All Articles For Gritters M

Apart from Christ Jesus he has no significance whatever. In fact he becomes a mere deceiver. This is true of all the prophets but especially true of John, since, as Christ had said, he is “more than a prophet.” When John was eight days old his father addresses him and says: “And thou, child, shalt be called a prophet of the Highest”. There were indeed many prophets of the Most High, but yet John is more than a prophet, for, as we read in Luke 1:76: “For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways.”...

YOUTH SAYS: In a recent poll of High School students a rather large cross section was asked if they should like more help in solving their personal problems, and where they would look for this help. Fifty percent of them said they wanted the help of their parents. Only eight percent wanted the advice of teachers and a still smaller percentage would seek this advice from the ministers. Again, concerning sex education, sixty-six percent stated a desire that such education should be given in the home, a smaller percentage desired it through the schools, a still smaller percentage sought it...

Regeneration . . . . When? It is of interest to notice that among all the subjects which are undergoing debate in the Netherlands, there is also the question: “Does the Spirit work regeneration in anyone before hearing the Gospel?” Reduced to its simplest form: Can infants and little children be said to be regenerated? Dr. C. Vonk, in his “Wedergeboorte der Kinderen” proceeds to tell us that neither Scripture nor the Confessions teaches regeneration as existing in infants. Which does not mean, as we might erroneously conclude, that therefore infants cannot be saved. Strange enough, quite the opposite. In...

The Truly Modern School. It’s the Summerhill School in North Wales. This is the Constitution of the school: “Blasting the orthodox theory that children need discipline to make them learn to behave, Summerhill and Kingsmuir give students almost complete freedom. The boys and girls attend classes voluntarily, smoke and swear at will and sass the teacher without fear of retribution.” Here is an example: The teacher said, “Shut up, Stephen!” and Stephen retorted cheerfully, “Shut up, yourself, Peter!” And the principle on which such schools are based we find given a little later when we read, “Children are essentially good...

WILL YOU BE ONE OF THEM? A pamphlet by the European Christian Mission asks me that question. It tells me that 400,000,000 people in Europe are still unevangelized. Two hundred million who profess no religion whatever, found chiefly in such countries as Russia, France and Spain. In Portugal only one in a thousand is what one could call protestant. It goes on to state that this Mission wants to send one hundred workers from this country and England, assuring me that even these hundred could make but a very small beginning. Then it comes straight at me and says, “will...

Marriage, Heaven-Made or Not. In an attempt to adjust its marriage canons to the existing conditions, and thus, to “take a more realistic approach to the subject of re-marriage”, Bishop J. Davis of the P. E. Church wants to decide the validity of marriages, at least of those that prove unhappy and unsuccessful, on the basis of the question whether it we a heaven-made marriage or not. How fertile are men’s minds. Eureka. (How simple that really was. Here we have been groping about for a solution to the knotty problem of marriage and the re-marriage of divorced people, and...

Introduction: Job’s Case Job, amid his sufferings desired above all one thing, namely, that he might either find a talisman (lawyer) to plead his cause with God, or that he himself might appear before God to set his arguments in order before His face. More than once we hear him lamenting: “O that I might find Him,” and again, “O that one would hear me, my desire is that the Almighty would answer me”, and again, “O that one might plead for a man with God as a man pleadeth with his neighbor”. It is evident that Job desires to...

As God passes the creatures, one by one, before Job’s eyes, God recites various of their native peculiarities. God begins with the earth’s foundations, then proceeds to speak about the sea, hemmed in by bars and doors. Then God continues with mention of the rain, snow, hoarfrost, sleet and hail. From there God mounts upward to heaven to discuss the constellations, the lightning, etc. Then God has Job inspect the wild goats and the wild asses. Afterward God passes the unicorn before his eyes, the peacock, the hawk, the eagle and the horse. God had only begun this process or...

The Covenant. We believe that our gracious God, in His sovereign good pleasure has entered into covenant with His people and has established with them that everlasting covenant of grace which God one time promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God will be their God and they shall be unto Him a people. There you have the two sides to that glorious covenant. He will be God unto them. That is, all that which belongs unto Him as God, which characterizes Him for what He has revealed Himself to be, all His God-ness will become the experience of His people. His...

Off-Center. Whenever there is a center there is also an off-center. As in our own lives there is the danger of hiving off-center, so our Christian instruction is often in danger of being off-center. That is, something else than God, His Covenant and the Man of God receives the emphasis. Sometimes the tendency is to the right, sometimes to the left of center. The question is therefore not, what place can we procure for our children in this world or how can we educate them so that they may take that place which we assign to them. God assigns them...