Vol 75 Issue 16

Mr. Wigger is an elder in the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Congregation Activities Friday evening, April 9, the congregation of the Bethel PRC in Roselle, IL gathered together with many friends and well-wishers to dedicate their new church building. They dedicated it to the worship of Jehovah God, to the pure preaching of the gospel, to the administration of the sacraments, and to fellowship in the risen Lord. Rev. R. VanOverloop, Bethel’s only former missionary and pastor, led their dedication service by speaking appropriate words from the Holy Scriptures found in I Peter 2:4, 5. Their choir, the...

Mrs. Stob is a member of Bethel Protestant Reformed Church. History of Bethel   Bethel! House of God From the earliest memories we see the providence of God in the “beginnings” of Bethel Protestant Reformed Church. In 1974 a young navy man visited relatives in South Holland, IL. He accompanied them to church and there first heard Rev. David Engelsma preach. He never forgot that Sunday morning and the good preaching. In 1981-82 members of an extended family who were all members of the Christian Reformed Church in Des Plaines, IL were becoming uncomfortable and alarmed with the changes taking...

Rev. VanBaren is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Loveland, Colorado. “Not of This World” Cal Thomas is a well-known political writer with strong leanings to the “religious right.” He often comes out with some hard-hitting articles pointing to the corruption so often seen in government and in society at large. There was a time when this journalist believed that a “moral majority” was almost ready to take over our society and establish once more a nation that honored the laws of God. But Cal Thomas has become very disillusioned. In two recent articles he concedes that “the religious...

Mr. Doezema, a member of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan, is secretary of the Domestic Mission Committee. Ladarba l-bnedmin kollha dinbu f’Adam…. That’s the beginning of Artiklu 1, in a booklet entitled IL-QWIENEN TA’ DORT (traduzzjoni ta’ Paul Mizzi). The only English words in the publication come at the very end of the INTRODUZZJONI: “… Homer Hoeksema, The Voice of Our Fathers, (Reformed Free Publishing Association, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1980).” The language is Maltese. Perhaps you have already guessed the name of the publication. In the introduction the translator, Paul Mizzi, gives credit to Homer Hoeksema’s commentary on...

Rev. Smit is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Doon, Iowa. Rev. Smit is also the secretary of the Foreign Mission Committee. The Foreign Mission Committee continues to work in behalf of our Churches for the cause of the spread of the Reformed faith in foreign lands. Synod 1993 assigned to the jurisdiction of the FMC the foreign lands including Africa, Asia, India, the Middle East, South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Indeed this is an enormous jurisdiction. However, in the first place, we must remember that our sister churches of the Evangelical Reformed Churches in Singapore...

Rev. Cammenga is pastor of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan, and the secretary for the Committee for Contact with Other Churches. The Preamble of the Constitution of the Committee for Contact with Other Churches expresses the conviction of the Protestant Reformed Churches that it is their “sacred duty to manifest the true unity and catholicity of the church on earth in as far as that is possible, not only in our denominational fellowship but also in conjunction with all churches which have obtained like precious faith with us, both domestic and foreign.” On behalf of the churches, the...

Herman Hoeksema was the first editor of the Standard Bearer. * This is the transcript of a speech given by Herman Hoeksema at a Ladies’ League Meeting in Hudsonville, MI on April 29, 1943. At the end of the previous installment, Herman Hoeksema had just observed that “there is, from without especially, the danger of falling into wrong hands. Especially under the influences of worldly and corrupt companions, adolescents, who are in the nature of the case easily moved and inclined to seek that very life, will find all kinds of opportunity to express themselves in evil ways.” That set...

Christian Reconstruction on the Attack A friend sent me a copy of your February 15, 1999, issue of the Standard Bearer on the subject of preterism. To raise a standard one must have a standard. It’s one thing to disagree with a position and those who hold it, it’s another thing to lie about what people actually believe. The ninth commandment is still in force. Your editorial is an example of very poor scholarship. It’s embarrassing to think that it was written by a seminary professor who is supposed to be preparing students for ministry and truth telling. I will...

In the letters column of this issue of the Standard Bearer, two champions of Christian Reconstruction take sharp issue with the recent editorial, “A Timely Question about ‘Preterism'” (SB, Feb. 15, 1999). The editorial answered a question by a reader in California (where the preterism of Christian Reconstruction makes headway in Reformed and Presbyterian churches), asking for information about the “preterist view.” The editorial explained that preterism (from a Latin word meaning “past”) is the heresy that teaches that the second coming of Jesus Christ is a past event. The second coming of Christ occurred in AD 70. The second...

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2:8, 9 Scripture is clear. We are saved by grace through faith, all works excluded. Yet throughout the ages the church has always had to contend with those who held to the error of salvation by works. Already when Cain brought of the fruit of the ground as an offering unto the Lord he was giving God part of the precious crop that he had grown, with which God should be pleased...