Sunday Morning Live Stream Worship 11:15 AM
A Reflection Before the Service
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God is more inclined to mercy, than wrath. Mercy is his darling attribute, which he most delights in… The bee naturally gives honey, it stings only when it is provoked. Just so, God does not punish until he can bear no longer. "So that the Lord could bear no longer, because of the evil of your doings." Mercy is God's right hand that he is most used to; inflicting punishment is called his "strange work." He is not used to it.
Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
(1692; emphasis added)
If crime is only a disease which needs cure, not sin which deserves punishment, it cannot be pardoned. How can you pardon a man for having (an abscess) or a club foot? But the Humanitarian theory wants simply to abolish Justice and substitute Mercy for it.
Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful. That is the important paradox. As there are plants which will flourish only in mountain soil, so it appears that Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice: transplanted to the marshlands of mere Humanitarianism, it becomes a man-eating weed, all the more dangerous because it is still called by the same name as the mountain variety. But we ought long ago to have learned our lesson.
– C.S. Lewis, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” (1949
essay in the book, God In the Dock [1970]; emphasis added
The Call to Worship
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The Revelation of Jesus Christ (1.4-8)
Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood, and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. Even so. Amen.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
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God is more inclined to mercy, than wrath. Mercy is his darling attribute, which he most delights in… The bee naturally gives honey, it stings only when it is provoked. Just so, God does not punish until he can bear no longer. "So that the Lord could bear no longer, because of the evil of your doings." Mercy is God's right hand that he is most used to; inflicting punishment is called his "strange work." He is not used to it.
Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity
(1692; emphasis added)
If crime is only a disease which needs cure, not sin which deserves punishment, it cannot be pardoned. How can you pardon a man for having (an abscess) or a club foot? But the Humanitarian theory wants simply to abolish Justice and substitute Mercy for it.
Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful. That is the important paradox. As there are plants which will flourish only in mountain soil, so it appears that Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice: transplanted to the marshlands of mere Humanitarianism, it becomes a man-eating weed, all the more dangerous because it is still called by the same name as the mountain variety. But we ought long ago to have learned our lesson.
– C.S. Lewis, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” (1949
essay in the book, God In the Dock [1970]; emphasis added
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The Revelation of Jesus Christ (1.4-8)
Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood, and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. Even so. Amen.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
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Bulletin Date: 09/22/2024