Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church

Today, we are going to look at the contrast between two anointings. One is an anointing with the Holy Spirit. The other is an anointing with a demon. Our goal will be to learn about how God anoints His people that we might cherish His anointing with the Holy Spirit—that we might understand it and desire it for ourselves and others; and that we might see the horror of His anointing with a demon and dread it for ourselves and others.

In our Mountains of Bether Sermon Series, we have been looking at the mountains that stand between us and the Lord with a view to asking Him to remove them. The barriers we have been looking at recently are inattention to the means of grace. This week, the barrier is inattention to the Lord's Supper.

Today, we will continue our sermon series in 1 Samuel at chapter 16. Here, David is brought forward as the King that the Lord chooses for Israel. David is, as God's Christ (anointed King) an Old Testament type of Jesus the Christ. That means that David is a model of King Jesus. Today, we will look at how God provides David to His people, choosing Him above others.

In our Mountains of Bether Series, we look at things that stand between us and our Lord, barriers that He, by His grace, removes as we look to Him, yearning to be closer to Him. Last week, I pointed out the barrier of Inattention to God's Word. But of course, there are other means of grace besides the word of God preached and read. A means of grace, something that God has given us to use that helps us know Him and live for Him. This week, we will look at inattention to baptism.

We have just come to a new section as we work our way through First Samuel. For each section we have sung a Psalm that relates to that section: The first section, 1 Sam 1-7, about Samuel, we sang Psalm 113. The second section, 1 Sam 8-15, about Saul, we sang Psalm 21. The third section, we now begin, 1 Sam 16, about David, we will sing Psalm 89. Psalm 89 is a very long Psalm, so we will be looking at it in an overview fashion. It describes the glory of King Jesus and His godly reign that goes on forever and brings perfect peace, but it shows that there will be hard struggles before that peace comes.

Today, we come to our 18th message in our Mountains of Bether Series. As believers, we are the bride of Christ. We yearn to have a relationship with Him and the Father that is one of sweet harmony. We grow by the grace of God, that is, by the Lord working in our lives through Jesus by His Spirit. We are not to be passive in receiving God's grace. We are to diligently use the means. The Lord has given us means of grace that we are to use diligently to receive His grace (or divine help) that transforms us in our walk with Him. The primary means He has given us are the Word, sacraments, and prayer. The Word is one of the most important of these. It is by the word that He speaks to us. So today, I want to explore the barrier between us and the Lord of inattention to His Word.

We have not had our Samuel Sermon series for a couple of weeks. We are presently at chapter 15. I did a sermon about the stumbling block in this chapter that offends many people today—where God calls His people to exterminate the Amalekites. If that is a problem for you, I encourage you to listen to that sermon from April 6. I did that so that I wouldn't burden the sermon I am preaching today with explaining all of that—which I think is an important thing to do in our particular day. The heart of this chapter is about God's passion for His people and Saul's disappointing refusal to engage with Him as a passionate God. In looking at this, it is my desire that you all will see and understand God's passion for His people and that you will all joyfully connect with Him in His loving zeal for us!

Today in our Mountains of Bether Sermon Series, the hinderance in our relationship with God that we are looking at is doubt. Doubt, of course, can be such that it keeps a person from ever coming to Christ—But in this series, we are looking at barriers between us and the Lord that we have after we have been converted. We will do that today.

A word about holy days not instituted by the Lord and God's mercy. Last year, I preached on 1 Corinthians 15:22, and this year we are looking at the whole of 1 Corinthians 15 to consider how our faith is fed with Christ's Resurrection.

This afternoon, we will continue our Mountains of Bether sermon series where we are looking at things that come between us and the Lord. This week, the barrier we are looking at is one of those mountains that we often don't notice—in other words, we are blind to it. It is what I am calling the mountain of false peace. I hope that you do cry out to Him when your relationship is dried up. That is a mark of a true believer.

Today in our Samuel Sermon, I am doing something a little different. The passage we are looking at today, 1 Sam 15, has a stumbling block in it—something that makes people offended with God. It reveals His severity in calling for the annihilation of an entire nation. So I am going to read the part that makes people offended, and then I am going to do a topical sermon about how to deal with God's severity.

In our afternoon sermon series, we are looking at things that come between us and our Lord. We have looked at quite a few of the mountains that He overcomes—and today it is one mountain which has two opposite barriers that we will find to be essentially the same thing: Worry and Overconfidence—one mountain with two aspects. We might call this Mount Self-trust—which produces both worry and overconfidence.

The church of Jesus Christ, which is His Kingdom, is made up of two kinds of members: sons (converted like Jonathan) and servants (professing but unregenerate members like Saul).

The Mountain of Bether we will consider today is Envy. For those who have not been with us for this series, the Mountains of Bether are barriers that stand between us and God that Christ overcomes.

The Lord has such a personally engaging way of working in our lives as His elect people— One of the tools He employs (and the one we will look at today) is opportunities to trust Him when things are desperate—He sets them up for us and brings them to us. We take the opportunity by stepping out in faith, and when we do, we see Him work and learn of Him and come to love and trust Him more.

Today we will continue our sermon series about the things that separate us from God from which Jesus delivers us. According to the scriptures, we are His betrothed bride. One mountain that is especially displeasing to Him is our indifference to one another. Jesus' bride is unique because although she is one bride, one church, she is made up of many members, and Jesus wants us to love one another. We are all brothers.

Samuel knew that although they were praising God for their deliverance, the thing they attributed most to their victory was that now they had a king like the nations. He wanted to help them to set their hope in the Lord. We will look at his address today that helps the church in every generation to hope in God.

This afternoon in our Mountains of Bether Sermon series where we look at things that separate us from God we are looking at 'Lack of Devotion.' This is a Mountain that Jesus our Saviour transforms into a Mountain of Devotion. When I speak of devotion today, I am speak in particular of the devotion to please Him.