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A Reformed               BEARER :
Semi-Monthly
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                             Interdenominational Conference

                          The Reformed Doctrine
                            of Holy Scripture
                                       See "All Around Us"- page 105
:

vol. 68, No. `iii .5-
December 1, 2992.


CONTENTS:                                                                                                                  &DMD
Meditation - Rev. Jason L. Kortering                                                                                            BHER
      Standing in God's Holy Place ..................................................................9
Editorial - Prof. David]. Engelsma                                                                                        ISSN 0362-4692
      The Standard Bearer: Holding the Traditions (3) ............................... 10
A Cloud of Witnesses -Pro J Herman C. Ha&o                                                                                Semi-monthly, except monthly during June, July, and August.
      Francis of Assisi: Medieval Saint ......................................................... 10                      Published by the Reformed Free Publishing Association, Inc,,
                                                                                                                          4949 Ivanrest Ave., Qrandville, MI 49416. Second Class
All Around Us -Pro fi Robert D. Decker ........................................................ 10                        Postage Paid et Grandville, Michigan.
Contribution -Rev. Arie denHartog                                                                                         Postmaster: Send  address changes to the Standard Bearer,
      Report on Jamaica .................................................................................... 10           P.O. Box 603, Grandvtlle. MI 49466-0603.
Guest Article - Rev. Richard G. Moore                                                                                     EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
      Unbelief's Attempt'to Dismiss Sin (1) .................................................. 11                         Editor: Prof. David J. Engelsma
                                                                                                                          Secretary: Prof. Robert D. Decker
Search the Scriptures - Rev. Carl J. Haak                                                                                 Managing Editor: Mr. Don Doezema
      Malachi, Lesson 2: God's Love: Questioned, Proven, Confessed ... 11                                                 DEPARTMENT EDITORS
Taking Heed to the Doctrine  - Rev. Bernard Woudenberg                                                                    Rev. Ronald Cammsnga, Prof. Robert Decker, Rev. Arie
                                                                                                                          denHartog, Rev. Russell Dykstra, Rev. Cart Heak, Mr. Fred
      The Answer to a Growing Worldliness ................................................ 11                             Hanko,  Prof. Herman Hanko, Rev. John Heys. Rev. Marvin
From Holy Writ -Rev. George C. Lubbers                                                                                    Kamps. Rev. Steven Key, Rev. Kenneth Kale, Rev. Jason
                                                                                                                          Kortering, Rev. Dale Kuiper, Mr. James Larding, Rev. George
      Introduction to I Corinthians 8:lff........................................................ 11                      Lubbers, Mrs. MaryBeth Lubbers, Rev. JamesSlopsema,  Rev.
A Word Fitly Spoken -Rev. Dale  H.  Kuiper                                                                                Charles Terpstra, Rev. Ronald VanDverloop, Mr. Benjamin
                                                                                                                          Wtgger, Rev. Bernard Woudenberg.
      Tradition ................................................................................................... 11
Book Review .................................................................................................... 11       EDITORIAL OFFICE             CHURCH NEWS EDITOR
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98 /Standard Bearer / December 1,1991


                                                                          ng in God's
 Medifafion
Rev. Jason Kortering                                                      IENX

        Who shall ascend info the hill of     cific place in mind. It was on top of a      judgment and condemnation and He
  fhe LORD? or who shall stand in his         hill. He properly calls it "his holy         pours out His wrath unto destruc-
  holy place?                                 place." Elsewhere in the Bible it is         tion. This applies particularly to man.
        He that hafh clean hands, and a       called "Zion's holy hill" (see Psalm         God's place for man is a holy place.
  pure heart; who hafh not lifted up his      26). It was the place where the tent         How graphically this was portrayed
  soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceif-         stood and where eventually the beau-         at Mt. Sinai. A boundary had to be
  fully.                                      tiful temple of Solomon was built.           placed around the holy mountain, so
        He shall receive the blessingfrom     The people had to ascend this hill in        that when God would come down to
  fhe LORD, and righteousness from            order to enter the temple. Within this       talk to Moses, no sinner would trans-
  fhe God  of  his salvafion.                 temple, God kept covenant with His           gress that sacred ground. The light-
                             Psalm 24:3-5     people. Here heaven and earth em-            ning, thunder, smoke, earthquake all
                                              braced each other, as justice andmercy       heralded the presence of the holy God.
        Who shall ascend into the h.ilI of    kissed each other. It symbolized all         The Shekinah (the pillar of cloud and
Jehovah?                                      that God's covenant was meant to be,         fire which accompanied Israel
          Who shall stand in His holy         HistenderfriendshipwithHispeople             through the wilderness sojourn) came
place?                                        as it was sanctioned in divine love.         down upon the temple that Solomon
        These questions force us to ex-            Little wonder then that it is called    later built (see II Chronicles 7:3).
amine our spiritual condition.                Jehovah's place. It was not made by                  And where is such a place to-
        AreyouascendingJehovah'shill          man, neither by a cooperative act of         day?
in order to stand in His holy place? I        God and man. Rather, it was a place                  It was not God's purpose topre-
can't imagine a more personal yet             which God made in divine sover-              serve the temple; for when Jesus ful-
more serious question.                        eignty. It is exclusively divine, and        filled all types, the veil of the temple
        Jehovah's holy place is the place     only those people inhabit this place         was torn from top to bottom and
whereHe embracesus, He speaks His             who are divinely drawn.                      ended the typical holiness. Subse-
word of comfort to us, He assures us               Since this is Jehovah's place it        quently, the army of Caesar followed
that we are His dear children and He          takes on the character of His Being, it      the example of his predecessor
is our God.                                   is holy! On the foreground here is not       Nebuchadnezzar and destroyed the
        It is heaven on earth and, in the     only the greatness of God as Creator.        temple for all ages.
future, heaven  tobe experiencedinits         God'sgreatnessismentionedinverses                    To the Samaritan woman, who
fullness.                                     1,2: "The earth is the Lord's and the        had opined, "Our fathers worshiped
        The only way to get there is to       fullness thereof; the world, and they        in this mountain; and ye say that in
ascend Jehovah's hill.                        that dwell therein. For he hath              Jerusalem is the place where men
        May God use these words to            founded it upon the seas, and estab-         ought to worship," Jesus said,
excite us to such spiritual heights.          lished it upon the floods." Verses 3-5,      "Woman, believe me, the hour
        Yes, this passage is full of Old      on the other hand, note more particu-        cometh, when ye shall neither in this
Testament typology. The Psalmist              larly the virtues of God as covenant         mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, wor-
David, who penned these words                 friend. God's friendship is expressed        ship the Father.... But the hour
through divine inspiration, had a spe-        perfectly within the Godhead: Fa-            cometh, and now is, when the true
                                              ther, Son, and Holy Spirit. That cov-        worshipers shall worship the Father
                                              enant is holy, it is without sin and         in spirit and in truth; for the Father
                                              only good. The triune God is so              seeketh such to worship him. God is
                                              consecrated to Himself as the highest        a Spirit, and they that worship him
Rev. Korferingis pastor of the Protestant     and only good that His friendship is         must worship him in spirit and in
Reformed Church  of  Grandville, Michi-       expressed within these boundaries.           truth," John 4:20-24.  God has malde
gan.                                          Outside of holiness, God is a God of         the human heart His holy place. No

                                                                                              December 1,1991/ Standard Bearer / 99


longer is it the outward place which is      gives direction to our entire spiritual      this description, there is no place
important; now it is the condition of        life. Just as the physical heart pumps       harder to reach than this hill. From
the human heart which is important.          blood (oxygen) to all the cells of the       our natural point of view we know
The human heart has become the               body to sustain life, so the spiritual       that the way to it is closed. No man
temple of God, and by the Spirit of          heart pumps the energy of covenant           can do what is required to climb this
Jesus man is able to worship God             fellowship, love, to all the parts of our    hill and stand in worship of Jehovah.
spiritually and in truth.                    spiritual being: our soul, our tongue,       Look at verse 5, where God is de-
     God in His wisdom has pro-              and our hands.                               scribed as, "The God of His salva-
vided places in which man can ex-                 Each part of our being is de-           tion."
press this worship. Ultimately, the          scribed as having to be perfect%%0                 Salvation is of the Lord.
hill of Jehovah and the holy place of        can ascend the hill? He that has a pure            He saves us in His Son, Jesus
God is in heaven. There the covenant         heart. Jesus included this as funda-         Christ.
of God is made perfect. There God            mental to the kingdom of heaven:                   David wrote this Psalm on the
reflects His holiness not only in the        "Blessed are the pure in heart for they      occasion of the ark being brought to
holiness of the angels, but also in the      shall see God" (Matthew 523). Such a         Jerusalem. In verse 7 he expresses it,
holiness of. the people of God. Even         person. loves God with the best of           "Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates, and
the place itself is consecrated to God,      motives-not to seekrecognitionfor            the king of glory shall come in." The
for all evidence of sin is removed, the      self, not to save himself, not to avoid      ark had the mercy seat on which the
devils are cast out, and the sinful          the fear of hell, but rather for God's       blood of the lamb was sprinkled ev-
nature of God's people has been shed         sake.HelovesGodbecauseHeknows                ery year. It typified Jesus on the cross
by death. This is not to say that we         God so intimately and so wonder-             andHis ascensioninto heaven. Truly,
have to wait until we get to heaven in       fully that He readily acknowledges           He is the Lord of Glory! In Jesus our
order to enjoy ascending the hill of         that His chief purpose in this life is to    debt of sin is taken away, and we are
Jehovah and standing in His holy             glorifyGod,tobeusedbyGodforHis               made clean. By the Spirit of Jesus, our
place. We have a foretaste of this in        purpose, to advance His cause and            hearts are regeneratedandmadepure,
our worship on the Lord's Day. When          kingdom in this world, and to bring          our souls are edified by the gospel,
we gather to sing, to pray, to offer our     praise and recognition to God alone.         our hands and tongues are sanctified
gifts, to attend to the gospel, and          More follows: "He has not lifted up          for the purpose of glorifying God
especially to sit at God's table, we         his soul to vanity." Our soul life is our    now, and in the day of our death we
begin to enjoy the activity of covenant      thinking, our planning, that which           will have an even greater perfection
friendship with God. Returning to            makes us happy and in which we               in heaven.
our homes from such holy activity,           delight. The man who climbs                        InJesuswearemadefitforGod's
we continue to enjoy such friendship         Jehovah's hill must have such a soul         presence.
with God in our personal worship,            that he is not influenced by the guile             Rejoice then, 0 saints, in what
our family worship, yea, in our entire       and deceit of fallen man which em-           we begin to experience already now.
life of consecration to God.                 phasizes the fun, the pleasure of sin,       Proof of our holiness now is a sincere
     The question persists, "Who shall       but rather he delights in God's law.         sorrow of heart for sins committed,
ascend and stand in this holy place?"        His great joy is to walkwith God. His        and an effort put forth to walk in a
As we mentioned, the ascending was           songs are Zion's songs. His goal is not      new and holy life.
literally walking up the hill that led to    the wealth of this world, but to spend             The covenant blessings which
the temple, and the standing is a ref-       his money in the causes of God's             are ours for Jesus' sake are righteous-
erence to worship. The people en-            kingdom and the advancement of the           ness. That is, we are declared to be
tered the court of the temple for wor-       gospel. His friends are not the un-          holy on the basis of His perfect work.
ship, and they worshiped in a stand-         godly, but the people of God. Hence          And following this are the blessings
ing position. Who can do this? Who           it is also added, "He has not sworn          of the God of our salvation, .the for-
has a right to enter the house of God,       deceitfully." The oath, the promises         giveness of our sins, the unction of
to enjoy the preaching of the gospel,        made, are the real test of character.        His Spirit, and the joys of being the
to sit at His table, and ultimately to       This man does what he says he will           children of God, and ultimately the
enter into heaven?                           do. He is trustworthy and reliable, a        glory of heaven.
     The answer is, those who are            man of his word. And finally, "He has              Is this Jesus yours?
perfect, who are holy.                       clean hands." The hands represent                  Faithin this Jesus is the only way
     Notice the detail: mention is           our actions, our work. When we have          to climb the hill of Jehovah and stand
made of the heart, the soul, the tongue,     clean hands, we are doing the right          in His holy place.
and the hands. From the inside out,          thing in our daily lives.                          Now we begin to sing already,
the one who stands in worship of                  Does this describe you?                 fl Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!"
Jehovah is to be without sin. The heart            Thereisnomoreimportantplace             .    All praise to the God of our sal-
is the inner spiritual source which          than Jehovah's holy place. And from          vation.  0

100 /Standard Bearer I December 1,199l


                                             Bearer: Holding
Editorial  '                                 the Traditions (3)

     (The previous editorial closed by       doctrine of the covenant of grace; and      children. They applied sovereign
  contending  fhaf a living, genuine         the holiness of the Christian life in       grace to salvation within the sphlere
  holding  of  the traditions fakes place    marriage. In each of these areas of         of the covenant. And one aspect of
  only in the way of our consfanf,free       truth, there has been real develop-         the development of the tradition was
  inferprefafionoffheBible.  Thechurch       ment. Never before has the truth            its purification from careless, or even
  holds fast what has been handed over       been so clearly expressed, so fully         inconsistent, expressions.
  fo her by going back to Scripture. -       developed, and so purely confessed.              Correction of the tradition within
  Ed.)                                       Confusion and inconsistencies have          the PRC themselves also character-
                                             been cleared up. There has been cor-        izes the development of the doctrine
     When this free interpretation of        rection of, the tradition as it has been    of marriage in these churches. Early
Scripture goes on, it is possible that       held by the churchin the past, includ-      in his ministry in the PRC, Herman
the tradition that has come down to a        ing the PRC.                                Hoeksema adopted the traditional
Reformed church is both corrected                                                        Dutch Reformed stand that marriage
and developed.                                                                           was an unbreakable bond, except in
     Holding the traditions is not a             The Reformed tradition                  the case of the fornication of one's
static activity. It is not the same as         is not only to be preserved,              mate. He held that the "innocent
preserving a family heirloom. We                                                         party" is at liberty to remarry. In
`may not hold the traditions as the                   but it must also,                  1933, Hoeksema defended this posi-
servant of Luke 19 kept his lord's                      and can also,                    tion in the Standard Bearer (cf. Vol-
pound, laid up in a napkin.                             be developed.             j      ume9,pp. 374ff. andpp.424ff.).  Later,
     The Reformed tradition is not                                                       however, he repudiated his former
only to be preserved, but it must also,                                                  stand and ardently advocated the
and can also, be developed. Then                  Duringthe doctinalcontroversy          position that marriage is a bond that
Scripture itself is not enriched, but the    in the early 1950s in which the PRC         cannot be broken except by death, so
form in which the truth of Scripture         maintained the unconditionality of          that even the "innocent party" may
has come down to us is purified and          the covenant of grace, particularly         notremarrywhile theoriginalmateis
enriched. We may view this as the            with regard to the children of believ-      living. The reason for his change, he
sanctification of the tradition: Error       ers, some thought to move the PRC to        himself tells us in his pamphlet, "The
is purged and trueknowledgeis deep-          a conditional covenant conception by        Unbreakable Bond of Marriage":
ened and increased.                          findingconditionalexpressionsinthe            . . . without considering the matter
     Herman Hoeksema urged the               early writings of the leading PR theo-        very thoroughly I used to agree with
developmentofdoctrineinthechurch.            logians. With some searching, these           theoldstand.... AtthattimeIclidnot
The duty of the theologian is "by            expressions could be found. But they          confrontthequestionverydefinitely,
means of the study of Scripture . . . to     were inconsistent with the heart and          anddidnotconsideritvery deeply....
enrich and to bring the dogma of the                                                       After considering the whole matter
                                             overall thrust of the theology of the         in the light of Scripture, however, I
church to a fuller development" (Re-         I'RC, as well as with the central con-        mustnowradicallyopposethisposi-
f0md  Dogmatics,  p. 4). What is             cerns of the theologians who used             tion. And against this stand I now
more, there has been development of          these expressions. The PRC remained           take the position that maniage  is
the Christian, particularly the Re-          true to their own distinctive theology        forever unbreakable, is always for
formed, tradition in the Protestant          from the beginning, to say nothing of         life, no matter what happens (pp. 12,
Reformed Churches. I mention three           thehistoricReformedTheology,when              13).
outstanding instances: the particu-          they confessed an unconditional cov-        His interpretation of the texts on
larity and sovereignty of grace; the         enant with believers and their elect        marriage and divorce andhis demon-

                                                                                           December 1,1991/ Standard Bearer / `101


stration of the biblical comparison         "conservatives" in the CRC will find         ing the flag of surrender to the world
between the covenant of marriage            it impossible to solve their present         as though the Spirit of Godis foundin
and the covenant of grace between           problems by turning the clockback 70         the world rather than in the church. Is
Christ and the church led the PRC to        years. Apre-1924positionisnolonger           not this what it means to accept the
their present position, that marriage       an option at the end of the 20th cen-        world's judgment of Scripture as a
is an unbreakable bond between one          tury. Just as the truth of particular,       human, fallible book against the Re-
man and one woman for life.                 sovereign grace has been working for         formed church's creedal  confession
     In these areas, and others, we         almost 70 years in the PRC, so also the      that Scripture is the inspired Word of
believe, there has been real develop-       contrary notions embodied in the             God? Is this not what it means that
ment of the tradition.                      doctrine of common grace have been           evolution is accepted as the explana-
     For us, therefore, holding the         developing in the CRC, as well as in         tion of the origin of the universe,
traditions means faithfulness to the        many other Reformed and Presbyte-            rather than the church's doctrine of
Reformed tradition as if has developed      rian churches world-wide.                    creation? Is this not the meaning of
in the PRC.                                                                              the embrace of feminism for the regu-
     This bears on our relationships                                                     lation of home and church, rejecting
with "conservatives," especially in                 The issue now is stark:              the apostles' teaching  - foundation
the Christian Reformed Church. Al-                  Is the one grace of God              of the church!  - concerning the
though personally we share some of                                                       headship  of the husband in the home
their concerns and although person-                          in Christ                   and the government of the church by
ally we show brotherliness, there can                 for the elect alone,               qualified men?
never be ecclesiastical relationships               or is it for eve y man?                   The hard facts of church life to-
that ignore the development of the                                                       day show that restricting remarriage
faithoverthepast65yearsinthePRC,                                                         to the "innocent party," whose mate
much less relationships that set aside              The issue at the end of the 20th     is guilty of fornication, is not any
this development in order to bring          century for Reformed churches is not,        longer a realistic option, if indeed it
about a union on a pre-1924 basis.          andnever  againwilIbe,  whether there        ever was. Now it is either the "hard-
     This is out of the question for us.    is a grace of God for the reprobate that     nosed" stand of the PRC that mar-
We are convinced that the Holy Spirit       is qualitatively different from the sav-     riage is a life-long bond in every case
has been working in our history, un-        ing grace shown to the elect. The            or the permission of divorce and re-
worthy though we are, to preserve           issue now is stark: Is the one grace of      marriage for "innocent" and "guilty"
and to develop the Reformed tradi-          God in Christ for the elect alone, or is     alike.
tion. Through the controversies, the        it for every man? The issue is pure               Since these are the issues and
tradition has been purified and en-         particularism versus sheer universal-        since we view these issues in light of
riched. There is for us no going back.      ism.                                         the apostolic warning that a falling
To do so would be disobedience to                   The issue now is a firm, defiant     away precedes the coming of Christ,
theringingapostoliccommand, "hold           opposition to the ungodly world and          we are all the more determined to
the traditions."                            its ways (the antithesis), denying any       hold the traditions. 0
     But I dare say that in the end the     grace operative in that world, or hoist-                                     - D J E





A   C l o u d   O f                         Francis of Assisi:
Wtnesses
Prof. Herman Hanko                          Medieval Saint
                                                    The legends began the day Francis      The painter Giotto depicted him as
                                              died. He was sainted (1228) by the           the one who most suffered the
                                              medieval church; artists and poets           wounds of Christ. Dante placed him
Prof. Hanko is professor of Church His-       added' to this beatification by grant-       above the doctors and founders of
tory and New Testament in the Profes-         ing to Francis an almost unparalleled        medieval orders in his  Divine Com-
fanf Reformed Seminary.                       place in the history of Christianity.        edy (c. 1305). Francis was so cel-

102 /Standard Bearer / Klecember 1,199l


  ebrated as the perfect imitator of            vere self-doubt. While wanting to           than `Our Father which art in
  Christ that the Protestant Reformers          fight again, he was dissuaded by in-        heaven."' So far as we know, he had
 believed memory of him usurped                 ner turmoil which made his past life        nothing more to do with his parents
  the place of Christ in popular piety.'        seem empty and useless, but which           from that day.
     The story of Francis of Assisi is          gave him no direction as to his future.          The incident was, however, a
one of those strange and troubling                   In 1205 Francis journeyed to           turning point in his life. After spend-
stories that create in one who reads it         Rome on a pilgrimage and spent some         ing some years with lepers in the
admiration mixed with puzzlement.               delightful hours among the holy             nearby village of Gubbio, he returned
Hislifewasinsomerespectswhatthe                 shrines in the center of Christendom.       to Assisi to rebuild some churches
Christian life ought to be; it was in           But one incident disturbed him be-          and live as a hermit. Poverty now
other respects so contrary to genuine           yondreason. Meetingabeggingleper            became for him a way of life. In 1208
piety that one shrinks from it with             in the streets, he was moved by the         he was listening to a sermon on Mat-
some revulsion. It was the life of an           destitution of this despised member         thew 10:7-19,  a few verses of which
unusual medieval saint.                         of society, and, after steeling himself     read: "And as ye go, preach, saying,
     Francis was born in an impor-              to kiss the leper's hand, he exchanged      The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
tant town in central Italy called Assisi        his own clothes for the rags of the         Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise
to wealthy parents in the year 1182.            leper to experience himself what des-       the dead, cast out devils, freely ye
His father, Pietro de Barnadone, was            titution was.                               have received, freely give. Provide
a textile merchant who travelled ex-                 Returning to Assisi, Francis was       neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in
tensively, mostly to France, to increase        praying in the church of St. Damian         your purses, nor scrip for your jour-
thefamilyfortunes. His mother, aris-            when he heard Christ telling him to         ney, neither two coats, neither shoes,
tocrat by birth, was named Pica and             rebuild the house of God. This seemed       nor yet staves: for the workman is
enjoyed the society life of her city,           to make some sense to him, for the          worthy of his meat." Especially .the
while having little, if any, significant        small chapel of St.  Damian  was            call to preach and the call to live a life
influence on her eldest son's spiritual         humble,rudelyfurn%hed,  andinsome           of poverty struck like fire into his
development. Francis was baptized               disrepair. Later he was to realize that     soul.
Giovanni, but renamed Francisco,                Christ was referring to the corrupt                  From that day on he was to be a
apparently to express Pietro's love             medieval church rather than the             traveling preacher who literally
for France.                                     chapel in which he was praying. But         owned nothing. Others, attracted to
     Francis received an education              for the time being he decided that he       him, soon joined. The first to join was
open to the wealthy and elite, but              would devote himself to rebuilding          an extremely wealthy town council-
profited little from it. He was much            that chapel and to ministering to the       lor called Bernard who doubted
tooinvolvedinthegaylifeofawealthy               needs of the outcasts which lived on        Francis' sincerity. As the story goes,
merchant's son and the youthful ex-             the edges of Assisi.                        he invited Francis to his house to
ploits of those who have little else to              The trouble was that he needed         spend the night. He gave Francis his
do with their time than get into mis-           money for this project; and so, to          own room in a lavishly furnished
chief.                                          finance his work, he sold all his pos-      villa and watched what Francis would
     Italy was by no means a unified            sessions and some of the textiles of his    do in the night hours. Francis arose
nation, and the rivalry between vari-           father. His father did not think too        from his luxurious bed as soon as the
ous commercial cities was fierce. So            highly of this and was, in fact, dis-       house was quiet and spent the rest of
bitter was the rivalry between Assisi           gusted with a son who seemed to him         the night on his knees in prayer. E;er-
and Perugia, a nearby commercial                to be a lazy ne'er-do-well. Pietro          nard was persuaded, and, selling all
city, that war broke out. Francis               brought the matter to the local bishop,     his possessions, joined Francis as a
quickly joined the forces of Assisiand          accusing his son of theft. Francis was      traveling preacher. When others
rode forth to battle. He was captured           ordered by the bishop to restore the        joined, they called themselves "Ihe
and held hostage for a year, but was            money that belonged to his father and       LittleFriars" andrequestedfroml'ope
released when a ransom was paid for             make proper restitution. In what can        Innocent III permission to be recog-
him. He was about 21 at the time.               only be interpreted as a gesture of         nized as a monastic order. The stlory
      It seems as if Francis entered a          defiance,Francisstrippedeverystitch         is told that Pope Innocent III (the
period of spiritual struggle and se-            of his clothing from his body, tossed       mightiest pope the world has ever
                                                everything he owned on to the pile,         seen, and the clearest picture of Anti-
                                                and told the bishop to give it to his       christ up to today), unimpressed with
                                                father, while he left the house stark       what appeared to him to be nothing
                                                naked. His words as he left were: "Up       but a group of beggars, toldFrancis to
`Quoted from GreatLeaders                                                                   go wallow with the pigs and preach to
                               of the Chris-    to. this time I have called Pietro
tian Church, ed. by JohnD.  Woodbridge;         Barnadone father, but now I desire to       them. Even though Innocent may
Moody Press, 1988; p. ,160.                     serve God and to say nothing else           have been expressing his contempt,
                                                                                               December 1,199l I Standard Bearer I 103


Francis followed his instructions and        formed during Francis' lifetime: one        pieces was his "Canticle to the Sun."
returnedwiththe same request, which          was for women who wanted to prac-           Written when he was under severe
then was granted.                            tice the same ideals. It was organized      temptation and going blind, it ex-
     So began one of the greatest of         by Clare Schifiin 1212 and was~called,      pressedhisgreatloveofGod'sworld.
all monastic orders, the Franciscans.        "The Poor Clares." The other was an         A few lines will give us some sense of
It became known as a "Mendicant              order for laymen who wanted to live         it.
Order" because of its vows of abso-          in poverty along with Francis and his                 0 most high, almighty, good
lutepovertywhichrequireditsmem-              brothers, but who were not permitted               Lord God, to Thee belong praise,
bers to obtain their daily needs by          to preach.                                         glory, honor, and all blessing!
begging. The rules of the order were              Francis himself was a very                       Praised be my Lord God with
very simple. While like other orders         simple person. He feared education                 alI His creatures, and specially
with their vows of obedience and             as a spiritual threat and discouraged              our brother the sun, who brings
chastity, the Franciscans distin-            his followers from pursuing it. He,                us the day and who brings us the
guished themselves by vows of abso-          though often hungry and dressed in                 light; fair is he and shines with a
lute poverty. Francis insisted that no       rags, thoughlivinginabodywracked                   very great splendor: 0 Lord he
one in the order own anything at all.        with pain, was himself always cheer-               signifies to us Thee!
Personalpropertywasabsolutelyfor-            ful. He had a deep appreciation and                   Praised be my Lord for our
bidden. Even their clothes which             love for God's creation, and one could             brother the wind and for air and
they wore were to be given to others         find him from time to time in the                  cloud, calms and all weather by
in greater need than themselves. They        woods alone talking to the birds and               the which Thou upholdest life in
might not carry with them the small-         the squirrels about the things of God.             all creatures.
est coin. They might not keep the            He once told thebirds: "Brotherbirds,                 Praise ye and bless the Lord,
least crumb of bread; if any food was        you ought to love and praise your                  and give thanks unto Him and
left after their meal they had to give it    Creator very much. He has given you                serve Him with great humility.
to the poor. They might own no               feathers for clothing, wings for flying,              Thissongwastheinspirationfor
buildings or shelters. They even had         andallthingsthatcanbeofusetoyou.            the well-known hymn: "Praise to the
to walk barefoot.                            You have neither to sow, nor to reap,       Lord, the Almighty, the Ring of Cre-
     Francis was convinced that pov-         and yet He takes care of you." He had       ation."
erty was the great way of following          the ability to laugh at himself and he                Francis himself  was the closest
the example of Christ and the lofty          could recognize the foibles of human        one could come to the monastic ideal.
ideal of the imitation of Christ. Given      nature. He called his body, "Brother        I think sometimes such a life can con-
the fact that the corruption in the          Ass," and often gently chided it for its    ceivably appear to be attractive to
churchwas due to its immense wealth,         apparent weaknesses.                        those who are concerned about spiri-
they sought reform through poverty.               The brotherhood spread like            tuality in the midst of carnality and
     Francis, however, hated idle-           wildfire throughout Europe and soon         worldliness. It may seem to be the
ness; and so he insisted that his fellow     went beyond the control of Francis.         way to piety, and, indeed, ii: may,
monksbeconstantlybusy. Theywere              While Francis was off to try to do          because of its great difficulty, seem to
to be busy traveling, preaching, ad-         mission work among the Moham-               be the-path of godliness. In fact this is
ministering to the needs of the poor         medans in Egypt, unscrupulous prel-         not the case. God does not call us to
and outcasts of society, washing the         ates in the Romish hierarchy gained         express piety in poverty, and godli-
dirty lepers, feeding the starving, and      control of the Franciscans and orga-        ness in a denial of this earth's goods.
helping the downtrodden. They were           nized them into a much more rule-           As a matter of fact, the way of Francis
to do their work cheerfully and they         bound and controlled organization           is not the hard way, but the easy way.
were to treat every man, even their          than Francis wanted. They also forced       The hard way to which we are called
enemies, withcourtesy. They were to          the movement to change its rules so         is the way of being in the world but
avoid all pomp and outward show              that the members could own prop-            not of it; of taking God's good gifts
and be happily content with their            erty - the one thing Francis feared         and with thanksgiving using them in
poverty. Thislatterwasdemonstrated           the most. When he returned from             God's service; of possessing a house
vividly when a well-known follower           Egypt, he found these alterations de-       and clothes, but seeking in all things,
of Francis was greeted at the entrance       stroying all he had wanted for his          even with our earthly possessions,
of a city with a large and magnificent       movement. Unable to sununon the             the kingdom of God and His righ-
parade of clergy and prelates. He            energy and verve necessary to fight         teousness. That is the hard way, but
promptly went into a nearby field            the dark and powerful forces of the         the way of obedience and thle way
and played on a see-saw with some            church, he lived in sadness the re-         approved by God. IJ
small boys until the entire parade           maining days of his life and died of a
disbanded in consternation.                  broken heart at the age of 44.
     Two other sub-orders were                    One of his enduring master-

104 /Standard Bearer I December 1,199l


AlI Around lk
Prof. Robert Decker

Conference on Holy Scripture                                                        Ministers and lay people came from
     As most of our readers know,                                                   the Orthodox Presbyterian Church,
the Protestant Reformed Seminary                                                    the Presbyterian Church in America,
                                                                                    the Christian Reformed Church, the
                                                                                    Reformed Church in America, the
                                                                                    Canadian Reformed Churches, and
                                                                                    the Protestant Reformed Churches.
                                                                                    Attenders came from as far away as
                                                                                    Georgia, Missouri, New York, Colo-
                                                                                    rado, Mississippi, Iowa, and Wash-
                                                                                    ington.
                                                                                         The response to the conference
                                                                                    was overwhelmingly positive. Some
                                                                                    of those in attendance are urging the
                                                                                    Seminar to sponsor such a conference
        Rev. Audred Spriensma                                                       annually.
            leads devotions
                                                                                    CRC Losing Churches
sponsored a conference on the Re-                    Dr. Nelson Kloosterman              At its annual synod in June of
formed Doctrine of Holy Scripture.                           lectures               1990 the Christian Reformed Church
The conference was convened on                                                      in North America, which numbers
October 30 and adjourned Friday,             Holy Scripture"; Prof. Hanko spoke     some 900 congregations with a total
November 1. Itwas held at the South-         on "A Reformed Hermeneutic"; Dr.       membership of some 315,000 in the
west Protestant Reformed Church,             Nelson Kloosterman (Professor of       U.S. and Canada, decided to open all
which is located just to the north of        Ethics at Mid-America Reformed         offices of the church to women. This
the seminary. The sanctuarywas full,         Seminary) lectured on "Holy Scrip-     decision came after some twenty years
or nearly so, for all of the lectures and    ture and Ethics"; and Prof Engelsma    of studying the issue. The decision
discussions. Prof. Decker gave an            concluded with alecture on "Genesis    will be implemented in 1992, assum-
introductory lecture on "The Re-             l-11: Myth or History." Various        ing that the CRC synod ratifies its
formed Doctrine of the Inspiration of        denominations were represented.        decision of 1990 and makes theneces-
                                                                                    sary changes in the Church Order.
                                                                                    The synod of 1991 voted by a sizable
                                                                                    majority to maintain its decision of
                                                                                    1990, in spite of the fact that it was
                                                                                    faced with numerous overtures ob-
                                                                                    jecting to this decision.
                                                                                         The CR synod' of 1991 also
                                                                                    adopted a study committee report on
                                                                                    the creation/science issue which ex-
                                                                                    onerates the Calvin College profles-
                                                                                    sors whose teachings and writings
                                                                                    precipitated the study.



                                                                                    Prof. Decker is professor of Practical
                     Roelof]anssen  (Inheritalice  Publications)                    Theology in the Protestant Reformed
                                   displays wares                                   Semina y.

                                                                                      December 1,199l I Standard Bearer I105


     These two decisions have caused        the church even though according to              Holy Scripture. Rejecting the sugges-
no small stir among the membership          the synod's own testimony they were              tion that the Bible contained imper-
of the CRC. Several sizable congrega-       "reformed in the fundamentals, but               fections, Jewett wrote, 0 Jesus appeals
tions have decided to sever relations       with a tendency to onesidedness."                to Scripture, to each part of Scripture,
with the CRC and exist, at least for the                                    The Banner       and to each element of Scripture as to
time being, as independent congrega-                               Christian Renewal         an unimpeachable authority."
tions. Among these are First CRC                                                                  Later in his career his views
(Pastor, Rev.  Jelle Tuininga) in           Hunger and Starvation                            changed radically. Jewett, in fact,
Lethbridge, Alberta and Trinity CRC                  Did you know that:                      was influential in the shift of Fuller
in St. Catharines, Ontario. Each of         0        Thirty million Africans are fat-        Seminary from an exclusively evan-
these churches numbers some 150             ing starvation this year?                        gelical position to a neo-evangelical
families. Earlier 17 families from          0        Eleven million people starve to         position which denies the inerrancy
Calvary CRC in Flamborough and              death each year?                                 of Scripture. At the time of his death
from Calvin CRC inDundas, Ontario           0        Thirty-four million U.S. adults         Jewett was a member of the liberal-
withdrew from these congregations           are overweight?                                  dominated San Gabriel Presbytery of
andformedanindependentReformed              0        Americans spent $52 billion eat-        the Presbyterian Church (USA). 0
Church. ThiscongregationcalledRev.          ing out in 1980; $236 billion in 1990?                             Christianity Today
Jerome Julien to be their pastor. Julien    North Americans consume an aver-                                    Evangelical Times
accepted the call and left the CRC          age of 3,500 calories daily; Africans
(Flamborough). The congregation             consume 2,100?
now has some forty families. There          0        Nineteen percent of American
are other congregations who have            adults are currently.on  diets? Those                Audio-Cassette tapes
publicly stated that if and when the        who are constantly hungry in Ethio-
decision on women is ratified in 1992       pia, 20%; in Sudan, 20%; and in                                  of the
they will leave the CRC.                    Mozambique, 30-40%  of the popula-                     lectures given at the
     Within the CRC some of the con-        tion?
servative ministers and consistories        0        Five and one half,million chil-              Interdenominational
have formed the Christian Reformed          dren under 12 years of age in the U.S.                      Conference
Alliance in an attempt to foster unity      are regularly hungry?                                              on
among themselves and to combat the                   In the light of the above statistics
liberalism in their denomination.           we ought to be profoundly grateful to
     Will another Reformed denomi-          God who provides us with work so                    "The Reformed Doctrine
nation be formed? How many will             that we have more, much more than                       of Holy Scripture"
actually follow those who have al-          the "bread for today" for which Jesus
ready left the denomination? Only           taught us to pray. More than this, are                      are available.
the Lord knows. We shall have to            we concerned about the hungry and
wait and see.                               starving peoples of this world. Are
     From the Protestant Reformed           we laboring with our hands in order                   $12.00 for set of four:
Churches' perspective, we do not            not only to receive our daily bread,
glory in the troubles experienced by        but also that we "may have to give to                  0 "The Inspiration of
the mother church and by our con-           him that needeth"? (Eph. 4:28).                            Holy Scripture"
cerned brothers and sisters in that                                               Pulse
denomination. Our fervent prayer is                                                                   0 "A Reformed
that God will yet work a miracle,           Paul K. Jewett                                              Hermeneutic"
causing the CRC to re-examine the                    Dr. Jewett, professor of system-                0 "Holy Scripture
history of 1924-1926 when three min-        atic theology at Fuller Theological                           and Ethics"
isters and their consistories were un-      Seminary in Pasadena, California                         0 "Genesis 1-l 1:
justly suspended and deposed (ex-           since 1955, died on September 10 at
pelled from the CRC) because they in        the age of seventy-one.                                   Myth or History?"
the interest of maintaining the par-                 A native of Johnson City, New
ticular character of God's sovereign        York, Jewett was a graduate of                               Order from:
grace in Christ for the elect and the       Wheaton  College and Westminster                    The Protestant Reformed
doctrine of the antithesis refused to       Theological Seminary (Philadelphia).                          Seminary
be silent ontheissue of common grace.       He received the Ph.D. from Harvard
The fact is these men - Herman              University.                                           4949 lvanrest Avenue
Hoeksema, Henry Danhof, and                          When Jewett went to Fuller he                 Grandville, Ml 49418
George M. Ophoff - were cast out of         took a strong stand on the doctrine of

106 /Standard Bearer I December 1,199l


Contribution                                 Report on Jamaica
Rev. Arie denHarfog


      For a long time I had been hop-        night than in the daytime. (Just imag-      American dollar. Many people can-
ing for the opportunity to visit the         ine narrow roads, lined on both sides       not find gainful employment. It is
church in Jamaica with which our             with sugar cane, no street lights, cars     tragic to see so many able-bodied
churches have. been laboring for a           meeting you at high speeds and not          men roaming the streets. The people
number of years. I counted it an             always keeping to their side of the         of the Jamaica Protestant Reformed
exciting privilege therefore when Rev.       road, pedestrians walkingclose to the       Churches are for the most part subsis-
Joostens and I were sent recently to         side of the road, and more). Public         tence farmers. They have very little
the island for the purpose of conduct-       transportation is by small and ex-          money. The only money they have is
ing a seminar for. the leaders of the        tremely crowded mini-buses. The             what they can make by selling a bit of
churches there according to the deci-        buses are not very dependable. They         produce here and there. Food is not
sion of Synod 1990. Synod approved           do not run on Sundays at all. Because       very plentiful. One of the pastors'
the holding of two such one-month            these privately operated buses are on       families I visited in the afternoon did
seminars each year for four years.           such a tight budget they often have to      not eat lunch because they could not
The seminar in which I participated in       wait in one place for enough passen-        afford more than two meals a day.
August and ,September  of this year          gers, in order to make their trips eco-     There is little hope in the country for
was the second to be held thus far.          nomically feasible. Very few homes          economic progress. While we in
      I have at times seen slides and        have telephones. Phones are usually         America work to get ahead, many of
presentations of Jamaica by former           found only inbusiness establishments        the Jamaicans workjust  to exist. One
missionaries and emissaries, as most         in the cities. There are no regular mail    of the hard facts of life is that medical
of our churches in the UnitedStates          deliveries (at least not to the homes in    care is only for the few who can afford
have. But there is nothing like a visit      the countryside).                           it, no matter how urgent the need is.
to Jamaica and to the churches there                                                     Many of the people of the Jamaican
to experience what life is really like on                                                churches have medicalneeds that are
the island.                                        While we in America                   not taken care of.
      One is immediately over-                      work to get ahead,                        Much of this, I know, has been
whelmed by the hardships of life in                                                      told before. I mention it all again
Jamaica. Most of the country is very             many of the Jamaicans                   however because one cannot under-
poor, especially the people of our                  work just to exist.                  stand the difficulties of the work in
churches. Transportation and com-                                                        the Jamaican churches without al-
munication is such a great problem                                                       ways keeping this in mind.
thatitishardforusinmodemAmerica                   The only way you can contact                It was most interesting for me of
to imagine.. We take so much of our          the members of the churches is by           course to visit the churches. All the
way of life and prosperity for granted.      visiting them. We did a lot of this the     buildings of the Jamaican Protestant
The Jamaican roads are quite unbe-           first couple of days on the island, so      Reformed churches are very primi-
lievable, especially the mountain            that I could see all the churches and       tive, evencomparedto other churches
roads. There are potholes so big that        become somewhat acquainted with             on the island. There is certainly no
often our little rented Mazda scraped        the people and the circumstances of         evidence of their having reaped great
bottom on the rocks. The driving is          life in which they live. This also was      financial gain from their relationship
treacherous, even more so during the         the only way to talk with the leaders       to our churches in America. They
                                             of the churches about our coming            simply have not. The churches are in
                                             conference meetings.                        thejungle, some on themountainsides,
                                                  The economy of the whole is-           so that some can be reached only by
                                             landisinaverybad way. Ireadinthe            walking some distance. I had before
Rev. denHartogis pastor ofHope Protes-       papers that inflation was running at        heard of cancelled worship services
tant Reformed Church in Redlands,  Cali-     an annual rate of more than 120%. It        because of stormy weather. This be-
                                             takes ten Jamaican dollars to buy one
fornia.                                                                                  came. easier to understand when I
                                                                                           December 1,1991/ Standard Bearer I 107


was walking up the slippery rocks to            services. I felt the need of using quite     six loci of Reformed doctrine. I thor-
Cave Mountain Church in the middle              a different style of preaching in order      oughly enjoyed teaching the breth-
of the night. Most of the people come           to be on the level of the people and to      ren. The courses were very intensive.
to church by walking, some of them              enable them to follow the messages.         Meetings were from nine to five every
quite a distance.                               When I did this there was apparent           day, with short morning and after-
      The worship services are radi-,           contact with and understanding on            noon breaks, as well as one hour lunch
tally different from anythingwe have            the part of the audience. Attention to      breaks. We all stayed at the Orchard
ever experienced. They are quite dis-           the preaching was good. There were           Great House, where we also had our
orderly. People do not come on time.            always many expressions of appre-            meals together. So we had ample
There are drumbeats to call the people          ciation for the Word preached.               opportunity to get to know the breth-
to worship. The services can last               Preachingforthesaintsinthechurches          ren in an informal way as well. It does
more than two hours. The singing is             was an enjoyable experience.                 not take long to come to love these
by Jamaican tunes. There is no musi-                                                         men as brethren in the Lord and to
cal accompaniment; or, if there is any,                                                      enjoy Christianfellowshipwiththem.
it is drumbeating. There are few song                  I went to Jamaica                              Theteachingsessionswentwell.
books, since many worshipers cannot               to meet God's people there.                The attention was usually quite good
read. The singing is often led by one                                                       - except sometime in the middle of
of the relatively more educated                      God's people are there                  the hot afternoons when people un-
women in the audience. When there                  in the -Jamaican churches.                derstandably got a bit sleepy. There
is a minister present he will lead the                                                       were times of lively and interesting
singingbysingingalineatatimewith                                                             discussion and debate.. `What im-
the congregation, then repeating the                 Often it took a long time for my        pressed me the most, and even at.
line. The audiences are usually made            transportation to arrive after the ser-     times overwhelmed me, was the fact
up of between twenty and thirty                 vices (Rev. Joostens in the Mazda),         that, though these men are mostly
people, about the same number of                since my colleague had to come quite         simple and uneducated, they could
men and women, a number of younger              a distance from the church in which          converse on Reformed doctrine.
children, and here and there a few              he had preached. This too was in the         There was a good measure of under-
young people.                                   Lord's providence, since it gave good        standing of Reformed doctrine, and
      On the first Lord's day1 decided          opportunityformetofellowshipwith             an unmistakable love of and appre-
just to sit in the pew so I could get a         the people after the services. When          ciation for the Reformed faith. Let us
little bit of the "feel" of the situation in    one does this he discovers the genu-        not underestimate the wonder $of this
the churches and how to adapt my                ine spirituality of the people. To me       - first of all because it is  God-
preaching to this situation and these           this is still the bottom line of every-     wrought, and secondly because this
kinds of people. We were in Cave                thing. I went to Jamaica to meet            is the clearest evidence of the fruit
Mountain Church  on  the first Lord's           God's people there. God's people are        that the Lord has given upon the
day. There were quite a number of               there in the Jamaican churches. They        years of labors of our churches in
discouraging things in the worship              are different from us. They are, for        Jamaica. There is area1 desire to grow
services, things we would certainly             the most part, uneducated and very          in understanding of the Reformed
like to see changed, such as the disor-         poor, but they are God's people. No,        faith.
derliness and the testimonials, etc. I          this is not evident in all who come to                In addition to the daytime ses-
was however pleasantly surprised                the service; but it is evident in many.      sions there were also several evening
and impressed by the preacher and               There are saints of God who have             sessions on topics that Rev. Joostens
the sermon. Young Pastor Brydson                been in the churches for all the years      andIconsiderednecessaryandworth-
preached on Revelation 22:17. The               that the Protestant Reformed                while. We had, for example, a session
sermon was sound and edifying. It               Churches have labored there. They           on Christian family living. There was
was most thrilling to hear the distinc-         expresseddeep appreciationforwhat           great interest in this subject, thoughit
tive influence of the Protestant Re-            we have done for them. They have            hadbeenaddressedoftenbymission-'
formed training which the preacher              spirituallybenefitedfromtheyearsof          aries `and emissaries in the past. Ja-
had obviously received. I count the             missionary labors and other work of         maican society in general has very
hearing of this sermon as one of the            our churches.                               .few traditional families. Fornication
greatest highlights of our visit to Ja-              The greatest part of our work          and adultery are rampant. The
maica.                                          was of course the teaching at the           churches are strugglingto teach Chris-
     During our stay in Jamaica, Rev.           conferences. About 16 to 18 brethren        tian principles for family living that
Joostens and I tried to preach in as            attended regularly. Most of them            are quite foreign to what one finds in
many of the churches as possible,               were pastors, elders, and deacons of        the world around them. The people
each of us going to different churches          the churches. In keeping with our           that are presently in the Jam.aican
for both the morning and evening                mandate, we gave instruction in the         churches have been gathered from

108 /Standard Bearer 1 December 1,199l


the world. They do not have strong         differingabilities. Moststillneedalot          those who asked the question, "Why
family backgrounds. Most of them           of help in their ministry. We stillneed        do our churches who have such a
camefromhomeswheremotherruled              to give them much more instruction.            wonderful truth not do more to help
and father was gone, or even where         At these sessions we also discussed at         on the island of Jamaica?" That was
there never was a marriage. To estab-      length the need of the churches them-          a question we found difficult to an-
lish Christian homes in a culture such     selves and particularlythe pastors to          swer.
as Jamaica's is very difficult. Most of    do community evangelism. This is, of                The great need for the church of
theyoungpeoplearenotstayingwith            course, as difficult in Jamaica as it is in    Jamaica is the gospel, and the truth of
the churches. They must go to school       the United States. We did find the             God's Word to grow in and be
in the cities to advance their educa-      rural people in general friendly and           strengthened and encouraged with.
tion. For obvious reasons, few return      ready to talkwithus, somethingwhich            We remain convinced also that we
to the country after they are edu-         could be of great advantage for com-           shouldcontinuetoseekwaysinwhich
cated. If any do remain with the           munity evangelism.                             we can help with the material need
church, they attend city churches               The matter of the support of the          that is in the churches and among
which are, of course, much more pro-       ministers remains a really difficult           God's people there. Wemaynotwith
gressive. Anyway, we stressed again        problem. The congregations are just            hard and callous heart turn away
the great importance of families for       so poor they can contribute very little        from the very obvious and real mate-
the continuation of the church. But        to support their ministers. This is not        rial need. We have learned a lot over
this remains an extremely difficult        so much because of their unwilling-            the years about one of the most diffi-
problem for the Jamaican churches.         ness as it is just because of their ex-        cult aspects of doing mission workin
     We also had a special session on      tremely limited resources. Further-            a country such as Jamaica, that is,
"Principles of Reformed Worship."          more, all the congregations are as             how to administer material help in
This subject generated such great in-      small or smaller than the churches in          proper relationship to the preaching
terest and discussion that we spent        our own denomination that receive              of the gospel. We must, however,
two evenings on it. We made an             subsidy. Because the ministers have            continue to be very careful that we do
outline of some of the main principles     to work to support themselves, they            not deny the gospel that we preachby
of Reformed worship and discussed          have far too little time for sermon            a careless attitude toward the mate-
with the brethren the need of contin-      preparation and other work in the              rial need of the saints in Jamaica. It is
ued diligent work to eliminate from        church.                                        my opinion that the danger of doing
their worship services things that are                                                    this is far greater than the danger of
not biblical. One has to be in Jamaica                                                    giving too much money or of some-
to appreciate how hard this is to do.                 The great need                      times making a few mistakes in how
One can condemn many things that              for the church of J&naica                   material assistance is administereed.
are wrong in the worship services.                                                             There is one thing that stands
But then work also has to be done to                  is the gospel . . .                 out above all. There is a great need for
replace what is condemned. This is                                                        a missionary or, better, two mission-
not always so easy. We can try to                                                         aries for Jamaica. There is great need
eliminate all the drums. But then               Icouldwrite so muchmore  about            for doing much more extensive work
there are no musical instruments at        what we experiencedin the threevery            among the churches in Jamaica than
all, and few that know very much           busy weeks we were in Jamaica, but             we have done in the past. Our work
about music. Even if we would sup-         this article is already very long. There       is not finished. The need of the
ply all the churches withinstruments,      is certainly reason for us to continue         churches in Jamaica is very great. We
we would still have to do extensive        our work in Jamaica, mainly because            must be in earnest prayer that the
work to train someone in each con-         God has His people in the churches             Lord will send a missionary to Ja-
gregation to play them. There is, to       there. Furthermore, there is great             maica. As long as there is no mission-
my knowledge, no one in any of the         need for continued instruction in the          ary, the conferences that have been
churches who has ever had any les-         Word of God and development of the             held and are planned for the future
sons to play any sort of musical in-       truth in all the churches.' The leaders        serve a good purpose, at least in a
strument. We drew up a basic order         of the churches need further instruc-          limitedmeasure, to continue thetrain-
ofworshipwhichweurgedthebreth-             tion, guidance, and help. The need of          ing of the leaders of the churches.
ren to work hard at implementing in        the churches in Jamaica should be the          They also serve greatly to encourage
all of the churches.                       greatest reason for us not to abandon          the saints in the churches and to do
     We also had evening sessions          them but to help them with the re-             much to maintain the bond with our
with just the pastors of the churches,     sources and the heritage of the truth          churches.  Cl
to discuss the various problems in the     God has given to us. There were
churches. These were good sessions.        instances where the brethren literally
The ministers are very definitely of       begged for more help. There were

                                                                                            December 1 ,199i / Standard Bearer I `109


                                              Unbelief's Attempt
Guest Article
Rev. Richard Moore                            to Dismiss Sin (1)
     The occasion for this paper is the       pass our own lips. Our prayer is that       debate of the matter beyond that of
notification given to me that an ac-          such sinners may come to see their sin      the present letter. The truth is that I
quaintance of mine had, in his words,         and repent, as also we ourselves must       had to respond, pointing out that he
"come out of the closet," after having        repent of any walk in unbelief. But         was walking in a sin that leads to
spent a good part of his life as a            rather, the purpose is that we might        condemnation if not repented of, and
practicing homosexual undercover.             see the way of rmbelief,from  the point     furtherexpressingmyconvictionthat
At the time that he informed me of            of view of unbelief, and by this grow in    he was attempting to justify his sinby
this, he said that he could no longer         our appreciation of the creeds, which       involving himself in the greater sin of
live the life of duplicity, and that if by    God has been pleased to give to us to       unbelief itself. And then he in turn
notifying me he lost my friendship, it        guard us from such a walk in unbe-          responded with a ten-page letter. But
would still be worth it to him.               lief, and to enable us to see how very      notice that, even before having re-
     However, at this time he ad-             clearly the Scripture speaks of unbe:       ceived any response from me, he was
dressed a letter of 12 single-spaced          lief, and of the hatred that unbelief       attacking the doctrines of the faithful
pages in an attempt to justify his ac-        has for the truth. And, still more, that    church in order to make a defense for
tions. It became evident as I read this       which is set forth by this sinner walk-     sin that the doctrines of Scripture
document that it really was an at-            ing in unbelief reveals to us the ter-      condemn. Unbeliefattempts to put the
tempt to escape the consciousness of          rible apostasy that is taking place in      child of God on the defensive, in order to
the judgment in which he stands as he         the church world today. Many of the         justify its walk in that unbelief.
continues to walk in this sin. And            same arguments that are set forth by              In the first place, he brings up
thus, by taking some time to examine          one obviously walking in most crass         the matter of guilt. He says that he
this man's defense of his walk, we            unbelief are the same arguments that        carries no guilt baggage about his
gain a clearer insight into the life of       we hear in the "church world," which        walk. (Then he spends 11 more pages
unbelief, and the depth of iniquity of        calls itself Christian, and even Re-        attempting to justify his walk.)
which natural man is capable. As we           formed, as itbrings into the church, as           Secondly, he states that be had
do this we shouldnote that it doesnot         proper, the life of adultery through        to do some hard thinking, as a "pro-
really matter what the sin itself is.         remarriage after divorce, the break-        fessed" Christian, regarding his be-
Whether it be the sin of homosexual-          ing of the fifth commandment, and           liefs about God in the light of his
ity, or of adultery, thievery, drunken-       others, in giving the offices of Christ     gayness. He does elaborate upon
ness, or whatever, the sinner who is          to women and in denying creation.           them later, but at the first mention of
not willing to repent must of neces-               By this article, then, may we find     them he says that he had been gay
sity use similar arguments to attempt         warning against the sin of unbelief         (again, we could substitute adulterer,
to justify before himself and others          that is becoming so prevalent in the        glutton, drunkard, or any sin here)
his walk in sin.                              church today, and may we be com-            for all of his adult life. And God, he
     Further, the purpose of bringing         fortedby the truth that God has given       says, did not once hinder his service
this topic forward for these articles is      us an infallible and inspired Word to       to Him. He adds, "If God had been
not to focus attention upon any par-          fight the spiritual battles of faith.       displeased with my gayness, it seems
ticular person. This could be a re-                When this acquaintance began           that He would have acted negatively
sponse to a letter of any sinner who is       his defense of his "life style," he told    toward me." He also mentions AIDS
for the time determined to walkin his         me that he did not want me to re-           and denies that it is a judgment of
sin, no matter what that sin might be.        spond to this information, for he has       God. He says he does not believe he
In fact, when we ourselves walk in            no interest in doctrinal games. He          is at risk of contracting AIDS. In the
sin, many of the same arguments could         stated that he thinks the "concentra-       next sentence he says that he has had
                                              tion on doctrine within your denomi-        periodic tests for the HIV virus and
                                              nation to be absurd to the point of         they have all been negative. This is
                                              making your `gospel' one of fear rather     the foolishness of sin. Whether one
Rev. Moore is  pastor of the Protestant       thanlove." He said that he wouldnot         encounters the physical consequences
Reformed Church of Hull, Iowa.                expend any more resources to any            of his sin or not does not change the

110 /Standard Bearer I December 1,199l


fact that one cannot escape the spiri-       Evaluation of the Sitier's Position          reason of men in order to excuse the
tual consequences of his sin.                     In the first place, we should un-       sin in which he walks. He states that
                                             derstand that sin hates the Word of          God makes him to sin. God created
The First Attempt to Justify the Sin         God. This is evident in several ways         him the way that he is. He even uses
     In the first place, he says fl there    in this example of the sinner's just&        (misuses) the Bible in doing so. He
is much profitable in the Bible, and in      cation of his walk in sin. This is`seen      says that God created him in the im-
the way that it is taught in the church      immediately in the attack that this          age of God; and he concludes from
I attend; but because I am gay, there is     sinnermakesupontheReformedfaith.             this that, because he walks as a homo-
some material that I cannot believe or       It is the same reaction as was brought       sexual, he must have been made to be
take literally as do most conservative       against Christ when He taught the            such by God Himself. We do well to
believers today."                            precious truths of the Scripture to the      remind ourselves, in this connection,
     In the second place, he states he       people, as we see from the words of          that when there is brought an attack
did not become gay, but was made             Matthew 1224:  "But when the Phari-          against the truth we have wonderful
gay. To support this he insisted that        sees heard it, they said, This fellow        creeds that lead us to recognize the
he believes in a higher entity, and says     doth not cast out devils, but by             attack in order that we might have a
that it takes less faith to believe that     Beelzebub the prince of the devils."         defense against the same. Our atten-
there is a Creator than to believe that      This tactic of the unbelieving Phari-        tion is drawn to the Heidelberg Cat-
the creation came by accident  - a           sees is still used today, as is evident      echism, Lord's Day 3, where the cat-
point that he later denies in many           from this case. Yet we must not be           echism intercepts this idea of unlle-
ways. However, on this basis he              cowed by this attack, but ever bring         lief. In question 6 the catechism ques-
proceeds to say that he was created,         the Word to bear upon the sinner;            tions, "Did God then create man so
as the Bible says, in the image of God,      perchance our God will use it to bring       wicked and perverse?" and answers,
and that God created him to be gay.          to repentance. In the meantime, be           "By no means; but God created man
     He points out too that he does          thankful that Christ might count you         good, and after His image . . . . fl The
not believe that the devil made him          worthy to suffer for His sake.               sinner may attempt to make God the
do it. Heis convinced that heis gayby                                                     author of his sin, but to no avail. God
creation, that God willed him to be             . . . the natural man reacts.             created man good. The sinner cannot
gay. To prove this, he says that he had          He either accuses others                 blame God for his walk in a sinful
spent much time in prayer that he                                                         way. This sinner, like all men natu-
might yield his life to God, by over-          in order to divert attention               rally, will not admit the fruit of the
cominghisgayness,ifthatwereGod's                        from his sin,                     fall, and the absolute loss of the image
will. But it never happened. So he                or else excuses that sin                of God. Naturally man can do no
decided to live as God willed. And                  by rationalization.                   good, and this is the result of our own
thus he casts away all guilt feelings.                                                    disobedience. We must answer the
     Finally, he points out that he is            Secondly, we should note that           sinner thus; that God did not create
convinced that some sections of the          though the sinner will deny that he          you in sin or as a sinner; sin is of your
Bible are, indeed, either miswritten,        has any feelings of guilt while he           own volition and making.
mistranslated, or misinterpreted. And        walks in his sin, yet he finds the need            Of course, if the above argument
he concludes that, just as he cannot         to justify himself. This also does not       does not hold, then the sinner turns to
bring himself to believe that God has        surprise the child of God, for he knows      the Word of God itself, and contends
chosen His elect before the founda-          the Scripture that teaches us that even      that it is not infallible, and certainly is
tion of the world, he cannot believe         the reprobate wicked have a con-             wrong as it addresses his sin. The
that God would create and then con-          science that accuses them, although          Bible cannot mean what it says, when'
demn a segment of His creation be-           they surely attempt to deny it. Ro-          so many men say the opposite. But if
cause of the method of expressing            mans 2:15 says of unbelievers that           one denies a part of the Bible he de-
their love and affection which He            they "shew the work of the law writ-         nies all of it, whether he does so in
instilled in them. He goes on to say         ten in their hearts, their .conscience       connection with this particular sin, or
that he is convinced that God is not         also bearing witness, and their              with respect to the denial of creation,
committed to what many believe is            thoughts the mean while accusing or          or whatever. Thus, it must be said to
the biblical absolute in regards to ho-      else excusing one another...." This is       such a one, you walk in unbelief,
mosexuality. He states, "I believe in        indeed the way that natural man re-          repent of your sin. How often are we
God, but I believe that the mainstream       acts. He either accuses others in order      not also tempted to use these same
of believers are wrong in their inter-       to divert attention from his sin, or else    means to justify our own walkin  sin.
pretation of the New Testament teach-        excuses that sin by rationalization.         May God give us grace to repent and
ing on homosexuality; and that God                Indeed this was the course fol-         to hear what Christ saith unto the
indeed affirms homosexuality as a            lowed in the `example that we are            church.  0
truly acceptable state."                     considering. The sinner turns to the                               (to be continued.)

                                                                                            December I,1991 / Standard Bearer / 111


                                                                             Malactii
                                                             Godg'Eove:
                                                             Questioned,
 Search the
 Scriptures                                   Proven, Confessed.
 Rev. Carl Haak                                                              Malachi 1: I-5

        The very  ,first words of this      we possibly hear in all our life than, "I    and that in the way of their sins (see
prophecy deserve serious and con-           have loved you, saith the Lord."             Rom. 9:17-22;  Matt. 15:13-14;  I Pet.
centrated study by every believer.                Malachi shows that the people          2:6-S; Canons of Dort,Head 1, Art. 15;
Why? First of all, the words "I have        of his day were questioning the real-        Belgic Confession, Art. 16).
loved you" stand as the foundation of       ity of God's love to them (v. 2). Judg-           It is vital that we see that Jeho-
the entire book, as well as the ground      ing from what could be seen, they            vah speaks these truths in the context
on which God brings His complaint           were sorely tempted to doubt that            of  co'mforting  and  confirming  His
against His people. All of the terrible     love. The Samaritans, the people who         people. Further, Jehovah God, in
spiritual indifference, the weariness       lived to the north, had been bitterly        proving His sovereign and uncondi-
of worshiping God, the violation of         hostile and had opposed the building         tional love for us His people, refers to
God's covenant in the married state,        of the temple. They accused the Jews         the well-known history of Jacob and
which were prevalent in Malachi's           of disloyalty to Cyrus. Also, there          Esau, the twin brothers born to Isaac
day, were at heart this: insensitivity      had been severe crop failures,               and Rebekah (see Gen. 25; Rom. 9:10-
andcoldness to thelove  of God. God's       droughts, and plagues which had              13). The sovereignty, graciousness,
first word in this prophecy strikes to      consumed the harvests. And they              unconditionality, and justice of God's
the very heart of the problem of the        had become the plaything of the na-          predestination are shown in this bib-
spiritual apathy and carelessness of        tions. Thus, with almost a cynical           lical example.
that day and of our day. Second,            tone, they asked: "Wherein hast thou              God's predestinating love is to
these first five verses reveal the truth    loved us?"                                   beconfessedbyus! "Andyeshallsay,
of PREDESTINATION, the heartbeat                 We must look at ourselves, as           the Lord be magnified." Cold indif-
of the gospel. Sovereign Predestina-        we too, in the light of sickness, pain,      ference to the God who has said to us
tion, eternal election and reproba-         trials, depression are tempted to ask        unworthy sinners, "I have loved
tion, is the truth which ascribes all       the same question.                           you"? God shame us if that is ever the
glory in our salvation to God, and               The proof of His love towards           case in our hearts. Rather than sickly
God alone. This great truth is here         His people is found in the word of           indifference, we who believe and ex-
taught by God, not as mere abstract,        God to Rebekah (Gen. 25:23). The             perience the Reformed and biblical
cold dogma, but specifically as the         Holy Spirit in Malachi and later in          truthof predestinationought to sound
battering ram against spiritual             Paul (Rom.  9:13) show that these            forth the praise of God for His fath-
lukewarmness, and for the purpose           words to Rebekah speak of the truth          omless and unquenchable love.
of comforting God's people. Indeed,         of eternal, sovereign election and rep-
what greater word from God could            robation. Election is God's choosing         Memory Work:
                                            from all eternity the persons who will       Romans 9:10-13
                                            be saved, and that not based on any-              And not only this; but when
                                            thing in them, but only out of His           Rebecca also had conceived by one,
                                            graceandmercy(seeEph.  l:l-4;Rom.            even by our father Isaac;
                                            8:29,30;  IPet. 2:9; John6:39; Canons of          (For the children being not yet
Rev. Haak is pastor of the Protestant       Dort, Head 1, Art. 7,9,10). Reproba-         born, neither having done any good
Reformed Church of Lynden, Washing-         tion is God's eternal and just damna-        or evil, that the purpose of God ac-
ton.                                        tion of the persons who will perish,         cording to election might stand, not

112 /Standard Bearer I December I,1991


of works, but of him that calleth;)                  l)The love of God towards His               2) Assurance
          It was said unto her, The elder     people is not measured in things or                3) Adoration of God
shall serve the younger.                      absence of things, but solely in the               4)Thankfulness
          As it is written, Jacob have I      cross of Jesus Christ.                             5) A zeal for missions and wit-
loved, but Esau have I hated.                        2)God's  love towards us may       nessing
                                              not be questioned.                                f. Who is Edom? (Look up the
Questions for Study:                          3.    God's love proven:                  word Edom and Edomites in your
..I .The idea of the burden of the                  a. How does Paul use this verse     Bible Concordance and give a brief
word of the Lord (vs. 1).             '       in Romans 9:13?                           review of Edom and its significance.)
          a.Do other Old Testament                  b. After reading the Articles of              1)Whatattitudedotheyexpress
prophets use this terminology?                the Canons of Dort mentioned in our       in verse 4?
          b.What is the meaning and sig-      introduction, and carefully reading                2)Do we see this attitude to-
nificance of the word "burden of the          the scriptural passages in support of     day?
word of the Lord"?                            electionandreprobation,explainwhat                 3)Do  we fight it even in our-
          c. How is God's Word a burden       is meant by . . .                         selves?
to us?                                               1) UnconditionaZ election.                  4)Whatdoweleaminthestrong
2.        God's love questioned:                     2)  Sovereign election.            answer of the Lord to this boast of
          a.Look up what the following               3)Grucious orfree  election.       Edom?
verses teach about God's love:                       4)Jusf reprobation.                4.      God's love confessed:
Ephesians  1:4,5; Deuteronomy 7:7,8;                 5)Purficular  election.                    a.What did God promise they
I John419;  I John 4%10; Romans 5:5-                c. Why is the example of Jacob      would see in verse 5? Anything more
11; Isaiah 38:17; John 15:9; Revelation       and Esau so appropriate in proving        than Edom's destruction?
3:19; I John 3:l; Deuteronomy 10:12.          God's sovereign predestination?                   b.What does it mean for us to-
          b.NowgiveadefinitionofGod's               d.How does God's hatred of          day?
love.                                         Edom (Esau) prove His love for Jacob              c. In what ways ought the con-
          c. In what ways do we question      (His people)?                             fession of God's gracious love to-
the love of God towards us? Be spe-                 e. Whatoughttobeourresponse         wards us be evidenced in our lives
cific.                                        to these truths? (See I Tim. 2:19; II     and words?
          d.How ought the knowledge of        Thess. 2:13.) Explain how these truths    5.      Can you write from memory the
God's love to be our daily comfort?           ought to produce . . .                    verses we have learned in Romans
          e. Discuss these two statements:           l)Humility                         9:10-13?   cl





 Taking Heed to
the Doctrine
Rev. Bernard
Woudenberg

                                                    How shallwe,  that are deadunto     Netherlands. In turn, they were basi-
                                              sin, live any longer therein?             tally agreed as to the underlying cause
                                              Romans 6:2                                for this, although they tended to dif-
                                                    When Rev. Herman Hoeksema           fer in their emphasis. Hoeksema had
                                              and Dr. Klaas Schilder met in 1939,       had his battle over Common Grace,
                                              they were two men of kindred spirit.      the view that some of what the world
                                              Both of them in their own circum-         does is good and usable by the chulrch
                                              stances had spent their lives striving    of God, while Schilder was more con-
Rev. Woudenberg is pastor of the Protes-      against the worldliness which was         cerned with the Presupposed Regen-
fant Reformed Church of Kalamazoo,            overwhelming the Reformed faith, in       erationview that those who live with-
Michigan.                                     the United States as well as in the       out evidence of grace in their lives

                                                                                              December 1,1991/ Standard Bearer I 113


may still be presupposed to be regen-             Schilder,inhisefforttomeetthis         we must not fail to thank our God.)
erated on the basis of their baptism, at    problem, reached back into the past,              Nevertheless, the approach
least for as long as they continue to       fromwhichhepickedupaviewofthe                which Rev. Hoeksema took to this
live within the sphere of the cov-          covenant which had essentially been          same problem was quite different.
enant. But generally they were so           around for a long time. This was the         He had watched as the Christian Re-
much agreed on the commonness of            view that the covenant is essentially a      formedChurch,afterhavingadopted
their enemy that they parted as close       two-sided relationship, with prom-           its position on Common Grace, tried
friends, determined to maintain con-        ises and curses on one side and condi-       to withhold the effects of worldliness
tact with each other and to supljort        tional obligations on the other. He          by adopting rules and preaching
each other in their future battles.         was ready to grant this covenant to be       warnings and threatenings  against
     That, however, was not to be.          one-sided in its origin. In fact, he         those who did not keep them. And it
The Second World War intervened;            strongly insisted that everychildbap-        had not worked. Being a diligent
and Dr. Schilder, due to his valiant        tized within the church has an abso-         student of Reformed theology, and of
opposition to the Nazis, spent most of      lute assurance of salvation as long as       the Heidelberg Catechism in particu-
those years either in prison or in hid-     he is a child. Nevertheless he insisted      lar, Hoeksema was much more con-
ing. The result was that he was pre-        that, once this childis come to years of     vinced of the Catechism's approach
vented from speaking out publicly,          discretion, it is necessary to present       to sanctification. Christian life does
and certainly from making interna-          him with the conditions and the re-          not arise from invoking imperatives
tional contact with others. But this        sponsibilities of covenant life in pre-      and warnings, but from true @ritual
did not mean that either he or              cise and concrete terms. The result          convictions gendered by hearing and
Hoeksema ceased working with the            then will be that the individual cov-        learning the truths or doctrines of the
problem.                                    enant child will either respond posi-        Word of God. Once these are known
     Between these two men there            tively and continue in the promises of       and held in true faith, application to
were some remarkable similarities.                                                       life will follow. And in turn, if this
Both were strong defenders of the                                                        grace is not there, all the insistence
confessions,andof theReformedfaith                     Christian life                    upon responsibility and warnings of
which they contained. Both were                        does not arise                    consequences will not change the un-
stunning orators; they could gather                                                      believing soul.
large audiences and hold theminrapt           from invoking imperatives                       It was this view of sanctification
attentionthroughlongandsometimes                     and warnings . . . .                that Rev. Hoeksema accordingly as-
complex sermons. And both were                                                           similated into his covenant concept.
thoroughly exegetical in their ap-                                                       The covenant of grace he saw to be a
proach, although with a difference.         God, or, failing to do so, fall under the    bond of friendship which God estab-
Dr. Schilder was a man of strong            covenant's curse and become a cov-           lishes with His elect children through
artistic tendencies, and his exegetical     enant-breaker. He firmly believed            the gift of faith. It is a faith which can
approach was often based on poetic          that when this kind of an emphasis is        exist only when implanted directly
insights which few others would have        maintained within the churches,              by the Holy Spirit; and, when fed
perceived and which could hold his          worldliness will be kept at bay and          through soundinstructionin the doc-
audienceinraptattention,evenwhen            the strength of the church maintained.       trinal teachings of Scripture, it will
his overall thought could be very dif-      (And it should be recognized that, in        recognize the value and necessity of
ficult to follow. (I can remember well      theyearsfollowing,thoseinTheNeth-            godliness in life and follow it. Im-
that, when I was a child, those who         erlands who have followed the teach-         peratives and warnings have their
had heard him would continue to             ings of Schilder have remained spiri-        place, but only as they appear natu-
reflect years afterward about the ser-      tually much stronger than those who          rally in the practice of biblical preach-
mons he had preached when visiting          have maintained the Presupposed              ing, and not as the key to sanctifica-
us in 1947, and even those of 1939.         Regeneration view of Abraham                 tion in themselves. In turn, if ai child
They seemed never to forget them.)          Kuyper. One may debate whether it            orgrownadultisnotfirsttransformed
Rev. Hoeksema, on the other hand,           has been their covenant view which           by the elective grace of God, all of the
was a clear and careful speaker who         has brought this about; but their rela-      insistenceintheworldwillnotchange
usedfewpoeticalflourishes,butwent           tive spiritual strength should be rec-       him. Sanctification is a part d the
into the depths of the doctrines of         ognized. The terrible apostasy of the        covenant gift; and the covenant is
Scripture andunfolded themin terms          followers of Abraham Kuyper, the             exclusively the work of God.
which even the most common lis-             Gereformeerde Kerk, is certainly one              As it was, however, due to the
tenercouldunderstand. Accordingly           of the great tragedies of church his-        war, these two views continued to
also their approaches to the problem        tory; and the continuing faithfulness        develop in isolation from each <other,
of growing worldliness were quite           of the followers of Schilder, the Liber-     and without the mutual interchange
different.                                  atedChurches,issomethingforwhich             which had been hoped for. And the

114lStandardBearer  /December  1,199l


war brought about terrible experi-            Church; and our churches were quick        took place. Dr. Schilder traveled
ences  for Dr. Schilder andthe churches       to applaud them in this and give all       throughout our churches, and was
in the Netherlands. Not only were             the encouragement they could. In           generally welcomed everywhere.
there the atrocities of the German            fact, as soon as possible, Dr. Schilder    And there were few who were willing
occupying forces; but those who had           was invited to visit us once again,        to suggest that the differences of our
felt threatenedbyDr.  Schildeis grow-         now with the anticipation that we          covenant views were significant or
ing influence before the war took ad-         wouldbe able to create close fraternal     important  - only Rev. Ophoff. At a
vantage of the cover of war to expel          relationships, and work together in        finalconference heldwithDr.  Schilder,
himandhisfollowersfromthechurch               the future. This trip was planned for      Rev. Ophoff presentedhimwithsoime
in a way similar to that which Rev.           the summer of 1947.                        15 questions which he felt had to be
Hoeksema had experienced in 1924.                   But also here the providence of      answered. Dr. Schilder looked at his
      Thus it was that, no sooner was         God intervened. Shortly before Dr.         list, promised to answer them in his
the war over, than contact was again          Schilder's visit could take place, Rev.    paper, TheXefomzation,  andputthem
madebetween those old friends. And            Hoeksema suffered a massive stroke,        in his pocket. Sadly they were never
now, with a new commonality of ex-            and was left almost completely inca-       heard of again, while within them lay
perience, the bond of friendship was          pacitated. When Dr. Schilder came,         the key that might well have pre-
even stronger than before. Dr.                Rev. Hoeksema was recovering; but          vented a great deal of future misery
Schilder's followers had rallied              he was not able to participate to any      and pain.
around him and reorganized them-              great degree in the activities which            To this we shall return. Cl
selves into a new Liberated Reformed



                                               Introduction to
From Holy Writ
Rev. George Lubbers                            I Corinthians 8:l ff.

      "If any man love God, the same is       governor#  of all our minutest ac- 1 God loved them in sovereign grace
  known of him" (I Cor. 8:3).                 tions. The fullness of time has come.      and in divine mercy which is exceed-
      "For, brethren, yehave been called      Christ was born from a woman, "un-         ingly rich (Eph. 2:1-lo)!
  unto liberty; only use not liberty for      der law," that He might redeem them             Ours is the liberty of those who
  an occasion to thepesh,  but by love _      who were under law, that "we might         are under the royal law of liberty.
  serve one another" (Gal. 593).              receive the adoption of sons." And         James speaksof thisinchapter28: "If
                                              "because ye are sons, God has sent         ye fulfil the royal law according to the
      After much prayerful study and          forth the Spirit of his Son into your      Scriptures, Thou shalt love thyneigh-
reflection, we now take up our pen to         hearts, cr,ying, Abba, Father." The        bor as thyself, ye do well" (cp. Matt.
write a few articles on what is often         greatfruitofCh.rist'sredemptivework        7~12).  Yes, he who keeps one of these
called the "liberty" of a Christian. A        is that we are now no more in the legal    commandments from the heartinlove
Christian, you must remember, is not          statusofbeinga"servant," butweare          keeps the whole law (Rom. 13:8,9).
"under law" but "under grace." We             now "a son" with all the duties, privi-         Furthermore, one more basic
are not any longer servants under             leges, of legal children of God (Gal.      observation which we must keep in
tutors and governors; we arenolonger          4:1-5; John 1:12).                         ourheartis that, whenwewerecalled
living in the OldTestament  time when              We are, in a word, heirs of God       efficaciously out of darkness into
the church was "non-age," but we are          andjoint-heirswithChrist(Rom.8:17).        God'smarvelouslight,wewerecalled
now the church which is free from the              Itisfromthisloftyvantage-point        to do God's commandments willingly.
law, which served as the "tutors and          that the Corinthian believers are ad-      The law was written in our hearts (I
                                              dressed by Paul in I Corinthians 8:3.      Cor. 3:2-4). Such trust Paul has in this
                                              Unless we see this we will be bogged       Corinthian church which he is ad-
                                              down in the quagmire of those who          dressing on-a certain problem N touch-
                                              are still "under law." But notice that     ing things offered to idols." Paul
                                              Paul addresses these Corinthian be-        appeals to the love that they have for
Rev. Lubbers is a minister emeritus in the    lievers as those who "love God," and       God, the God of their salvation. He
Protestant Reformed Churches.                 who are such lovers of God because         says this in verse 3, which we have

                                                                                           December 1,1991/ Standard Bearer i 115


quoted at the heading of this article.               When we look at the teaching of      Corinthians 8:lff. Paul is coming to
We must not only never forget this,          the Spirit in these three chapters, I        the defense of those "weak in con-
but we must have this principle of           Corinthians 8, 9, 10, we notice that         science, men and women for whom
love for God and for our neighbor as         Paul is waging a marvelous polemic           Christ died." Writes Paul to those
the spiritual principle of all our deal-     against all those who are not very           who walk in cold-blooded Iicense:
ings with our brothers and sisters in        much filled with loving compassion           "... and through thy `knowledge' shall
Christ.                                      for those who have "a weak con-              the weak brother perish for whom
        Why must we be reminded of           science.N The believers in Corinth,          Christ died?"
this? This question must be asked            both men and woman, had a real                    c. The matter here in I
and also answered with a believing           problem of conscience. It is notewor-        Corinthians 8:lff. is so serious that
heart. For the end of the command-           thythatPauldoesnotaddthewordof               those who eat of meat offered to idols
ment is "charity (love) out of a pure        warning to these: "Let every man be          verily eat at the tables of idols in their
heart, and of a good conscience, and         persuaded in his own mind" (Rom.             consciences, and thus experience that
of faith unfeigned" (I Tim. 1:5). Our        14:26).  Fact is, Paul writes "fully per-    they are having fellowship with dev-
Reformed fathers believed with the           suaded in his own mind," does he             ils, that is, with the demon-world of
heart and confessed with the mouth           not?                                         the fallen angels who are being kept
that Christian "good works" are ever                 We need to observe that the cases    by God in pits of darkness till the
those which proceed from them who            spoken of in Romans 14:lff. and the          judgment of the great day (I Cor.
walk in true conversion (H.C., Ques-         case in I Corinthians 8:7 are not alike.     10:20; Jude 6). Of this "depth of Sa-
tions 88-90). And, therefore, only           They differ in the following points:         tan" those addressed in Romans 14
those works are good which "pro-                     a. Those who are referred to as      have no spiritual experience. Paul
ceed from a true faith, and are per-         beingweakdonothaveaweaknessof                does not need to remind those who
formed according to the law of God,          conscience as such. In fact, they are        had this great temptation while eat-
and to His glory, and not such.as are        stated to be weak as to "the faith."         ing things offered to idols, whether
founded on our own imaginations, or          They are weakin the plain teaching of        they are "fully persuaded in their
the institutions of men" (Rom. 14:23;        the Scriptures regarding the matter of       ownminds." Both those who kept the
I Sam. 1522; Eph. 2:2,10; I Cor. 10:31).     keeping of days -the Old Testament           OldTestamentSabbathdayanldthose
        It was no one less than the very     feast days and sabbaths - as well as         who rejected this day must be fully
Paul who defended the truth of the           of the ceremonial laws concerning            convinced in their own minds. But
Gospel (Gal. 2:5,14),  namely that we        meat and drink. Such is not the case         here in I Corinthians 8:lff. the men
have liberty in Christ Jesus from the        with those weak as to their "con-            who eat with the conscience of the
curse of the law, who equally defends        science," as we read in I Corinthians        idol experience what the demons ex-
this same truth of the Gospel that we        817.                                         perience. They have the fear of hell
are to walk in the faith which works                 b. In I Corinthians 8:lff. those     and the torment which no human
by love, so that we with a grateful          who are weakin conscience "eat with          tongue can express!
heart love our neighbor even as we           conscience of the idol." That was a               d. Finally, the believers who are
love ourselves. Thus we will not use         deepandpainfulmemorywhichthese               weak "in the faith" have the problem
our liberty as an occasion to the flesh,     redeemed Gentiles would never for-           .of conception of the difference be-
to walk in all the works of the flesh        get. In I Corinthians 6:9ff. we read,        tween the Old and New Testaments.
which are manifest: adultery, forni-         "Know ye not that the unrighteous            They take issue with the Gospel of
cation, idolatry, drunkenness,               shall not inherit the kingdom of God?        liberty. Doctrinally they are not cor-
revellings, and such like. Yes, they         Be not deceived: neither fornicators,        rect. They err in the faith. Buit those
who do such things shall not inherit         nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor abus-     who eat with the conscience of anidol
the kingdom of God (Gal. 5:13,14; 19-        ers of themselves with mankind . . .         have  no doctrinal squabble. They
21).                                         shall inherit the kingdom of God."           wholly agree that their God is alone
        The way of the new life in Christ    Twice this ultimatum is stated by the        God, who has saved them for Him-
is full of temptations. Satan, the world,    Spirit. And then we read the soul-           self, and that they are in the one Lord
and our flesh do not cease to assault        searching words, which laid their            Jesus Christ. But their conscience is
us. But we are assuredinICorinthians         conscience open and naked before             weak when they eat that which is
lo:13 that there is no temptation of         God: "And such were some of you:             offered to idols.
ours which is not common to man.             but ye are washed, but ye are justified           We shall learn more of this deep
Paul writes, "But God is faithful, who       in the name of the Lord Jesus and by         problem of those who eat with the
will not suffer you to be tempted            the Spirit of our God." Now, Paul is         conscience of an idol as we proceed.
above that ye are able; but will with        speaking to every.man's  conscience               We close with the observation
the temptation also make a way of            before God in Romans 14:lff ., but the       that Paul used this particular "case
escape, that ye may be able to bear it."     believers at Rome must have their            study" to enlarge upon the entire field
           * * 4  *  +  *  *                 conscience stirred up. Here in I             of what is called "indifferent things."

116 /Standard Bearer I December 1,199l


He writes about this matter in chap-        for the brother and for the Gospel we      10:lff.). 4) Thegrandapplication: we
ters B-10. He touches on the following      forego our imaginary "rights" (chap-       must not walk so that we tempt God
matters: 1) The loving and consider-        ter 9). 3) The lesson of Israel's temp-    (I Cor.  10:21ff.).   0
ate respect that the strong owe the         tations  in the wilderness (chapter                              to be continued...
weak (chapter 8:lff.). 2) That in love
                                                                                                                            -
A Word Fitly Spoken
Rev. Dale Kuipbr                                 Tradition
     The word tradition is used five times by Jesus and four times by the apostle Paul. In addition, there is one occurrence
where it is translated "ordinances" (I Cor. 11:2). It is not to be foundin  the GldTestament, although the idea of tradition
isimpliedinsuchphrases as "sayings of oldwhichour fathers have toldus" (Psa. 78:2,3); "therockwhence youare hewn"
(Isa. 51:l); and "the ancient landmarks" (Prov. 22:28). The Greek word is composed of a root with the meaning of "to
give, to commit, to deliver," and a prefix which slightly changes the meaning to "entrust, transmit, give over."
     Jesus never spoke of tradition except to condemn and warn against it (Matt. 15:2ff., Mark 7:3ff.). Paul also used it
in a negative way (Gal. 1:14; Col. 28). In all these passages the Lord and His apostle speak of a body of doctrine and
practice which men invented, foisted upon the people as grievous burdens, even though these traditions transgressed
the Word of God and made His commandments of none effect. These precepts of men were made equal to the Bible;
in fact, they possessed an authority greater than the Word of God in the minds of the elders and the Pharisees.
     Paul also used the term in a positive, salutary sense. In II Thessalonians 2:15 he commands that the church stand
fast, and "hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle." The context shows that
tradition refers to a definite body of doctrine that God has ordained, revealed to Paul, andpassedonby him to the church.
In11 Thessalonians 3:6, he enjoins the brotherhood to "withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly,
and not after the tradition which he received of us." Here the reference is to a definite way of life which God has laid
down as acceptable in the church. We may safely say that this tradition of doctrine and walk is the Bible. It is the sole
rule, the only authority, for faith and life.
     The Roman Catholic Church makes much of tradition. Authority for Rome is the Bible, and developing tradition
(the apocryphalbooks, writings of GreekandLatinchurchfathers,  decisions of church councils, andpapaldecrees). And
the church determines what the Bible teaches and what tradition means. All the dreadful distinctives of Rome are based
on the traditions of men, all of them: purgatory, the priesthood, the mass, transubstantiation, prayers for the dead,
indulgences, penance, worship of Mary, use of images in worship, holy water, rosary beads, celibacy, the papacy  (and
its claims. Not only do these doctrines lackbiblical warrant, but, they are often in direct contradiction to Scripture. For
example, Paul writes that there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ. Rome introduces a host
of mediators such as Mary, priests, hundreds of saints, and thousands of angels. The Romish church has followed hard
in the footsteps of the Pharisees, falls under the condemnation of Jesus, and is a false church (Belgic Confession, Art. 29).
We cannot be thankful to God enough for Martin Luther, whose thrilling words before the Diet of Worms left that august
assembly spellbound: "Since then your Majesty and lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and
without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason-I do not accept the authority of popes and councils,
for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant any
thing, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen." Sola Scriptura!
     The devilish echo of Romish tradition is heard in many churches today, where we find a growing church hierarchy
which rules from the top down (Synod, Classes over local councils), and where it is evident that the science of the world
is elevated above Scripture, if ever we are to discover what the Bible means.
     As churches we have our traditions; every church does. We preach the Heidelberg Catechism every Sunday, and
we hold services on various, significant days throughout the year. So strong are these traditions that they are embodied
in our Church Order. Our Three Forms of Unity belong to the Reformed tradition. Now we do not suggest that there
are errors in our Creeds! We love them, believe them, and use them every day. But all traditions decided upon by men
and councils must always be subjected to the biblical tradition, laid down by God Himself. And if anything in our
tradition does not agree perfectly with Scripture, it must be let go of and changed in the proper way. In this way a
Reformed church is always reforming. 0

Rev. Kuiper  is pastor of Emmanuel  Protestant Reformed Church in Lacombe,  Alberta, Canada.

                                                                                          December 1,199l I Standard Bearer J 117


BOOK REVIEW

Mysticism: An Evangelical Option?,          that the Scriptures surely teach that            on the cognitive level in every in-
by Winfried  Corduam; Zondervan             the believer enjoys union with Christ,           stance.
PublishingHouse,  1991; 15Opp.,$14.95       and that this union with Christ is                    What then does faith do? The
(paper). [Reviewed by Prof. H.              effected by the indwelling of the Holy           position of the author seems to be that
Hank0 . ]                                   Spirit. This union with Christ can be            such mystical union with Christ and
                                            said to be mystical because, through             God canbe, and sometimes is, purely
        Anyone interested in mysticism      Christ, we are brought into fellow-              a matter of  feeling,  feeling which de-
in the church will probably want to         ship with the triune God. And this               fies description and cannot be de-
consult this book. While it is some-        union with Christ is brought about by            scribed by mere human language.
what philosophical and psychologi-          faith.                                                It is here that we dissent. Our
cal in the first part of the book, espe-              All of this is surely sound, bibli-    Heidelberg Catechism defines faith
cially the last two chapters are well       cal teaching.                                    as the bond by which we are  en-
worth reading.                                        The problem comes in the               grafted into Christ and thus placed in
        The book starts out by examin-      author's definition of faith. He never           "mystical union" with him. But in a
ing very broadly mysticism as a uni-        really defines faith carefully, and              further definition of faith in the very
versal phenomenon found in all reli-        seems to suggest that the mystical               next question and answer the Heidel-
gions, and it asks such questions as:       union which faith works can be apart             berg Catechism insists that faith is a
Does mysticism have a common core?          from knowledge. In two statements                sure knowledge by which we hold for
Does mysticism have an objective ref-       on page 137 this is affirmed. "But it            true all that God has revealed in His
erent? Can language describe mysti-         wouldalsobeamistaketofallintothe                 Word. And, having said that, the
cal experience?                             error of rationalism, namely, that God           Heidelberg Catechism goes on to de-
        But at the end of the book the      works only through our rational re-              fine faith as trust in Christ by which
author zeros in on a brief history of       sponse to verbal messages," where                we rely completely upon Him.
mysticism in Christianity, and he           "rational response" apparently                        That feelings or emotions are
faces, in the final paragraph, the ques-    means, "a response by means of                   involvedin faith goes without saying.
tion of mysticism as a legitimate ex-       knowledge." The second statement                 Love for God and our neighbor is an
perience within the Christian and           is: "Any wholesale dismissal of ev-              emotion; trust has emotionalimplica-
Evangelical tradition.                      erything `mystical' in favor of the              tions. We are told in Scripture to
        Early in the book, mysticism is     purely cognitive would direct us away            come to God with a broken spirit and
defined as an unmediated link with          from these supernatural facts."                  a contrite heart - all of which are
the absolute, which, in the Christian            I am aware of the fact that the             intensely emotional. We are admon-
tradition, means an unmediated link         word "purely" in the above sentence              ished to rejoice in the Lord always -
with God. It is here that the book          modifies "cognitive"; it leaves room             again profoundly emotional. But
grabs our interest.                         for something which is partially cog-            never can or may any of this be sepa-
        An unmediated link with God         nitive, i.e., partially involving the            rated from the sure knowledge of
as a means of acquiring knowledge is        mind, and therefore knowledge. But               faith. Our emotional experiences in
rightly condemned as being contrary         the author seems nevertheless to ig-             which we have union with God
to the principle of Solu Scripture. But     nore that line of reasoning. He seems            through Christ are always mediated
a mysticism which confirms biblical         to be saying that faith which brings us          by knowledge.
truth is approved.                          into union with Christ and thus with                  This point the author seems to
        The author correctly explains       God is a faith which need not operate            deny. IJ

News Froni Our Churches
Mr. Benjamin Wigger

                                            Denominational Highlights                        commemorating a double anniver-
Mr. Wiggerisa member  of  the Protestant         On October l&1991, Southwest                sary of the Veldmans: 60 years of
Reformed Church ofHuclsonville,  Michi-     Church honored Rev. and Mrs.                     marriage and 60 years in the ministry.
gan.                                        Herman Veldman with a program                    Mr. Phil Lotterman read a tribute to

119 IStandard  Bearer I December 1,1991


                                               the Veldmans went. ,However,  less              Rev. denHartoe writes, as uart
                                               than a year later the congregation         of his closing remarks  in a repoit to
                                               there released him because he in-          the First PRC in Grand Rapids, MI
                                               sisted on the doctrine of the covenant     that "there is a very great need for a
                                               of grace. The Veldmans returned to         missionary on the island of Jamaica.
                                               Grand Rapids and both taught at            The problems in a field like Jamaica
                                               Adams St. School until he received a       can be overcome only through pro-
                                               call from the congregation in              longed, consistent, andpatient labor."
                                               Edgerton, MN in 1953.                      Rev. denHartogalso  wrote to his con-
                                                    In 1959 the parsonage of the          gregation in Redlands, CA that "the
                                               Hope PRC in Redlands, CA became            people are very poor and the church
                                               home to the Veldmans. They stayed          buildings very primitive. Neverthe-
                                               there until 1963 when Rev. Veldman         less we found God's people there,
                                               accepted a call to the Hope PRC in         many of whom were eager to hear the
                                               Walker, MI.                                preaching of the Word."
                                                    Thiscallwasfollowedin1966by                 Let us pray earnestly that God
                                               a call to the Hudsonville, MI PRC,         willprovideamanfromourchurches
                                               and in 1971 Rev. Veldman took his          to work on the island.
                Rev. and Mrs.                  last call and served as pastor of the
              Herman Veldman                   SouthwestPRCinGrandville,MIuntil           News from Singapore
                                               his emeritation in 1978.                         The congregation of Grandville,
the Veldmans on that occasion, and                  It is the earnest prayer of our       MI PRC has arranged a unique way to
hehassubsequentlyshareditwithus.               churches that God may continue to          communicate with their pastor, Rev.
We are happy, in turn, to share some           bless both Rev. and Mrs. Veldman as        J. Kortering, and his wife while they
of it with you, the readers of the S.B.        they enter their sixtieth year together    are in Singapore. Beginning October
         Rev. Veldman was born in Chi-         in married life as well as in their        20, there was placed in the narthex a
cago on April22,1908,  the thirdsonin          service to God in His church.              basket in which either typed or hand-
 a family of thirteen children. After                                                     written messages to the Korterings
completing school and four years of            Mission Activities                         could be placed. Then once a week
the work-a-day life, he decided to                  It has been a couple of months        these messages were to be faxed to
pursue the ministry, and so in 1928            since Revs. Joostens and denHartog         the Korterings in Singapore.
 entered the Protestant Reformed               returned from Jamaica. But I thought
 Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI. The             that you might nevertheless be inter-      Congregational Highlights
influence of his uncle, Rev. Herman            ested in learning about some of their            The Consistory of the Byron
Hoeksema, and the encouragement                accomplishments. Ten large duffle          Center, MI PRC decided to conduct a
of a godly mother, led him to this high        bags of clothing, bed linens, eye          Study Class for the men of the congre-
and holy calling.                              glasses, and books accompanied the         gation, beginning with the govem-
         After accepting the call to Pella,    Joostens luggage to Jamaica, free of       ment of the church. The purpose of
IA, but before his ordination to the           extra charges, courtesy of,Northwest       this class will be to educate all the
ministry, Candidate Veldman and                Airlines. The crated motorcycles went      men in the faith and practices of Re-
Miss Flora Ezinga became husband               by truck to Miami. The airline then        formed churches. A side benefit will
andwife, on September 9,1932.  Then            removed the gas tanks and shipped          be to educate present and future el-
it was on to Pella, to begin his life's        them separately. Nearly a cubic yard       ders and deacons. Rev. Gritters was
calling, on September 23,1932.                 of shoes were shippedin the crated of      going to teach the class, with the pos-
         In 1937 Rev. Veldman accepted         the motorcycles, thereby saving ship-      sibility of guest teachers, perhaps from
 a call from the Creston  PRC in Grand         ping costs. About four hours were          the Seminary.
Rapids. The Veldmans stayed there              required to re-assemble the cycles               We also extend our congratula-
' until 1941 when they accepted a call         and get them running. The crating          tions to the congregation of the Hope
from the Kalamazoo, MI PRC. It was             lumber was used by Rev. Joostens to        PRC in Walker, MI which celebrated
in Kalamazoo that Rev. Veldman fi-             make repairs in the Belmont parson-        their 75th anniversary as a church
nally finished his high school educa-          age and church as well as to make a        with a program on the evening of
tion, and also taught history in the           bed frame in the parsonage.                October 25.
 Christian high school there for one                Books sent included workbooks               Ironically, this programwas held
year.                                          for Suffer Little ChiIdren,  and copies    in the Southwest PRC, since Hope's
         In 1950 our  congfegation  in         of Come Ye ChiIdren,  the "Essentials"     sanctuary is still going through amajor
Hamilton, ON, Canada called, and               catechism book, Knowing God, and           face-lifting.
                                               large print, soft-cover Bibles.

                                                                                            December 1,199i / Standard Bearer / 119


&DMD
   BHER                                                                                                                   SECOIVD  CLASS
                                                                                                                          Postage Paid at
                                                                                                                          Grandville, Michigan
   P. 0. Box 603
  Grandvile,  MI 49468-0603


Ministerial Calls                                           RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY                      RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY
        The congregation of the South-                         The consistory of the Hope Prot-            The Men's and Ladies' Society
east PRC in Grand Rapids, MI ex-                          estant Reformed Church of Redlands,         of the Holland Protestant Reformed
tended a call to Rev. C. Haak, one of                     CA extends its Christian sympathy to        Church extends their Christian sym-
their former pastors, to become once                      its fellow officebearer, Bernard            pathyto Mr. and Mrs. Ed Cammingain
again their pastor.                                       Meelker, in the loss of his mother,         the death of his mother,
        Rev. R. Moore declined the call                              HILDA MEELKER,                           MRS. VAN TUINEN.
he was considering from First PRC in                      whom the Lord took home to glory on              "Yea, though I walk through the
Grand Rapids, MI to serve as mis-                         November 2, 1991 at the age of 80.          valley of the shadow of death, I will
sionary to the island of Jamaica.                         We also extend heartfelt sympathies         fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy
        And Candidate M. Dickdeclined                     to Mr. Ben Meelker (husband), Hilda         rod and thy staff they comfort me"
the call he had been considering, to                      Sansom (daughter), Etta Mulder (sis-        (Psalm 23:4).
serve as pastor of the Hope PRC in                        ter), and all the grandchildren and                  Elaine Bonzelaar, Secretary
Isabel, SD. Q                                             great grandchildren. "Thou wilt shew
                                                          me the path of life: in thy presence is
                                                          fullness of joy; at thy right hand there
                                                          are pleasures forever more" (Psalm
        WEDDING ANNIVERSARY                               16:11, 12).
        On December 14,1991, our par-                        Pastor Arie denHartog, President
ents and grandparents,                                                Elder John Feenstra, Clerk
         MR. and MRS. JOHN C.                                                                                     still- ti??u?
              FLIKKEMA,                                                  NOTICE!!!
will celebrate their 40th wedding anni-                                                                                f0rlZ
                                                               To encourage our young people
versary. We rejoice with them and                         to write and to glean the wisdom of             c~$jxzMm
also thank our gracious Lord for the                      their -elders, the Beacon Lights is
years they have shared. We are                            sponsoring a writing contest for all
grateful, too, forthe covenant instruc-                   ages third grade level and above.                        GIFT
tion, love, and guidance they have                             The winning submissions will be
given us. Our prayer for them is that                     published in upcoming issues of the              SUBSC~IT--
they may continue to experience the                       Beacon Lights magazine. And, win-
blessings of our faithful God in the                      ners will receive a book certificate to
years to come. "But the mercy of the                      be redeemed at the Reformed Book                        TION
Lord is from everlasting to everlasting                   Outlet.
upon them that fear him, and his righ-                         For more details and contest                            to the
teousness unto children's children; to                    rules,.see the Beacon Lighfs, De-
such as keep his covenant and to                          cember issue. We look forward to                  Standard Bearer.
those that remember his command-                          your participation,
ments to do them" (Psalm 103:17,                                                  Sandy Storey,
18).                                                                  Beacon Lights Secretary                    Ha~price
John and Ruthanne Flikkema
        John IV,. Amanda, Christian,                                     NOTICE!!                                      f07.
Hannah                                                         Classis East will meet in regular
Steven and Karen Ophoff                                   session on Wednesday, January 8,                       fi`rst-time _
        Steven Charles                                    1992, at the Hope Protestant Re-
Tom and Amy Flikkema                                      formed Church, Walker, `Michigan.                     suhcri6ers!
Don and Gail Kuiper                                       Material for this session must be in the
        Emily, Michael                                    hand of the Stated Clerk by December
Steve and Pam Flikkema                                    10,199l.
        Jeremy                                                                   Jon J. Huisken
                    Southeast Church, Grand Rapids, MI                                Stated Clerk
120 /Standard Bearer I December 1,199l


