All Articles For In His Fear

It has been remarked to me that Protestant Reformed ministers do not discuss together very well. I believe that this is true of all of us generally.  To be able to discuss things together profitably is a good gift that God gives His people. It is a gift through which we can learn things from each other. It is also a good means of fellowship and encouragement. It is important that we use this gift correctly. 

The great work of the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the glorious and wonderful work which the Lord has given to His church. This work involves the bringing of the glad tidings of salvation in Christ Jesus both in the sphere of the established church and on the mission field outside, of the established church. It includes the work of the ordained ministry who are especially the ambassadors of the Lord.

The substance of these articles was first given as a speech for the Adult Fellowship, or A.F. as it is called here, of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Singapore. The subject was chosen by the A.F. themselves. Since most of the members of the A.F. are unmarried young people we concentrate especially on this subject as it relates to them. We decided to reproduce this speech in two installments in theStandard Bearer in the hope and prayer that it may be of some benefit also to the youth of our churches in the U.S.A.

We call ourselves Calvinists. By this we mean not that we are followers of a man who lived many years ago in the 16th century whose name was John Calvin. But rather we mean that we believe and follow the doctrine of the Word of God as that doctrine was by the grace and Spirit of God reiterated by the great reformer John Calvin, after that doctrine had been completely denied by the apostate Roman Catholic Church. This doctrine is also commonly known as the Reformed Faith. This doctrine is a glorious and wonderful doctrine.

As Calvinist and Reformed Christians our lives ought especially to be characterized by true godly humility. Our doctrine teaches us the awfulness of our sin. We do not believe that our sin is merely a matter of a few sinful acts that we do occasionally. Rather we believe that we are totally depraved, wholly incapable of any good in the sight of God and prone to all manner of evil. Such is our natural condition from our very birth. We know that not only are our evil deeds dreadful in the sight of God but our corrupt nature is also...

The urgent calling of the Christian young man and young woman is to live chastely before the Lord. We are exhorted by the Word of God to flee fornication and uncleanness in all of its forms. Knowing that the Lord hates the sins of immorality, as we saw in our last article, we must keep ourselves pure and holy and undefiled. We must maintain absolutely that God has ordained the use of our sexual nature only for marriage.

Recently I was asked to speak for one of the Adult Fellowship meetings of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Singapore on the subject “Setting Up A Godly Christian Home.” This subject is of particular relevance for the young. people of the church here. Most of them were raised in pagan homes. They were therefore not taught from childhood on what a Christian home is. They do not have the example of a parental home after which to pattern their own homes. When they establish their own homes they must needs be radically different from the homes they grew up in.

Church prayer meetings are not commonly held in our Protestant Reformed Churches, in fact they are not very common as far as we know in any of the Reformed Churches. They have long been a tradition in Presbyterian Churches as well as a number of other churches. There are those who claim that they were regularly held in the church from the time of the apostles. We have had the opportunity to experience such meetings during our labors as missionaries in the Evangelical Reformed Church of Singapore.

The Christian home must be characterized by a certain orderliness and discipline. God Himself in His Word has set forth the order that should characterize the godly home. There is first of all the order of the relationship of husband and wife in that home. Many are the forces of the devil and of the ungodly world that seek to destroy this order. All through the ages men have lived in wicked tyranny over their wives. Especially recently the godless woman’s liberation movement has sought to overthrow the order of God for the home. Nevertheless in the Christian home it...