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There is a difference between prayer and supplication. Prayer is that activity of faith whereby you turn your soul to God as the Fountain of all good things, thirsting for Him and very desirous to be filled by Him with all the good things you need for time and eternity. Supplication is all that, but it is prayer colored by your distresses, woes, miseries. Also herein that you turn yourself tempestuously toward Him. If I was writing in the Holland language I would say: supplication is that “ge Hem aanloopt als een waterstroom”! Well, the latter you find in this...

We received the following communication: Rev. H. Hoeksema, Editor of the Standard Bearer, Esteemed Editor: The Men’s Society of Oskaloosa has appointed me to lay before you a question with the explanations necessary to elucidate the question. I shall do my best. The passage is Ephesians 2:11-19. The question is: “What was the real nature of the enmity and also of the peace here spoken of and what was its deepest cause? We reject the explanation that the partition was caused by the hopeless obscuration of the Old Testament Gospel by the formalistic Jews. We also consider it impossible that...

The Canonical Significance As to Isaiah, his specific task was to prepare Israel for the crisis of the exile. His comforting message was that the Lord’s anointed was at hand (Is. 44:28), and that the days of bondage had its limit. Though he prophesied before the exile, he speaks of the bondage as a thing accomplished. He declared first that the king of Babylon and his golden city to which Israel was to be transported would soon become a proverb in the mouths of them whom he had oppressed (Is. 52:2), “and say ye: The Lord hath redeemed His servant...

Spring, what a beautiful time of life! All nature has been roused from the dead of winter’s sleep. Bleak, barren, fields are again ear petted with mossy green. Forests are alive with the chirp of feathered songsters as they gaily hop from limb to twig. Babbling brooks go singing along as frozen ponds are changed to mirroring pools. With nature all astir with life, how can man be left unstirred? Impossible! Old and young cannot react alike to the stimulant of spring’s new life. Here some prod in a little garden plot; there another turns furrow upon furrow on seemingly...

The Apology of Stephan before the council of the Jews contains a statement to the effect that ‘‘Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7:22). What may have been the character and content of this wisdom? What benefit may Moses have derived from his acquaintance with, it? And what may have been the use, if any, to which he put it in after years in his capacity of legislator? This wisdom concerned Egypt’s religion and worship and its entire pagan civilization and culture. It concerned, to begin with, those sciences in which the ancient Egyptians appear...

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meet indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. John 6:53-55 Verily, verily, I say unto you. . . .” So Christ would speak whenever he was about to give utterance to great and vital truth. “My flesh is meet indeed. . . .” He...

What was the special purpose and design of the great atonement? The view of writers in general is that the great sacrifice, as compared with the acts of expiation which from time to time were made through the year, was a more perfect sacrifice, so much so that by it the mass of sins for which the daily acts of expiations had but imperfectly satisfied was blotted out. Now this view, as was previously said, will not do. It is thoroughly Jewish. The Jews, it was pointed out, have such a saying among them, “That on the day of expiation...

The book of Obadiah is comprised of but one chapter of 21 verses. It is the shortest book in the Old Testament. Of the personal history of the prophet nothing is known. Some identify him with Obadiah mentioned in II Chron. 17:7, who was sent by Jehoshaphat to teach in the cities of Judah, but his identification is exceedingly doubtful. It is probable that the prophet was a native of Judah, for all his interests seem to be centered in the south. The prophecy of Obadiah has been dated very early and very late. Some writers assign it to the...

Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Isaiah 1:18 ‘‘Come now, I pray.” . . . It is the Lord speaking to His people. He bids them to come to Him that He and they may reason, dispute together, speak with each other, He with them and they with Him. Mark the Lord’s manner of speech. What eagerness it betokens! What yearning after His people! “Come now, I pray.” It is, to be sure,...

A timely admonition. God’s church exists in a world that glorifies and practices the lie. As never before the truth is trampled under foot. True, since that terrible moment when man inclined his ear to the lie of the devil this was the case. Yet, there is development in sin. As life itself deepens and develops the lie develops, until the latter shall have reached its acme in the kingdom of the man of sin. The godless world worships the lie. It is her life, her sphere, her delight. Maliciously men hold the truth in unrighteousness. Facts, which men gather...