Vol 20 Issue 19

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Report of Synod 1944—Convened June 7, 8, 9 at Grand Rapids, Mich.

The Synod of the Protestant Reformed Churches convened in the parlors of the Fuller Ave. Church, beginning its first session Wednesday morning, June 7. On Tuesday evening, Rev. G. Vos, of Edgerton, Minn., the President of the Synod of 1943, preached the pre-synodical sermon, taking as his text Eph. 5:1, 2: Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and hath given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smell­ing savor. On Wednesday morning Rev. Vos led in the opening exercise of Synod....

Thomas Aquinas and Common Grace (With Respect to Nature and Grace)

The accusation has often been directed at us Protestant Reformed people that we stand outside of the historical line of the reformed faith; this is indeed a powerful argument if it can be substantiated. But if, on the other hand, the exponents of common grace can be shown not only to stand outside of the historically Reformed line, but to stand in a line which has been strongly and bitterly opposed throughout church history by all who stand for the truth, the central truth, of the sovereignty of God, we have indeed a powerful argument. Our purpose in this essay...

The Sign of Jonas the Prophet

At least on two separate occasions during His public ministry Jesus made the candid remark, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.” It bears the earmarks of a Mashal, that is, a proverb, or dark saying, frequently used in Scripture for the purpose of forcing itself upon the attention of the audience to set them to thinking, so that they cannot forget it and must ponder its significance, whether they will heed it or not. Many times Jesus made use of the...

The Revelatory Dream (Commencement Address)

God is a God of revelation. He is such because He is the self-conscious, all-knowing, personal God, full of infinite perfections. And that we may know Him, Whom to know is life eternal, is only possible because God has been pleased to make Himself known unto His moral rational creature. This revelation of God is twofold: general and special. By general revelation is meant that God makes Himself known to all men as their Creator through the medium of creation and providence, that no man may be without excuse. Special revelation, however, is that act of God whereby He makes...

Freemasonary

Organization— The Masonic lodge is only one of some 800 secret societies in these United States of America. Nearly half of our adult population, including multitudes of our most prominent and influential people, politicians, business men, preachers, lawyers, judges, etc. are affiliated with these numerous secret orders for both men and women. Of these 800 secret societies Masonry is the oldest, largest and most influential. It is the parent of all secret orders, of which all the rest are born and after which all the others are patterned. When, therefore, you speak of Freemasonry you speak of lodgism in general....

Preaching on the Parables

In the outset of this essay, it is perhaps well to answer the questions as to what the parables are and the purpose of Christ in introducing parables in the course of his instruction and preaching unto the people. The very word parable means the placing of two or more subjects together, in order to compare them. The parables spoken by our Lord during His public ministry were the earthy and the heavenly objects, which He compared together, and found them to be VERY COMPARABLE. There was utmost and perfect comparison to be made between the earthy objects of our...

The Victory is the Lord’s

Enormous, so we saw, was the panic that seized on Midian, when the trumpets sounded, the pitchers crashed, the battle-cry broke out and the torches blazed. The terror which seized Midian was the terror of God. The narrative brings this out. “And the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow even throughout the host: and the host fled.” Let us pause here and delineate on the great principle of truth which this war of liberation, as thus far waged, is remarkably demonstrated. This truth received statement by the Lord Himself in the following language. “The people that are with...

God’s Counsel and Human Freedom

It is certainly a precarious business to maintain that human freedom and God’s sovereignty are contradictory, logically. For the mind of man is so constituted by God that it simply does not tolerate a logical contradiction. It can’t. And it may not. It is impossible to hold to two contrary propositions, contrary in relation to each other. Let us make this plain by returning to the two propositions in question. If I declare that man is sovereign in his working and that thus God is not sovereign, and if I believe what I say, I deny certainly that God is...

The C.L.A. and the Strike Question

From the June issue of the Christian Labor Herald we learn that the annual business meeting of the C.L. A., held on May 13 in Grand Rapids, the proposal that the Alliance declare itself opposed to the use of the strike weapon was discussed, and rejected by an overwhelming majority. We quote from the Christian Labor Herald: “On one proposal there was considerable debate. That was the proposal of Building Trades Local 12 to adopt a policy that the C.L.A. will not use the strike weapon at any time. Altho[ugh] not worded thus bluntly that was the intent of the...

A Companion of God’s People (2)

I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts. Ps. 119:68 Thou, O Jehovah, art my portion! That, evidently, is the dominating thought of this particular section of Psalm the one hundred nineteenth. And that, too, is the basis, the background, of the confession the psalmist makes here, that he is a companion of all Them that fear Jehovah, that keep His precepts. We remember that this psalm is divided into twenty equal sections, according to the number of characters in the Hebrew alphabet, each verse of each section, in the original,...

7/1/1944