Rev. Laning is pastor of Hope Protestant Reformed Chruch in Walker, Michigan. Previous article in this series: September 1, 2008, p. 474. False teachers often take advantage of other false teachings to promote themselves. They start by pointing out what is unbiblical about what others are saying, and this prepares…

Rev. Lanning is pastor of Faith Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan. Previous article in this series: August 2008, p. 443.

Rev. Kortering is a minister emeritus in the Protestant Reformed Churches. Previous article in this series: January 1, 2009, p. 156. His Labors in India The struggles that William Carey faced in England in trying to convince others that God had a work for him in India prepared him for…

Rev. Stewart is pastor of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern Ireland. The Web site of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church (CPRC) in Northern Ireland is our most cost-effective and international form of witnessing. It bears its testimony day unto day and night unto night, for the Internet never…

Rev. denHartog is pastor of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan. Quite incredibly, for a second year in a row I was invited to be the speaker at the family camp of the Covenant Evangelical Reformed Church in Singapore. These family camps are held yearly by the church in…

Rev. Laning is pastor of Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan. Previous article in this series: November 1, 2008, p. 61. Central to dispensationalism is the dispensationalists’ view of unfulfilled prophecy. They insist that many of God’s covenant promises made to Israel in the old dispensation have yet to…

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan Mission Activities Members of the Heritage PR Fellowship in Sioux Falls, SD sponsored a booth in the Sioux Empire Fair from August 11-16. Rev. Allen Brummel, our denomination’s missionary in Sioux Falls, planned to be at the…

Rev. denHartog is pastor of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan. Previous article in this series: March 15, 2009, p. 279. n this article we again consider what Deuteronomy 6 has to say about instruction in the covenant home. Let me quote this passage again so that it is before us.…

Rev. Laning is pastor of Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Previous article in this series: August 2009, p. 442. When Christ started His public preaching, He began by proclaiming boldly that the kingdom of heaven was “at hand.” Dispensationalists say that Christ, by this statement, was giving…

Mr. VanEngen, a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hull, Iowa, is a practicing attorney. Several past articles under this Church and State rubric have addressed the subject of homosexuality and the trend in the law to protect the practice of the sin of homosexuality. This author’s home state…

Rev. Spronk is pastor of Peace Protestant Reformed Church in Lansing, Illinois. The synods of the Reformed Church of America (RCA) and the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) moved towards adopting the Belhar Confession to serve as a fourth form of unity along with the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and…

Prof. Engelsma’s review of Henry J. Kuiper: Shaping the Christian Reformed Church, by James A. DeJong (July 2009 Standard Bearer) took me back to my earlier days of ministry. Soon after I joined the faculty of Unity Christian High School (1956) in Hudsonville, Michigan as teacher of Bible and Reformed Doctrine, I…

Christ’s church needs ministers. With five or six vacancies in the churches, the PRC needs ministers. We feel that need here at the seminary. The students and professors have been busy supplying pulpits this summer, in August preaching almost sixty out of sixty possibilities. Not all of that is vacation…

Rev. Miersma is pastor of Loveland Protestant Reformed Church in Loveland, Colorado. After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.  Genesis 15:1 As members of the body of Christ we belong…

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan. Congregation Activities The installation of Rev. Rodney Kleyn, the first pastor of the newly instituted Covenant of Grace PRC in Spokane, WA, took place at the morning worship service of July 19, with Rev. Tom Miersma officiating.…

Rev. Langerak is pastor of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Cracks in the Crescent, by Hussein Hajji Wario. Self-published, 2009. ISBN: 978057800155. Paper, 252 pp. ($15.99). Excerpts and purchasing information at http://www.cracksinthecrescent.com. Reviewed by Mark H. Hoeksema. The ingenious title of this book is descriptive of its content.…

Rev. Brummel is a home missionary of the Protestant Reformed Churches, stationed in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. One of the most prolific writers and proponents of missions through the first half of the 1900s was Dr. Samuel Zwemer. Zwemer authored over fifty books and countless articles promoting mission labors primarily…

Rev. Lanning is pastor of Faith Protestant Reformed Church in Jenison, Michigan. Previous article in this series: November 15, 2008, p. 92. One Sunday morning in 1925, two ministers had a race to the pulpit to see who would lead the worship service. Rev. Henry Danhof won. He was not…

Rev. Stewart is pastor of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern Ireland. Previous article in this series: May 1, 2009, p. 352. Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (1965) Given the Roman Church’s false ecumenism with the Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and Protestants, it is no…

Mr. DeVries is a teacher in Covenant Christian High School and a member of Hope Protestant Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Threatened Those of us who live in America are ruled by a government the seeds of which came from the ungodly enlightenment thinkers. These thinkers proposed that all authority…

Mr. Minderhoud is a teacher in Covenant Christian High School and a member of Hope Protestant Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan. *The Psalter. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1927, #14, stanza 6—Versification of Psalm 8. By the grace of God, King Solomon “gave his heart to seek and search out…

What a beautiful thing to belong to the body of Christ. What a beautiful thing to belong to a church that strives to be faithful to the Scriptures. What a beautiful thing to see how that church is made up of many members, strong or weak, quick or slow learner.…

I trust the alternatives spelled out in the title of this editorial do not need to be spelled out in most Reformed churches. But let us take nothing for granted, and be reminded of the significance of our responsibility in catechizing our children. Very soon, again, elders will be calling…

Rev. Slopsema is pastor of First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. Matthew 22:29 The Sadducees were a religious sect in Israel that believed that there is no life after death…

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Mission Activities Rev. A. denHartog, pastor of the Southwest PRC in Grandville, MI, joined a team including Rev. J. Laning and Mr. John VanBaren, to make a visit to the churches in Myanmar. This was done under…

Rev. Langerak is pastor of Southeast Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Divided by a Common Heritage: The Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church in America at the Beginning of the New Millennium, by Corwin Smidt, Donald Luidens, James Penning, and Roger Nemeth. Eerdmans (2006). Paper. ISBN: 978-0802803856.…

Rev. Haak is pastor of Georgetown Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan and radio pastor for the Reformed Witness Hour, on which this message was aired. What a day that had been—the day in which Jesus rose from the dead—a day of wonder and joy, and a day also of…

Reprinted from When Thou Sittest in Thine House, by Abraham Kuyper, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapid, Michigan. 1929. Used by permission of Eerdmans Publishing Co. Forgetfulness Is it sin to forget? Or, when something escaped us, are we done with it by saying: I forgot it. One would almost grant…

Rev. Spriensma is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. There are many wonderful new inventions that we enjoy today. One of them is the cell phone. I think that most people under the age of forty today, in our country or in any other developed nation, would…

Rev. VanderWal is pastor of Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Redlands, California. Who would think that, after only five years of its existence, such a word would cause such feelings at its mention?!! For some parents the word gives a feeling of helplessness about a secret world. They know very…

Mr. Kalsbeek is a teacher in Covenant Christian High School and an elder in Hope Protestant Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Previous article in this series: March 1, 2009, p. 258. (In our previous article on political correctness we answered the questions: What is it? and Where did it come…

In his editorial entitled “Creeds, the Believer, and the Sufficiency of the Scriptures” (the Standard Bearer, February 15, 2009), the Rev. Kenneth Koole takes aim at what he calls “independentism.” What comes under his fire, specifically, is an “independentism that smacks of individualism, which individualism, in the end, borders on an…

Previous article in this series: April 1, 2009, p. 292. Marriage is the God-ordained institution that bonds one man and one woman for life. God determined that this unique relationship of love and fellowship would picture His glorious covenant of grace between God and His chosen people in Christ. The…

Rev. VanOverloop is pastor of Grace Protestant Reformed Church in Standale, Michigan. “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.” Luke 24:34 The two travelers to Emmaus had seen the risen Lord Jesus. At first Cleopas and his companion did not know it was Jesus. He appeared to…

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Minister Activities Rev. Rodney Kleyn, pastor of the Trinity PRC in Hudsonville, MI, declined the call extended to him from the Byron Center, MI PRC to become their next pastor. On Sunday, March 1, the congregation of…

March 4, 2009 Classis West convened March 4, 2009, in the sanctuary of the First PRC of Edgerton, MN. Rev. M. VanderWal presided over this meeting. The day prior, the delegates attended an officebearers’ conference on the theme Catechizing Our Youth. In his keynote address, Rev. S. Key pointed out that…

Rev. Haak is pastor of Georgetown Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan and radio pastor for the Reformed Witness Hour, on which this message was aired. It is at this time of year that the church remembers in a special way the awful sufferings and bitter death of our Lord…

Reprinted from When Thou Sittest In Thine House, by Abraham Kuyper, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1929. Used by permission of Eerdmans Publishing Co. Mutual Quarreling Every gift of God brings its temptation. For it can either be used for God’s glory, or misused in the service of sin. This…

Rev. Laning is pastor of Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Walker, Michigan. Previous article in this series: March 1, 2009, p. 252. The millennial view of the dispensationalists manifests their view of God’s covenant. God’s covenant promises, they say, will not be fulfilled unless an earthly millennium for the Jews…

Rev. Kleyn is pastor of Trinity Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan. Previous article in this series: January 1, 2009, p. 151. Lord’s Day 2 Q 3. Whence knowest thou thy misery?  A. Out of the law of God. Q 4. What doth the law of God require of us? …

Rev. Kleyn is pastor of First Protestant Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan. On our pilgrim journey through this life we face many hardships. Ours is not a prosperous, peaceful, and trouble-free life. From the cradle to the grave, we encounter countless and great struggles. Persecution is one of the main…

As stated in an earlier editorial (March 1, 2009) we intend to use the Letters to the Editors column to bring to a conclusion our response to a respondent’s reaction to AIM’s recent video introducing the PRC to the viewing public. The respondent voiced problems with two matters highlighted by…

Marriage is for life. Marriage is a special, truly astounding union of one man and one woman for as long as they both shall live. God instituted marriage in the beginning. That work of God is recorded in Genesis 2, another essential reason for insisting that the first eleven chapters of…

Rev. Slopsema is pastor of First Protestant Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.  Matthew 27:32 The gospel narratives record the events of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion in great…

Mr. Wigger is a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of Hudsonville, Michigan. Congregation Activities The members of the Georgetown PRC in Hudsonville, MI were invited to their Fellowship Hall after their evening worship service on February 8 for a program on the PR Fellowship of India. Joel and Ellen…

* Not Anabaptist but Reformed was a pamphlet written by Danhof and Hoeksema in 1923 as a “Provisional Response to Rev. Jan Karel Van Baalen Concerning the Denial of Common Grace.” Translated here from the Dutch by seminarian Daniel Holstege. Previous article in this series: March 1, 2009, p. 256.…

Rev. Haak is pastor of Georgetown Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan and radio pastor for the Reformed Witness Hour, on which this message was aired. “A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.” Jeremiah 17:12 These words are a very beautiful and powerful affirmation…

Rev. denHartog is pastor of Southwest Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan. Previous article in this series: February 1, 2009, p. 201. The daily conversation in the covenant home will do much to determine the character of this home—whether or not it is in reality a covenant home. This is…

Rev. Spriensma is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Marriage he title for this article comes from the cover story ofNewsweek magazine December 15, 2008. It included lots of glossy pictures of married bliss of young and old gays and lesbians. “What,” you say, “a liberal American magazine…

Rev. Kuiper os pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church in Randolph, Wisconsin. Previous article in this series: February 1, 2009, p. 199. I digress. My articles in this rubric focus on the office of deacon. The deacons’ work is to care for the poor and the needy. In various ways,…