All Articles For Gritters M

An imaginary case. Several young people appear at the consistory. To make confession of faith? No. They are confessing members, and very pious.

If one reads again “Van Zonde En Genade” (alas that this book was not translated into the English), one feels that at the bottom of the Three Points of Nineteen-Twenty-Four there lay a certain world-and- life view. That our leaders at that time had to fight again for the truths of unconditional salvation, absolute sovereignty of God, and the total depravity of man, was due, in no small part, to the prevailing false world-and-life view. In nineteen-twenty-four the error root was there and it shot forth Three Points above the ecclesiastical ground.

There was a call issued to young men in our denomination who would take up the work of the ministry. But the Synod of 1949 has come and gone, and there is no one who answered the call. None came forth to be enrolled in our school. None to take up the ministry. None to heed this work of the Lord. It is two years now since there has been a graduation from our theological school. Where are the young men? We need young men.

In connection with the Common Grace world-and-life view, labeled or unlabeled, on which we commented last time, we want to add a line or two.

It has happened. They are married. One is a member of the church, the other is not, or rather, one is a member of the church and the other is a member by baptism of a church which has forsaken the reformed faith, but since baptism has had no reformed nurturing.

MET IN SESSION, SEPT. 7, 1949 AT SIOUX CENTER, IOWA

He was a good giver. He loved to give to the church. He made two mistakes. He made a mistake as a consistory member when, as often as there was a shortage in the fund, he would make up the deficit with his liberality. That was one mistake.

MET IN SESSION, MARCH 1, 1950 AT HULL IOWA Chairman of the previous Classis, Rev. A. Petter, calls the brethren together in the auditorium of the Hull Church, and after singing Psalter No. 240, and reading I John 2 he offers prayer.

I’ll never forget the farmer who brings his busy day’s work to a close early on Saturday afternoons, so he has ample time to prepare for the Sabbath. Perhaps not everyone can do that, and life is far too complicated to put it into alphabetical files, but most of us can adopt some system which gives us time to prepare for the Sabbath. Some of us were discussing the other days how come that we, with a world full of conveniences, seem to have less time than when these conveniences were unknown. No doubt the book of Ecclesiastes holds an...

You Pray Before Service I have seen people come to church, hurry to the pews, tumble into a vacant place and then sit and look around as if they had entered some kind of museum. Some enter the church as if it were a sales pavilion. Judging by the way some examine the suits and dresses and hats of the others one would think they mistook the church for a style shop. All this is unworthy of our approach to the divine service.