Vol 87 Issue 17

School Activities In what the “News” believes may be a first for one of our PR Christian schools, Trinity Christian High School in Hull, IA held a chapel service on April 20 that featured Rev. A. Stewart, pastor of the Covenant PRC in Ballymena, NI, as the speaker. Rev. Stewart spoke to the students via Skype, an Internet-based telephone and video calling service from computer to computer. The idea for this came from Jason Westra, a teacher at Trinity, and a nephew of Rev. Stewart. Rev. Stewart spoke on the theme, “The Beneficiaries of our Goodness,” based on Psalm 16:1,...

Peace for the Troubled Heart—Reformed Spirituality, by Herman Hoeksema, edited by David J. Engelsma. Reformed Free Publishing Association (www. rfpa.org), 2010. Hard cover, 294 pp. ISBN 978-1-936054-05-3. Reviewed by Charles J. Terpstra. I have a new book of which to inform our readers, about which I am personally very excited! Peace for the Troubled Heart has recently been published by the Reformed Free Publishing Association (Fall, 2010). It consists of old meditations written by Herman Hoeksema, founding pastor and professor in the Protestant Reformed Churches in America, and first published in this very magazine, Standard Bearer, between 1924 and 1947....

Previous article in this series: May 1, 2011, p. 355. Bearing the Burdened to Christ We are to bear one another’s burdens by restoring the burdened soul to Jesus Christ. He alone can relieve burdened souls of their burden, for it is only His righteousness that answers to their need. Nothing less will satisfy their conscience! The burden-bearer must therefore restore them to Jesus Christ. Not as if our brother has sinned himself out of justification, and Jesus needs us to help him make a choice that will put him back into God’s favor again. No indeed, Jesus declares: “I...

Previous article in this series: April 15, 2011, p. 313. In our previous articles on this subject, we considered four characteristics of churches that are truly Reformed. They are so in their history, their doctrine, their worship, and their life. We also mentioned that some imagine that only some of these characteristics are needed. They have the idea that when the Reformed faith is taught, they may choose just the parts that they like (as they would when standing at a food buffet). The prevailing thought is that as long as one has Reformed doctrines, he has enough. They do...

Previous article in this series: April 15, 2011, p. 320. Non-Christian Reconstruction Preterism In evidence of my contention that a preterist interpretation of the biblical passages forecasting the last days as troublous times for the church is essential for postmillennialism, I have quoted the Christian Reconstructionists. Preterism, it will be remembered, is the interpretation of such passages as having been fulfilled in the past, whether in AD 70 at the destruction of Jerusalem, or in the persecution of the early church by the Roman empire, or during the sixteenth-century Reformation of the church. The reason for quoting the Christian Reconstruction...

Previous article in this series: April 15, 2011, p. 332. “And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment.” I Chronicles 12:32 In the beginning was information! Charles Darwin could not have known that, so we will give him a pass. However, his modern-day disciples do know this; yet Scripture judges that they “willingly are ignorant [of it]” (II Peter 3: 5). Jonathan Sarfati explains their predicament: The main scientific objection to...

Calvin on Resistance to Tyrannical Rulers With disappointment, I note that as of a couple issues following, none have responded to David Engelsma’s rejection of martyr status for Dietrich Bonhoeffer—who was executed for plotting to take the life of Adolf Hitler. This reader salutes Engelsma for forthrightly stating the conservative Calvinist view on (violent) civil disobedience, which would leave him in the definite minority as far as general Christian opinion re Bonhoeffer is concerned. Let it be said, though, that the same fidelity to Romans 13 would condemn Christian support for the American War of Independence and the losing cause...

Anniversaries are a part of life. On any given day, people across the globe are celebrating anniversaries—of weddings, birthdays, inventions, victories, reformations, and so forth. People remember past events for a variety of reasons. For the church, anniversaries can be profitable. They can be. Commemorative events are not profitable if the church hypocritically garnishes the tombs of the prophets, so to speak, when high praises are sung by men and women who reject the teaching of the prophets. An anniversary celebration is profitable if it serves to remind us of the works of God! A wedding anniversary celebration that consists...

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11 No one has ever been humbled as Jesus was. Neither has any been exalted as Jesus was. Jesus, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Yet He humbled Himself. He took upon...