Vol 39 Issue 09

Classis East met in Southeast Church. Rev. G. Vos, president of the October Classis, led in opening devotions. All the churches were represented by two delegates each. Rev. C. Hanko, following order of rotation, presided over this session of Classis, while the Rev. Vos recorded the minutes. Much of the material before Classis was of a routine nature, including reports from the Stated Clerk and Classical Committee. The committee appointed on the July Classis to give advice regarding a decision of the last Synod respecting First Church and Chassis East, reported. Classis adopted the advice of the committee, namely, to...

Rev. R.C. Harbach, of Lynden, is considering two calls at present, one from Kalamazoo and the other from Loveland. Southwest’s new trio consist of the Revs. R.C. Harbach, J. Kortering and H. Veldman. The congregational meeting intended to call from this trio was postponed from Jan. 14 to the 21st because of snow-drifted roads. Hope’s Consistory has named the following trio: Revs. C. Hanko, R.C. Harbach and G. Vanden Berg. Rev. H. Hoeksema will continue his series of sermons on First Peter on the Reformed Witness Hour February broadcasts. The schedule is as follows: Feb. 3—”The Nearness of the End”;...

NUCLEAR WAR AND OUR CHILDREN There is a growing concern in these times of threat of nuclear war about the effects on children. Children hear their parents and teachers speak of the horrors of nuclear destruction; they watch air raid shelters being built; they see missiles blast off from their launching pads on the TV screens; they are drilled in air raid procedures in the schools; they speak of A-bombs and H-bombs. Parents, teachers and psychologists report that all this is having a very bad effect on children. All kinds of psychological and emotional problems are troubling the younger generation,...

One more reason that is often advanced to support the contention that ecclesiastical censure cannot be applied to those who neglect their calling to use the facilities of Protestant Reformed education where these are made available is the claim that the task of the training of the children is a parental responsibility and, therefore, parents are at liberty to choose the school that they desire for their children. Where they send them is of no concern to anyone else and the responsibility for that decision rests alone on the parents. The church has no right to interfere with this liberty. The point...

The Oneness of God (continued) In answer to this question, we may state from the outset that it certainly was not the intention of our Reformed fathers to teach anything at all like the error of tritheism, and to make a division in the work of the Three Persons. This could not have been the case, for the simple reason that such would have been in conflict with the very teachings of the articles in which this distinction is made. However this three-fold distinction made by the Confession (and also by the Catechism and by the Baptism Form) is to...

We now continue with our quotations from the Radio Replies of the Fathers Rumble and Carty, Volume II, 716-721, 732-735. 720. Is not the application of water merely symbolic, testifying an inward regeneration? No. The sacramental external rite does not merely testify to an inward regeneration. It causes that regeneration. The Sacraments, as instituted by Christ and deriving all their power from Christ, are the very actions of Christ. He uses the Sacraments as instruments in the effecting of His work of grace, just as He used His humanity on earth as a medium of His power. We know that...

King Rehoboam lost the greater share of his kingdom because of a dispute over the matter of taxes. Indeed, there was, much more to the argument that split the twelve tribes of Israel into two separate kingdoms and cost Rehoboam ten of these tribes. Solomon had taxed the people to the hilt. To build the temple, his palace and temples for the gods of his many heathen wives, Solomon had to exact heavy taxes from the people. But he had also to conscript the men to labor in the forests of Lebanon to hew him trees and to labor in...

What the apostle has instructed Timothy concerning the duty of slaves toward their lawful masters, whether these latter be believers or unbelievers, we have noticed in two former essays. This matter of the true relationship of a slave toward his master, as he lives under the grace of God in Christ Jesus, is very important to be remembered and to be taught. It is the only possibility of the slave to work out his own salvation with fear and with trembling. Hence, Paul ends this exhortation with a word of exhortation to Timothy: “These things teach and exhort!” Now the...

And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. . . .  And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all of the time of harvest),  That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap . . .  And the priests that...

It is in the nature of the case that Reformed theologians always maintained that the believers in Christ will certainly persevere unto the end, and that final and complete apostasy and falling away from grace is impossible. I say that this is in the nature of the case. For, in the first place, they are elect. They are chosen from eternity to glory. And God’s election certainly can never be changed. And, in the second place, Reformed theologians always emphasized that the grace of God is absolutely sovereign: and therefore that grace of God can never be lost. Reformed theologians...