. The U.S.A. has sunk down due to bad education and excessive worldly pleasure. May God grant you all His wisdom and grace to walk in Jesus’ steps and not veer to the left or to the right. As it seems all is lost in Western Christianity. God speaks and says: “Is my hand short, that it cannot still work?” God forgive me for my lack of faith. He is faithful to the end.…

Again, “thank you” and Miss [Carol] Lee for her Kenya missions outreach, and your taking a keen interest in Michael’s [Koech] higher education, as well as Jonathan’s [Langat] and Nelson’s [Were]. My wife is very sick and I cannot travel much. Thank God for His unfolding end-time plan. What a privilege to be a pastor for the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

In Christian love with prayer,

Raymond Carlson

1 Cor 15:57, 58

Bomet Bible Institute

[Ed: The Rev Dr Raymond Carlson was former principal of the Bible College of East Africa (1979-81) and founder of the Independent Presbyterian Church in Busia, Kenya. In 1985, he became a missionary of the Presbyterian Missionary Union and founded Bomet Bible Institute which is now headed by the Rev Dr Michael Koech who co-laboured with him.]

The Rev Dr Michael Koech, Bishop of Africa Gospel Unity Church, back in Bomet, Kenya after he was conferred the degree of Doctor of Religious Education by Far Eastern Bible College, Singapore.

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