All Articles For denHartog, Arie

Previous article in this series: January 15, 2013, p. 179.   God has given the high calling to parents to dis­cipline their covenant children. The discipline of these precious children is necessary for the salvation of their souls. The discipline of our covenant children is necessary for establishing the truth of God in their lives and to train them to live for His glory. It must establish order and direction and purpose in their lives from earliest childhood on. Discipline is necessary to prepare our sons and daughters to be fit members of the church. Of this glorious church our...

It is my intention to write a few articles on the above mentioned theme. Many over the years have written on this subject. In preparation for writing these articles I am reading again some good articles and books from my library. God’s Word has much to say about this subject. Our hope and prayer is that another study of this subject will not be considered unnecessary repetition and that we will not imagine that we already know all we need to know. Parents especially have to consider over and over again what God’s Word has to say about this subject....

Previous article in this series: June 2012, p. 404. It is not the will of the Lord that all of His children be married. In our last article we referred to Paul’s instruction in I Corinthians 7. In this chapter of God’s Word the inspired apostle of our Lord says that “it is good for a man not to touch a woman.” His mean­ing is that it is good for a man not to touch a woman sexually, as in marriage. Paul is not writing about compulsory celibacy for the clergy of the church. This is nowhere taught in Scripture....

I have written on the above topic before while serv­ing as one of the writers for this rubric. I am writ­ing this article today from a different perspective. My wife and I are enjoying, at the time of this writing, a four-week stay in Singapore. We were invited by Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church to be here for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of Covenant. This celebration so far has been full of joy and excite­ment for us as a returning missionary. In many ways the church and her members are doing well under the blessing of the Lord and...

With all the important emphasis on mar­riage and the family in the church we should not neglect those who are single among us. As much as it is true that most of us have the calling of God and in-created need to marry, not all are married. There are several situations in which Christians are single, either by their own choice or by providential circumstances of their life. There are those who are not able to marry because of the special way the Lord made them. There are those who are single because the Lord does not lead someone into...

One of the richest blessings that God has or­dained from the beginning for the happiness of man is marriage and the covenant home. God created man with a deep need for companionship and friendship. It was not good for him to be alone. God gave to man a great and precious gift, therefore, when He created woman for him. According to Scripture, man and woman were both created in the image and likeness of God. They were created able to know and to love God and also to love one another. They were in this respect made equal. In chapter...

The fall of man into sin has had devastating consequences for marriage and the family. The most beautiful and blessed of all human relationships, that of husband and wife in marriage, was thoroughly corrupted and spoiled because of sin. The reason of this is that fallen man’s nature has become totally depraved, and this militates against all possibility for a happy and blessed marriage, the foundation of the family. Our Lord describes the great evil that proceeds from the depraved heart of man: “For from within out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness,...

Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ. Greetings in the name of our great God and Savior. It has been quite some time since we have written a report about the work of the Lord in Singapore, a work which God has been pleased to give us as Protestant Reformed Churches to do. We rejoice with thanksgiving to the Lord that He continues to prosper and bless our work in spite of our own many weaknesses. The Lord causes the G.L.T.S.

Rev. denHartog is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Randolph, Wisconsin. Many professing Christians today would not count love for the church as one of the distinctive marks of true godliness. Many such professing Christians are not even members of the church. Others who have their names on the membership roles of some church seldom if ever have much to do with the church. They have little concern with what the church is doing. They attend the worship services of the church only irregularly, if at all. Yet they imagine themselves to be devout and serious Christians. Still others,...

Rev. denHartog is pastor of Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Redlands, California. There cannot be any religion without doctrine. That is especially the case with the true religion. In our day there are many advocates of religion without doctrine or any theological pronouncements. This they claim was the simple religion of Jesus. All the doctrinal pronouncements of the church through history are only human scholastic additions. Doctrine leads us away, they say, from the simplicity of faith in Christ Jesus. Sometimes sincere Christians might also be inclined to imagine that doctrine is not very important. Learning and understanding doctrine is...