Vol 48 Issue 18

Undoubtedly, one of the highlights of our 1972 Synod was the examination and graduation of our three new candidates for the ministry, Messrs. Wayne Bekkering, Marvin Kamps, and Ronald Van Overloop, It is always a highlight when in our small denomination, with its small school, the Lord gives us new candidates for the ministry of the gospel. This year, however, was something special because there were three graduates. This is something that has not happened for many years in our churches.

[Note: Your editor is writing this report as a substitute. Prof. Hanko had persuaded our Stated Clerk, Rev. Dale Kuiper, to report. But Synod did not adjourn until Friday afternoon, June 16. Rev. Kuiper had to return immediately to his congregation in Pella, Iowa, and would not be able to prepare a report in time for our July issue. Hence, he kindly turned over to me his notes. And from these notes, various committee reports, and memory, I am writing this report, so that our readers may be informed as early as possible about various decisions of Synod. HCH]

At a congregational meeting held in our Redlands Protestant Reformed Church on May 15, Rev. D. Kuiper was chosen to receive the call to serve as minister there. Rev. Engelsma is again considering the call to serve as third professor in the seminary.  The month of June has brought graduation for many of our young people. It might be appropriate, therefore, to include a “note to our graduates” which appeared in a bulletin of Hull Protestant Reformed Church in May of 1971. It comes, very likely, from the pen of Rev. Kortering.

SAMUEL WILLARD: PREACHER OF ORTHODOXY IN AN ERA OF CHANGE, by Seymour Van Dyken; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972; 224 pp., $5.95. (Reviewed by Prof. H. Hanko)  Samuel Willard was a Puritan preacher in New England who lived during the years 1640-1707. He lived during a time, therefore, when Puritanism was being challenged in New England and when not only new doctrines were being brought into the area, but also when the whole concept of church and state as maintained by the Puritans was being challenged. 

Here in America we like to boast of men going from rags to riches.  We like to point to presidents of our country, financial successes, or men of other earthly achievements whose beginnings were humble, and who climbed from log cabins and poverty to become rich and famous. 

The Ephesian believers are a new creation; they were created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God had before prepared that we might walk in them, (Eph. 2:10). That they were to walk in good works they did not understand as they should have; neither did they understand that they were elected by God in Christ from before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame in God’s sight (Eph.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” Genesis 1:1. We have here one of the deepest and most profound truths to be found anywhere. By it every being is affected.

The question you recall is: “Does the Bible teach that the experience of Pentecost is to be repeated and sought after by believers today?” Turning first to Acts 2 we may conclude that this chapter records an event which is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to the disciples (the eleven Apostles) given just prior to His ascension.

He was in prison for the second, and what would turn out to be the last, time. He would leave the prison only to be executed. He had just appeared before the judge, and he felt that his life on earth was near the end. He was an old minister of the gospel and was in prison as a result of his beliefs. He seems to know that he will soon die, and therefore writes a letter to a young minister whom he had trained for the ministry and whom he loved very much. In this letter he asks this...

“If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,  And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;  Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.