All Articles For denHartog, Arie

Any institution that is going to attempt to raise children needs to have a firmly established order. The reason the family is the ideal institution is that the institution of the covenant family is built on God’s order. The world increasingly has abandoned and rejected the order of God. The result has been that the institution of the family in America is falling apart. Furthermore, the prevalence of ungodly divorce and remarriage in our society has destroyed many homes. It is impossible for the public schools in our land to repair the damage that has been done to the institution...

Previous article in this series: September 15, 2014, p. 491. One of God’s chief purposes for our marriages is the bringing forth of covenant children. This matter is not merely one of the choice of a godly couple but a matter of their calling and responsibility before God. Bringing forth children is a very important question because of its personal nature. How many children we have in our home is going to affect many things. Even one child requires sacrifice on the part of the married couple. Childbearing involves considerable expense, especially in our modern times. It involves the physical...

Previous article in this series: June 2014, p. 402. The covenant home is God’s good and wise creation. The home was created when God made man and woman after His own image. The family was intended to be a reflection of His own covenant life as the triune God. God Himself united man and woman in the intimate holy bond of marriage. God created the man and the woman with their unique characters adapted for their respective roles in marriage. After He created Adam and Eve, God gave them the joint mandate to be fruitful and multiply, to bear children...

The covenant family was created by God in His infinite goodness and perfect wisdom to be the ideal institution for the nurture of the children. However, marriage and the family were deeply corrupted and troubled by the fall. What God intended to be a place of order, peace, happiness, and love has been ruined by self-seeking, pride, violence, lust, adultery, and the treachery of ungodly men. Many of the world’s marriages are torn apart by the great evil of divorce. It is no wonder that such homes can no longer be the ideal place to nurture children, where order and...

Previous article in this series: February 15, 2014, p. 234. Since I wrote the first article on the above mentioned subject, my wife and I have read again through the book of Ezra for our family devotions. We were impressed especially by chapters 9 and 10, in which Ezra speaks of the serious crisis that occurred among the returned exiles when it was reported that many of God’s covenant people had committed the sin of giving their covenant sons and daughters in marriage to the heathen. Ezra grieves concerning this, saying: “For they have taken of their daughters for themselves,...

In both the Old and New Testaments strong warnings are given regarding mixed marriages. In the earliest history of the world, one of the chief ways in which the covenant of God was corrupted was that “the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose” (Gen. 6:2). This led to amalgamation of the seed of the covenant and the seed of the ungodly, the world. In Deuteronomy 7:3, God commanded Israel through Moses concerning the nations of the land of Canaan, whose inhabitants they were to...

Previous article in this series: September 15, 2013, p. 490. Our children need the discipline of their godly parents from the time they are given into our arms at birth until they are brought to maturity. The goal of this discipline is to raise them to become responsible adults as citizens of the kingdom of our Lord and as members of His church. Discipline is not only about chastening our children when they sin, it is also about teaching them to restrain their sinful nature, and establishing godly order in their young and still immature lives. They need to be...

God commands us to discipline our children in love. The wise God-fearing author of the book of Proverbs makes the statement, “He that spa­reth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chaste­neth him betimes” (Prov. 13:24). God Himself chastens His people because of their sins in order to humble them and turn them to Himself. “For whom the Father loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiv­eth” (Heb. 12:6). By the grace of God we as parents are to reveal the love of God our Father in chastening our children when they need this. Our...

I first came to know Lau Chin Kwee in Singapore when I was called there to be a missionary to the Gospel Literature and Tract Society (GLTS). The GLTS was a vibrant group of mostly Chinese new Christians. Chin Kwee was already at that time a leader of the GLTS. He was instructing the group in the Heidelberg Catechism. Many of the members of GLTS were brilliant college and university students. God used the young brother Chin Kwee, at the time a school teacher, in very exciting days, to work towards the establishing of a new Reformed church in Singa­pore....

Previous article in this series: March 1, 2013, p. 258. We have divided this subject into three parts. In our last article we addressed the importance of preventive discipline. We need to warn our covenant children about the serious­ness of sin, God’s judgment on this sin, and the grave consequences sin has for our lives. We need to warn our children, earnestly and prayerfully, concerning the great evils of the world. They must be taught the urgency of condemning the world and fleeing from its temptations and great evils. We are, by the wonderful grace of God, His covenant people....