All Articles For In His Fear

In a previous article we stated that it is the specific task of the Church to indoctrinate its covenant seed. And when we speak of indoctrination by the Church, we mean indoctrination in the Protestant Reformed truth. And we concluded by stating that the Church must and does indoctrinate ‘the man of God’ through the office of the ministry of the Word. And this, we said, leads us to the subject of the preaching of the Word and the catechizing of the covenant youth. The last sentence implies that the undersigned believes that the church indoctrinates the man of God’...

In a previous article we said a few things about the means, the ‘how’ of indoctrination. In our present article we plan to say a little about the ‘when’ of the indoctrination. When must the Church start with this; how old should the child be? I fully realize that the field I am treading upon is so large that I will not be able to finish this subject. It deals with the whole system of our catechetical training. A great many questions enter in. It would indeed be a proper subject for a more lengthy discussion. No justice can be...

It is to be doubted whether there is any reader of these lines, if he be one brought up in a Reformed Church, who has never heard the above words, “To the utmost of your power”. It is also to be expected that all parents of the Reformed faith are able at once to tell where this phrase is found. Every parent in the Reformed Churches has given the promise that he will “to the utmost of his power” bring up his child in the fear of God’s name. It is in the third and last question that is asked...

The fear of the Lord is a profound respect for and solemn wonder before God in love. He who fears the Lord loves Him and in holy reverence and awe recognizes Him as the sovereign creator and possessor of all things. Of this we wrote in our former essay, but as we also remarked then that there is more to that fear of the Lord. An important element in that fear of the Lord is trust in Him. He who fears the Lord believes in Him and looks to Him for all his needs both spiritual and physical. In the...

What is meant by the utmost of my power? (cont.) In our previous essay we began to consider that which is meant by the utmost of our power. The degree of power we have is determined by many things. We mentioned two elements that must be considered. The one is our natural aptitude for teaching and the other is our spiritual strength, including our knowledge of the Scriptures and the doctrine of the church where we have a name and a place. For us this means the doctrine of the Protestant Reformed Churches. Another element we would have you consider...

Am I Using All My Power In Conformity With My Vote? How often are not parents guilty of teaching their children unspiritual things when a wonderful opportunity for instructing them in the fear of the Lord arose! There are many little things that occur all about us which speak of God’s praises, and we ought to call the attention of our children to them. Usually we let them go by without a remark. Often we are so unspiritual ourselves and so weak in our own fear of the Lord that we ourselves do not see these things or hear them...

Johnny was naughty again today. The rod had to be taken down from the place where it is kept, and Johnny felt its sting. Johnny walked away crying, and only too often, with nothing less than an increased degree of fear for his father or mother. His fear of the Lord had not increased at all. What is wrong with the above description of Johnny’s experience with the rod? Surely we are not advocating the sparing of the rock The fear of the Lord is never taught that wav, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” The Lord Himself declared...

Call it a digression if you will, but the contributor of the next few articles for this department intends to use the allotted space for a brief discussion of our Form for the Baptism of Infants, as we find it in our Psalters. An apology for this digression is hardly required. The Form itself is significant and rich enough to warrant a discussion at any available opportunity. The subject matter is always of fundamental importance, and is especially timely today while a new interest is being aroused by the discussion of this subject both in the Netherlands and in our...

Our Baptism Form starts out with speaking of the sacrament of baptism as a holy sign. It is more than that, for it is also a seal as well as a sign, but it is nevertheless first of all a sign. To the question, Of what is it a sign?, the answer can be given, that baptism is a sign of our entrance into God’s covenant through the washing away of our sins. By nature we are outside of God’s covenant, a part of the fallen human race, dead in trespasses and sins, without hope and without God in the...

The Baptism Form speaks of baptism as a sign, but also as a seal of our entrance into God’s covenant. It does this by inference when it states that “Holy baptism witnesseth and sealeth unto us the washing away of our sins through Jesus Christ.” It speaks of baptism as a sign and seal of the cleansing from sin. And since through the cleansing from sin we are separated from the world and taken into God’s covenant, baptism is a sign and seal of our entrance into the covenant. It speaks also directly of this fact by saying, “God the...