Dear Brethren and Friends,

Welcome to the Filipino Worship Service!

We praise the LORD our God Who gave us His perfect inspired and preserved Word. All scriptures which are from the mouth of God is profitable. There are portions of the Bible, however, which are particularly helpful to us in certain times with certain needs. In times of troubles and hardships in life, I can personally attest how the Book of Psalms speaks to me in a very personal and loving way. Indeed, we have the Living and True God who speaks to us directly though His written Word in the Bible. So, read your Bible every day, and when you pray, listen to His answers through His Words. As you hear, obey Him. Be assured that our loving, gracious and merciful God will see us through even during the toughest moments of our life. —JTGL

THE BOOK OF PSALMS

How true are the words of our founding Pastor, The Rev Dr Timothy Tow, who says the Book of Psalms is the Balm for the Soul. The inspired Word of God as a whole is all sanctifying and inspiring, but when times are rough and steep where heart and mind are sorely in pain, there is one particular portion of the Holy Scripture that soothes well—The Psalms. It is when you feel the bitter cup of life that the sweetness of the psalmist’s words revives your appetite to praise and worship the LORD our God. It is when life becomes dry and dreary that rivers of life comes with its cold flush to reinvigorate withered roots and cause them to flourish again and bear flowers and fruits to the blessings of many.

The struggles of the Psalmist expressed in his songs describe every Christian’s journey in this world. The cries for help manifest his total confidence in his faithful LORD who is ready always to come and help the hurting pilgrim smitten and scourged by the enemies of his God. The groaning of this wounded soldier of the heavenly King is bandaged by the loving comforts and confidence of a victorious fight under his Almighty Commander.

What an amazing and wonderful portion of the inspired and preserved Word of God! Poetic words set for singing, these words penetrate into the innermost part of a believer’s heart. Words are designed to renew a sinful mind to think of blessed and praiseworthy thoughts which exalt the loving, gracious and merciful Saviour. Phrases are set to warm the cold feelings which are made so by this world full of people with callous and cirrhotic hearts. Sentences are constructed to show the parallelism of the context, giving the interpreter the fullness of the LORD’s message for His children. Sections are composed to provide the greater plan of God in the redemption of His people through His only begotten Son who came to live, die and rise again for them.

For Calvin, the Psalms is a unique book in the Holy Scriptures. “There is no other book in which there is to be found more express and magnificent commendations, both of the unparalleled liberality of God towards his Church, and of all his works; there is no other book in which there is recorded so many deliverances, nor one in which the evidences and experiences of the fatherly providence and solicitude which God exercises towards us, are celebrated with such splendour of diction, and yet with the strictest adherence to truth; in short, there is no other book in which we are more perfectly taught the right manner of praising God, or in which we are more powerfully stirred up to the performance of this religious exercise.” (https://mail.cprf.co.uk/articles/johncalvinpsalms).

To Calvin, the Book of Psalms is full of the riches of biblical doctrine, and the Christians find in them great blessedness and peace. “In one word, not only will we here find general commendations of the goodness of God, which may teach men to repose themselves in him alone, and to seek all their happiness solely in him; and which are intended to teach true believers with their whole hearts confidently to look to him for help in all their necessities; but we will also find that the free remission of sins, which alone reconciles God towards us, and procures for us settled peace with him, is so set forth and magnified, as that here there is nothing wanting which relates to the knowledge of eternal salvation” (Calvin).

In introducing the Book of Psalms, Matthew Henry writes, “We have now before us one of the choicest and most excellent parts of all the Old Testament; nay, so much is there in it of Christ and his gospel, as well as of God and his law, that it had been called the abstract, or summary, of both Testaments. The History of Israel, which we were long upon, let us to camps and council-boards, and there entertained and instructed us in the knowledge of God. The book of Job brought us into the schools, and treated us with profitable disputations concerning God and his providence. But this book brings us into the sanctuary, draws us off from converse with men, with the politicians, philosophers, or disputers of this world, and directs us into communion with God, by solacing and reposing our souls in him, lifting up and letting out our hearts towards him. Thus may we be in the mount with God; and we understand not our interests if we say not, It is good to be here.”

The Rev Tow writes, “What words can adequately introduce this Book of Psalms to us? Who shall say how much it has meant to godly hearts down the years? Here is poetry which more than view with that of Milton and Shakespeare, yet it is the poetry of downright reality; and, as “the body more than raiment.” So here, the reality is greater than the poetry which expresses it. Here, too, is strong theology—not, however, any merely theoretical theology, but the practical theology of vivid human experience; and, as “the life more than meat,” so is concrete experience more than abstract doctrine. It is, fundamentally, which has made the Book of Psalm such a treasure to the godly.”

Rev Tow also quotes Baxter as saying, “This Book of Psalms is a limpid lake which reflects every mood of man’s changeful sky. It is a river of consolation which, though swollen with many tears, never fails to gladden the fainting. It is a garden of flowers which never lose their fragrance, though some of the roses have sharp thorns. It is a stringed instrument which registers every note of praise and prayer, of triumph and trouble, of gladness and sadness, of hope and fear, and unites them all in the full multi-chord of human experience.” (Meditations from Psalms).