     ~~~~~




     A Reformed         BIER.
     Semi-Monthly
     Magazine
I



                          li  -`..  :.+hby&$  affii&&&&th  SIQS,`;m;.The
                                                                      `_
                           `-. &i yiis .-is.`t,he:; r&q of. the truth of .( t he
                        : ,@tith.&is .ib thes&$iurctps....  We
                         .@iQ,,view  this w&ti.k&$n$j  of -the, an-
                        . . . .tithesis as` a~.-&@&&  .X&us.' Let us
                          :' `car I .it ~.ecc.le&Mi&al  itimuno.defi-
                          ' .ciency:tiirus
                                        .~                  ~Et~~~~~~~~n a.fewyears'
                        _ it i&&%bly @ad& ,t6 `SDS and-to.
                                                                                             .(  the:.
                                ,@ath  pf  the  &jtir& .  `I  i.  `\:,  :
                        ,. _  :.:                                           :                          `. .
                                                 .,i  -.    . .  _               ..(
                        _.-       <_          `-t -Se& `%heL E&p&&&h about Aids" __ page ii93
                                                                                        <       . .
                                                                      i(





     Vol. 68, No. 13
     April 1,  1992


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    7R.E
CONTENTS:                                                                                                                                                           April I, 1992                                         S%~~VDMD
                                                                                                                                                                                                                               BEARER
Meditation - Rev. Wilbur G. Bruinsma
          A Prayer of Intercession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..*............. 291
Editorially speaking -.Prof. David J. Engelsma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..*.............. 293                                                                                                          ISSN 0362-4692
Editorial - Prof. David J. Engelsma                                                                                                                                                                                     Semi-monthly, except monthly during June, July, and August.
          The Gospel-Truth about AIDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293                                                                 Published by the Reformed Free Publishing Association, Inc..
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        4948  ivanrest  Ave., Grandville, MI 49416. Second Class
Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295    Postage Paid at Grandville, Michigan.
All Around Us-  Prof. Robert D. Decker ,,,,, ,...* .,,,,,. ~~~ .,.... ,~~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296                                                                                                 Postmaster: Send address changes to the Standard Bearer,
Guest Article.- Pastor Lau Chin Kwee                                                                                                                                                                                    P.O. Box  603. Grandville. MI  49466-0663.
          Training of Our Own Ministers ..*......**...........................................                                                                                                            297           EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
Day of Shadows - Rev. John A. Hey.+                                                                                                                                                                                     Editor: Prof. David J. Engelsma
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Secretary: Prof. Robert  D. Decker
          Saved By Grace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..~..~.......~...............................~~.....                                                                         300           Managing Editor: Mr. Don Doezema
Letter from the Seminary -`Prof. Robert D. Decker ..,,,,,.,..,.................... 302                                                                                                                                  DEPARTMENT EDITORS
Taking Heed to the Doctrine - Rev. Char/es J, Terpstra                                                                                                                                                                  Rev. Ronald Cammenga, Prof. Robert Decker, Rev. Arie
          The Holiness of God (4) . . . . ..*...................*..................................*..*                                                                                                                 denHartog,  Rev. Russell Dykstra, Rev. Carl  Haak. Mr. Fred
                                                                                                                                                                                                          304           Hanko, Prof. Herman Hanko, Rev. John Heys, Rev. Marvin
In His Fear - Mr. Fred Hanko                                                                                                                                                                                            Kamps,  Rev. Steven Key, Rev. Kenneth  Koole, Rev. Jason
           Education in the Post-Christian Era                                                                                                                                                                          Kortering, Rev. Dale Kuiper, Mr. James Laming, Rev. George
                                                                                                                     ..m....~~.~~..........,..................,,.., 306                                                 Lubbers, Mrs.MaryBeth  Lubbers, Rev. JamesSlopsema,  Rev.
Guest Article - Rev. Steven R. Houck                                                                                                                                                                                    Charles Terpstra, Rev. Ronald  VanOverloop,  Mr. Benjamin
          Rightly Dividing the Word                                                                                                                                                                                     Wlgger, 
                                                                                         .~..~....~~.........~.................`..................~....                                                                             Rev.  Bernard Woudenberg.
                                                                                                                                                                                                          307
News From Our Churches - Mr. Benjamin Wgger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310                                                                                                         EDITORIAL OFFICE              CHURCH NEWS EDITOR
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The Standard Bearer           Mr. Ben Wigger
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        4949  Ivanrest                6597 40th Ave.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Grandville, MI 49416          Hudsonville,  MI 49426
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        BUSINESS OFFICE               NEW ZEALAND OFFICE
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The Standard Bearer           The Standard Bearer
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Don Doezema                   c/o Protestant Reformed
In This Issue.. .                                                                                                                                                                                                       P.O.  Box 603                    Church
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Grandville. Ml                8. VanHerk
                                                                                                                                                                                                                           49466i603                  66 Fraser St.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        PH: (616)  538-1778           Wainuiomata.  New Zealand
             AIDS we all know about, surely. But what in the world is SIDS?                                                                                                                                                   (616)  531-1499
             Did you wonder about that when you read the cover copy?                                                                                                                                                    FAX (616) 531.3033
                                                                                                                                                                               Already from
the cover you will notice that, just as AIDS is caused by a virus (HIV), so also                                                                                                                                        EDITORIAL POLICY
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Every editor is solely responsible for the contents of his  own
SIDS can be traced to a "virus" - EIV. And, further, that, just as the prognosis                                                                                                                                        articles. Contributions of general interest from our readers and
for AIDS is fatal, so also is the prognosis for SIDS.                                                                                                                                                                   questions for The Reader Asks department are welcome.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Contributions will be limited to approximately 300 words and
             Perhaps'you've already put it all together: Regardless, you'll surely want                                                                                                                                 must be neatlywritten ortypewritten, and must besigned. Copy
to read Prof. Engelsma's'penetrating analysis, not, so much, of the vile sin of                                                                                                                                         deadlines are the first and fifteenth of the month. All
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        communications relative to the contents should be sent to the
homosexuality, as of the terrible state of the church which approves it. Such                                                                                                                                           editorial office.
approval, he argues, is not just the cause of God's burning wrath against her, but                                                                                                                                      REPRINT POLICY
the result of it. SIDS must be traced back to EIV. Page 293.                                                                                                                                                            Permission is hereby granted for the reprinting of articles in our
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29O/StandardBearer/Aprill,i992


                                                A Prayer of
Meditation                                      Intercession
Rev. Wilbur Bruinsma

And Moses returned unfo the Lord, and           not simply guilty of worshiping an         blood of the covenant, which Jehovah
said, Oh, this people have sinned a greaf       image by which they thought to rep-        hath made with you...."
sin, and have made fhemgods ofgold.  Yet        resent Jehovah. They had become                 In response Israel swore, not
now, iffhou wiltforgive  their sin -; and       guilty of idol worship: worshiping a       once, but twice, "All that Jehovah
ifnof, blot me, l pray thee, ouf of fhy book    god other than Jehovah. By their sin       hath said we will do, and be obedi-
which thou hasf written.                        Israelas  awhole  hadrejected Jehovah      ent!" Now, about a month later, Is-
                       Exodus 32:31,32          as their God, and revealed that they       rael had broken her solemn oath. She
                                                preferred the gods of the world-the        had sinned as Jehovah's covenant
        It is a well-known Bible story:         gods of Egypt rather than Jehovah.         people, to whom so much had b'een
the golden calf. When the children of           This was a sin against the sovereign       revealed and promised!
Israel observed that Moses delayed to           God of heaven and earth who had                 Oh, how we mourn for Israel!
come down out of Mt. Sinai, they                revealed Himself to Israelby a mighty      No, not just for Israel then. But for
approached Aaron. With the demand               andoutstretchedarmwhichhadcom-             Israel today too! We mourn for our-
placedbefore him, "Up, make us gods             pletely destroyed the land of Egypt        selves!
which shall go before us," Aaron suc-           before their very eyes. This sin was
cumbed to a great and grievous sin.             not, therefore, one of simple igno-                                                  -
Inspiritualweakness Aaronrequested              rance, but was out-and-out unbelief                    When  we return
of the people their golden earrings             and rebellion!                                        to the idols of this
which he, in turn, melted in the fire.               It is evident from the words of
As the gold cooled he fashioned it              Moses' prayer that he considered this          wicked world . . . we sin
into an idol in the form of a calf. Why         sin of Israel as greater than any they         as those who have been
a calf? Most probably because the               had committed before. "Oh, this                  given the revelation
children of Israel were already, sad to         people hathsinned agreat sin!" Moses                   of our salvation
say, familiar with the worship of Apis,         even pulls up short of asking God to                   in Jesus Christ!
the ox-god of the Egyptians. It was             forgive their sin: "Yet now, if thou
not strange, therefore, for the people          wilt forgive their sin -." But why
to see this golden calf before them;            was this sinof idol-worship any worse,
neither were the sinful rites which                                                             Is our sin any different from
                                                than the other sins Israel had commit-
they then practiced foreign to them.                                                       Israel's sin? The church of Christ
                                                ted? Had not Israel murmured and
We learn from the Scriptural account                                                       today has been incorporated into that
                                                complained against God throughout
that the people, with Aaron's help,                                                        same covenant of God in which Israel
                                                their wilderness journey? Had she
celebrated a feast in honor of their                                                       shared. God fellowships with us on
                                                not accused God of leading her out
gods, offering sacrifices to it. Then, to       into the wilderness in order to slay       the basis of the blood of Christ that
add sin upon sin, the children of Israel        her? Had not Israel even before this       has been sprinkled on us. In that
also danced naked together before it                                                       blood we have been delivered from
                                                time been guilty of worshiping the
and "played together" to their shame.                                                      the bondage of sin. Our guilt has been
                                                idol gods of Egypt? Why was this sin
        The character of this sin stands        at Sinai so much greater than these        covered and our iniquities cleansed
on the foreground. The people were                                                         away. We too have swornbefore God
                                                other sins? Because of what had taken
                                                place alittle over amonthprior to this     that we will "lead a new, godly life."
                                                                                                When we return to the idols of
                                                event. There, at Mt. Sinai, just before
                                                Moses went up into the mountain,           this wickedworld as didIsrael, there-
                                                Israel had become the covenant people      fore, we too commit a great sin! It is
                                                                                           not a sin of ignorance, mind you, as
Rev. Bruinsma is pasfor oj First Profes-        of God! Moses had sprinkled them           the sin of the heathen who have never
fanf Reformed Church in Holland, Michi-         with theblood  of the sacrifice. He had    heard of Christ. We sin as those who
gan.                                            proclaimed to them: "Behold, the

                                                                                                       April 1,1992/  StandardSearerl291


have been given the revelation of our       quences. "Yet now, if thou wilt for-         thewayofdamnationandhellbothin
salvation in Jesus Christ! We sin as        give their sin...." He dare not say          body and in soul. And in doing so He
those who have shared in God's fel-         more. Could God forgive the sin of           paid the price. Christ could do this
lowship and have tasted of the ben-         Israel? Was there any way possible to        because, unlike Moses, an imperfect
efits bestowed on us in Christ! When        remove from the sight of God the             type, Christ is the p'erfect reality. He
we then dance and sing and play with        horrible sin they had committed              had no sin of His own to pay for, as
the idol gods of the wicked around          against the most high majesty of God?        did Moses. Moreover, though Christ
us, then we become guilty before the        The only possible answer to such a           was a man, He yet remained God. He
God of heaven and earth who has             weighty question was: God's justice          had the power to bear God's wrath
chosentoplaceHisnameinourmidst.             had to be satisfied! The price had to        and then live to bestow on others
      Certainly we can understand the       be paid. And that meant for Israel-          what He earned in His death. Christ,
need for the plea Moses makes to            eternal destruction in hell. Moses           more willingly than would Moses
Jehovah in this prayer. "Oh, this           was aware of that.                           have done so, laid down His life for
people have sinned a great sin. Yet                 This then led him to another         His sheep.
now, if thou wilt forgive their sin -;      great truth: the need for substitution.           Our sins are forgiven! Christ
and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of    Moses knew that since Israel could           has accomplished that for us!
thy book which thou hast written."          not pay for her sin, someone else                 So much has He loved us. So
      That prayer sends shivers down        must. SoMosesofferedhimselfin  the           much has God loved us. He spared
one's spine! What a man of compas-          stead of the nation: What Moses did          not His only begotten Son to deliver
sion was Moses!                             not understand, however, is that he          us from sin and death! That is of
      Moses knew what Israel had            couldnotbe such a substitute. Moses          greatest joy and comfort to us. Other-
done. He knew also what they de-            was himself a sinner. If he were to          wise we would have no reason to bow
served for their sin! In fact, God had      suffer punishment for sin it would           upon bended knee and plead with
already told Moses that He would            have to be for his own sins, not those       God for forgiveness from day to day.
destroy the whole nation and make a         of another. And, more, Moses was             God is gracious to forgive. Christ has
new nation out of Moses' seed. Moses        but a small, finite creature of the dust.    given His life for us.
knew this. But as the shepherd of his       Could he possibly bear the eternal                "Greater love hath no man than
sheep he had a deep love for them -         weight of God's wrath against sin and        this, that a man lay`down his life for.
as well as a deep love for God's cov-       ultimately pay the price of that sin?        his friends!" We thank God for His
enant. And in that love Moses was           He would be crushed. Moses could             love!  0
willing to give up his own place in         not substitute himself. He was unac-
heaven for that people. Moses was           ceptable.
willingtosubstitutenotonlyhisbody,                  But God did hear the plea of His                 Remember:
but his soul, on behalf of this nation!     servant, and Israel was spared.
"Greater love hath no man than this,                No, not all Israel was spared.              An introductory
that a man lay down his life for his        Those who were not God's chosen,
friends."                                   those who therefore were hardened                 subscription to the
      And although we know, as did          in their sin and refused to repent,                 Standard Bearer
Moses, that it was impossible for his       perished in the wilderness. And,
name to be erased from the book of          worse-thoseGodblottedoutofHis                               is still
life, nevertheless we can appreciate        book of life. But God's people in                        half-price -
his plea. How many times have not           Israel were spared from the wrath of
we who are parents wished this when         God.
faced with an erring child? How                     Of course, Moses himself was              $6.00 for dbmestic,
often, too, a pastor can stand before       not the reason or the ground for God's             $7.50 for foreign.
the faces of his congregation and de-       mercy toward Israel. It was the One
sire this. We know it is impossible,        whomMoses  typified-Jesus Christ.
yet how often we with Paul can say          In this prayer of intercession Moses                That's 21 issues
(Rom. 9:3), "For I could wish that          becomes the perfect picture of Christ.
myself were accursed from Christ for        How we need to hear that! We would                         of good,
my brethren, my kinsmen according           despair in our own sin if not for that                     Reformed
to the flesh."                              precious word of the Gospel! We                            reading!!
      Butthereismorerevealedinthis          need to hear of forgiveness just as
plea of Moses. In his request Moses         well as Israel did. And this we findin
reveals that he was fully aware of two      the blood of the Lamb of God. Christ,                    Do a friend
great truths. First, he was aware of        our divine-human Mediator, substi-                          a favor.
the awful reality of sin and its conse-     tuted Himself in our stead. He went

292/StandardBearerlApril1,1992


Editorially speaking.. .

     I remind our readers that bound            The cost is a mere $12, a virtual        wants to get rid of a set, please inform
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published and made available yearly.       available. Write or call the business         e.g., seminarians, who very muchlike
All 21 issues of the `SB are bound in      office of the SB for a copy.                  to have the set and who will put the
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the name and volume imprinted on           of previous years are also available               There is a shortage of individual
the spine in gold letters. The latest      for the same price. Those interested          copies of the SB prior to volume 40
volume has just come out. It contains      should inquire of the business office.        (1963). We ask that those who may
the 504 pages of the SB from October            If you desire to receive bound           have such copies make them avail-
1,199O  - September 15,199l.  Mak-         volumes in the future on a regular            able to us for bound volumes. But
ing the volume easy to use for re-         basis, inform us. This will assure you        onZy issues dated before 1963 are
search is the complete index to the        of receiving a copy.                          needed (or accepted).
entirevolume that appears at the end.           Complete sets of boundvolumes                 The address and telephone num-
Theindexincludesbiblicaltexts,book         are in demand. If you have a com-             ber of the business office of the SB
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dex is prepared by Judi Doezema.           with, or if you know of someone who                                            - DJE




                                           The Gospel-Truth
Editorial                                  about Al.DS
     Only the gospel tells the truth       tors are homosexuals. Generally               mission of the disease is the passing of
about AIDS. The world in all its           speaking, AIDS is the disease of ho-          HIV to their unborn children by in-
wisdom is ignorant. The worldly            mosexuals. The learned estimate is            fected mothers.
churches are lying.                        that 70% of the spread of HIV in the               The world regards AIDS as a
     AIDS (acquired immunodefi-            United States is sexual, all of it involv-    merely natural, if mysterious, illness
ciency syndrome) is a disease that         ing promiscuity and most of it homo-          to be overcome by medical research
destroys the immune system of the          sexual. In 1987, 66% of the AIDS              and by safe sex. The solution is to
body so that the body is defenseless       patients were homosexuals. Some               throw billions of dollars (of the tax-
against other diseases. It is a fatal      25% of the spread of HIV is due to the        payers' money) at the disease and
disease. Because of its effects AIDS is    use of infected needles by drug users.        condoms to the homosexuals. There
an especially horrible way of dying.       (For these figures, I am dependent on         is stubborn refusal to condemn ho-
The virus that causes AIDS is known        Franklin E. Payne, Jr., M.D., in his          mosexuality even as deviant behav-
as HIV (human immunodeficiency             informative book, WhatEvery Chris-            ior and a social evil. On the contrary,
virus). Everyone who is infected with      tian Should Know about the AIDS               Western society in general and our
HIV will die-of AIDS in a few years.       Epidemic: The Medical and Biblical            nation in particular promote homo-
There is, at present, no cure for this     Facts aboutAIDS,  Augusta, Georgia:           sexuality as an acceptable, and even
disease. Nor is medical science prom-      Covenant Books, 1991. I recommend             desirable, way of life by means of the
ising a cure in the near future. Some      the book to those who would like a            entertainment media, sex education
doubt that a cure will ever be found:      thorough description of AIDS, espe-           in the state schools, and the laws.
     AIDS kills mainly fornicators.        cially the medical aspects of AIDS.)               Many churches share the world's
The large majority of these fornica-            Onepatheticfeature of the trans-         tolerance, and even approval, of  ho-

                                                                                                  April 1,1992/  StandardBearerl293


mosexuality. They are afflicted with          wrath of God burns against the im-         faithful relations, etc." (p. 24) In prin-
SIDS, that is, spiritual immunodefi-          penitent homosexuals who are dying         ciple, the report sanctions homosexu-
ciency syndrome. Their immunity to            of AIDS. Rather you will hear that the     ality.
the world has been destroyed. They            church must love these people and                    The churches that approve, or
are now defenseless against the               show compassion to them.                   even tolerate, homosexuality in the
world's thinking and way of life, spe-             Such are the Reformed churches        name of the Christ. of Scripture are
cifically now as regards homosexual-          in the Reformed Ecumenical Council         lying. As the apostle foretold, they
ity. The disease is fatal. The cause is       (REC). Included in the Council is the      are "deceiving and being deceived"
the loss of the truth of the antithesis in    GKN (the Reformed Churches inThe           (II Tim. 3:13).
these churches. There is no sense of                                                               The gospel of Christ as revealed
the radical separation, difference, and                                                  in Holy Scripture judges homosexu-
warfare between world and church.               The churches that approve,               ality'as sin. According to II Timothy
For many churches, the antithesis is                   or even tolerate,                 l:lO,ll, defiling oneself with man-
lost by the denial of predestination                                                     kindislawlessness and disobedience.
and by the proclamation of a saving             homosexuality in the name                It is "contrary to sound doctrine, ac-
love of God in Christ for all men                of the Christ of Scripture              cording to the glorious gospel of the
without exception. For others, it is                       are lying.                    blessed God." I Corinthians 6:9,10
lost by the teaching of a common                                                         excludes impenitent homosexuals,
grace of God toward and in all men                                                       with other sinners, from the kingdom
without exception. We may view this                                                      of God: "Be not deceived . . . (neither)
weakening of the antithesis as a spiri-       Netherlands). This denomination has        effeminate, nor abusers of themselves
tual virus. Let us call it ecclesiastical     approved homosexual practice on the        withmankind . . . shallinherit the king-
immunodeficiency virus (EIV).                 part of its members. In its infamous       dom of God."
Within a few years it invariably leads        report, "Homophilia," that is, "Ho-                  Not only is homosexual practice
to SIDS and to the death of the church.       mosexuality," the General Synod of         sin, but also homosexuallust, or incli-
      The churches further advanced           the GKN, Bentheim, 1981 spoke of           nation, or orientation, is sin. The
in apostasy decide synodically that           "manysincereChristianhomophiles."          gospel's indictment of the sinner does
homosexuality is a way of life for                 This year the REC considers a         not condemn only the deed but also
Christians that is pleasing to God,           "Report on Hermeneutics and Eth-           the sinner's very nature.  Thfe tree
sanction homosexual relationships as          ics." The report was occasioned by         itself is corrupt, and, therefore, it pro-
the equivalent of marriage, and sol-          the  GKN's acceptance of homosexu-         duces corrupt fruit (Matt. 7:15-20).  If
emnly ordain practicing homosexu-             ality. The report refuses to condemn       a man so much as looks at another
als into the office of the ministry of the    homosexuality on the basis of the          man to lust after him, he is guilty of
gospel.                                       clear testimony of Holy Scripture.         heart-homosexuality (cf.  M&t. 5:
      Other churches, in the begin-           Scripture alone is not decisive. Scrip-    27,28).
ning stages of SlDS, are more cau-            ture is not clear on homosexuality.
tious in their acceptance of homo-            "General revelation" also must be al-
sexuality. They are hesitant about            lowed to have an authoritative voice            The nation legalizes it,
homosexual practice, but refuse to            in deciding whether homosexuality                    protecting it by law.
condemn as sinful homosexual incli-           is permissible Christian behavior.
nation, or "orientation." Even as re-         And this "general revelation," which        The whole society, therefose,
gards homosexual practice, they are           is nothing other than the modern (ho-                   is justly exposed
obviously unable to pass upon it a            mosexual) culture, has authority (the                 to the consequences.
sharp, unqualified, absolute judgment         report assures us) because of God's
of condemnation. They suggest that            "common grace": "Also in ethical
there is an important distinction be-         questions special revelation cannot                  The gospel judges homosexual-
tween promiscuous and "monoga-                be isolated from general revelation,       ity to be an especially vile sin. It is this
mous" homosexual practices. Scrip-            and special grace cannot be isolated       because it is contrary to the will of
ture is not altogether clear on the           from common grace" (p. 20).                God the Creator made known in cre-
issue of homosexual practice. Scrip-               On the most charitable reading,       ation itself. It is unnatural. It repre-
ture alone is not decisive to settle the      the report advises the churches of the     sents a confusion of the order of cre-
question, whether homosexual prac-            REC to be open to the approval of          ation. It is perverse. ti... vile affec-
tice is permissible for church mem-           certain homosexual relationships as        tions: for even their women did
bers. Various aspects of contempo-            godly behavior. "Special attention         change the natural use into that which
rary culture must also be taken into          should be given to the facts support-      is against nature: And likewise also
account as authoritative. You willnot         ing the claim that distinctions should     the men, leaving the natural use of the
hear from these churches that the             be made between promiscuous and            woman, burned in their lust one to-

294/StandardBearerlApril1,1992


ward another; men with men work-               repents of his sin in the fear of God,       ing because the church approves ho-
ing that which is unseemly . .." (Rom.         the gospel grants pardon and the sure        mosexuality. But the approval of
1:26,27a).                                     hope of life eternal, for the sake of the    homosexualityisitselfduetothewrath
          AIDS is the manifestation of the     cross of Christ. Homosexuality is not        of God upon this church.
holiness of God against the abomina-           an unpardonable sin.                              The gospel-truth about AIDS is
tion of homosexuality and the expres-               Inlight of the gospel-truth about       bynomeansmerely that the disease is
sion of the wrath of God against ho-           AIDS, the message of the gospel to the       the divine punishment of homosexu-
mosexuals.  ". ..andreceivinginthem-           saintsis that we come out, spiritually,      ality. But homosexuality itself-the
selves that recompense of their error          fromtheperishingworldinwhichwe               unbridled lust, the bold practice, and
which was meet" (Rom. 1:27b). Nor              live. This means that we abhor, re-          the glorifying of it - is God's judg-
is the spread of AIDS throughout the           nounce, and flee from homosexual-            ment upon a people that has held
non-homosexual populace any proof              ity, whether in ourselves or in others.      under the truth about God in
:to the contrary. The entire society           There is power in theblood and Spirit        unrighteousness. This was what ho-
tolerates homosexuality. Our West-             of Jesus to accomplish this, also for        mosexualitywasiningloriousGreece
ern culture is permeated with the              the child of God who may have a              and in lawless Rome, that only held
wickedness by means of television,             tendency and lust toward the same            under the truth that is revealed in
movies, music, and magazines. The              sex (cf. I Cor. 6:9-11). The ruling          creation. This is all the more the case
nation legalizes it, protecting it by          elders must discipline members who           for a civilization, and especially a
law. The whole society, therefore, is          live impenitently in the sin.                church, that perverts the truth re-
justly exposed to the consequences.                 Those Christians presently in           vealed in the gospel of the Scripture.
As for the pathetic infection of un-           churches that are so advanced in EIV         "For this cause God gave them up
born children, God visits the iniquity         that they cannot sharply condemn             unto vile affections . .." (Rom. 1:26).
of the fathers and mothers upon their          homosexuality but rather declare                  In the gospel-truth about AIDS,
children to the third and fourth gen-          themselves open to it must come out          the true church hears the call to be
eration of those who hate Him (Ex.             of those churches. They must not             faithful to the gospel of the grace and
20:5).                                         come out next year, or even tomor-           glory of God in Jesus Christ and to
          This is the gospel-truth about       row, but today. The call is urgent in        preach it without shame. For in it
AIDS.                                          the extreme. "Come out of her, my            alone is life. Apart from it, the wrath
          The message of the gospel, there-    people, that ye be not partakers of her      ofGodisrevealedfromheavenagainst
fore, to the homosexual is, "Repent of         sins, and that ye receive not of her         all ungodliness and unrighteousness
your abominable sin, or perish under           plagues" (Rev. l&4).                         of men and women.
thewrathof God, temporally in AIDS                  For the wrath of God is burning              The gospel saves from AIDS. 0
and eternally in hell, which is far            against such a church. It is not burn-                                          - DJE
worse." To every homosexual who


Letters

0 Simpson Publishing                                Thank you for considering our           lisher. Can you help me with this?
Company . . .                                  publications for review in your peri-                                   Fred Ennenza
     It was good to see The                    odical. It is our earnest prayer that
                                   Plan of                                                                  Wisconsin Rapids, WI
                                               God will bless and use these publica-
Salvation  reviewed in the February
15 edition of the                              tions for the furtherance of Christ's
                       Standard Bearer.                                                     Response
Thank you for the synopsis, notation           glory in His church.                              Warfield's The Plan of Salva-
of the questionable views, and warm                                David  P. Simpson        tion is published by Simpson Pub-
commendation. I do agree with you                Publisher, Simpson Publishing Co.          lishing Company:
with respect to the order of the de-                                      Boonton,  NJ              338 West Main Street
crees. My personal conviction is that                                                                    P.O. Box 699
both are true. I am a "supra/infra-            0    . ..and Its Address                            Boonton,  NJ 07005.  0
lapsarian"! Both views emphasize                    In the Standard Bearer of Febru-                                            - E d .
certain aspects of scriptural truth. Do        ary15appearsareviewofthebookby
not both Adam and Christ pre-sup-              B.B. Warfield, The Plan of Salvation.
pose one another? God's decrees are            I wouldlike to purchase this bookbut
inscrutable.                                   do not know the address of the pub-

                                                                                                     April 1,1992 / Standard Bearer 1295


All Around Us
Prof. Robert Decker

0 CHRIST IN                                    God, doesn't he? He even talks like           found in Holy Scripture, in Romans
HOLLYWOOD'                                     God,' Anker joked while playing a             1423, I`... whatsoever is not of faith is
     "Christ can be found in Holly-            scene from the beginning of the               sin."
wood, and without having to view               movie."                                                          Kalamazoo Gazette
only such films as `Oh, God' or `Last               "Eyes in the audience widened
Temptation of Christ.` His trailcanbe          as the super boy was thrust out to            0 THE WORLD AT WAR
seen in movies such as `Superman,'             space from the exploding Krypton                       It would appear that President
`Star Wars' and `E. T., the Extra-ter-         and Brando's voice boomed, `I will            GeorgeBush's  dreamof a"new  world
restrial,' says film critic Roy M.             always be with you, my only son.'             order" will not be realized in the near
Anker."                                             "`Only son' -that's Jesus plain          future. Currently thereis  war in thirty-
      Anker, an English professor at           and simple, Anker said.                       two countries of the world. In the
Calvin College, recently lectured at                "Then the boy lands on earth in          Americas there are Colombia, El Sal-
Third Christian Reformed Church in             Kansas. Anker described Kansas as             vador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and
Kalamazoo about what he considers              `the Biblical equivalent of Nazareth          Peru; in Asia: Afghanistan,
good and bad in the movies. Anker,             -it's in the boonies . . . . `These fables    Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indo-
according to the newspaper, "minced            can teach us something, us church             nesia, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Burma,
no words in talking about what was             folks, about what it's like to meet the       Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and
bad at the movies . . . but appeared           incarnation,' Anker said.                     Sri Lanka; in Europe: Turkey, United
most interested in talking about what                "The movie, `Places in the heart'       Kingdom, Yugoslavia, and many of
was good at the movies." George                is so profoundly Christian `it will           the countries that made up the former
Lucas' "Star Wars" trilogy is a "pro-          knock your socks off,' Anker said."           Soviet Union; in Africa: Angola, Chad,
foundly Christian saga that shows                    The article goes on to point out        Djibouti, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mali,
the spiritual journey of a wanderer            that Anker does not consider the              Mozambique, Namibia, Somalia, Su-
who comes to believe in a positive             movie "LastTemptation  of Christ" as          dan, and Western Sahara.
supernatural power," Anker said.               blasphemous. The newspaper quoted                      In most of these countries it is
      Anker described the alien figure         Anker as saying, "Instead of a mamby          civil and revolutionary war. Guerilla
of "E. T." as a "Christ figure." He            pamby Jesus who's way up there, we            forces are in revolt against the estab-
claims that when E.T. dies in the              have a human Jesus, perhaps much              lished governments. Many of these
movie, "there's an ascension scene             too human for some."                          countries, Ethiopia and Western Sa-
and a bit of a halo around his head."                Fifty or sixty years ago movies         hara for example, are in the throes of
          According to the newspaper,          were considered dead wrong in the             severe drought and famine. Thou-
"The movie `Superman' is rated first           Reformedtradition. Consistoriesdis-           sands are dying daily from lack of
on Anker's good movie list. He sees            ciplined those who refused to cease           food and even  minimal health care.
this movie as a retelling of the Christ        attending movies. It happened more            According to figures released by the
story. `There's Brando. Looks like             than once in those years that pre-            United Nations Food and Agricul-
                                               seminary students who were caught             tural Organization and the
                                               attending the movie theatre were              WorldwatchInstitutebasedinWash-
                                               barred from the seminary and the              ington, D. C., there are severe food
                                               `ministry.                                     shortages in East Africa and Iraq and
                                                     Then we were told that because          elsewhere. The reasons for this are:
1 I am indebted to Miss Berdena Rust,          of "common grace" there was some               the largest one-year drop ever in the
a member of the Protestant Reformed            good in movies. The people of God             world grain harvest, higher prices,
Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for             were called to "redeem the film arts."         and deeper poverty. The UN claims
sending me the press clipping from                   Now, if there is as much good in         there are 500 million people underfed
the  Kalamazoo Gazette.                        the movies as Anker claims, why                and at least 24 countries are short of
                                               bother trying to redeem them? There            food.
Prof. Decker is professor of Practical The-    is no need!                                             Observing all this we are re-
                                                     There is one simple test to apply
ology  ilz the  Protestant Reformed  Semi-                                                    minded of the words of Jesus, "And
 nary.                                         to movies as well as to all of life. It's      ye shall hear of wars and rumours  of

 296/StandardBearer/April1,1992


wars . . . and there shall be famines,            in such areas as taxation, professional              As long as churches continue to
and pestilences, and earthquakes, in              ministry, and education.                     refuse to maintain the clear teaching
divers places. All these are the begin-                    Of Spain's 39 million people        of Holy Scripture this problem will
ning of sorrows" (Matthew 24:6-8).                only 71,000 are evangelicals.                remain.
Jesus also told us that when we hear                                  Christianity Today                         REC News Exchange
of these things we, II . . . must not be                              Covenan ter Witness
troubled: for all these things must                                                            0 JIMMY SWAGGART
come to pass . .." (Matthew  24:6).               0 CHURCH CALLS                               STILL IN TROUBLE
They must come to pass because they               HOMOSEXUAL MINISTER                                  The IRS placed tax liens on
are determined by Almighty God as                          A test case on homosexual min-      Swaggart's and his family's earnings,
signs of the coming of-Christ and of              isters is moving through the courts of       demanding $346,511 for taxes, inter-
the end of the world (Matthew 24:3).              the' Presbyterian Church (USA). A            est, and penalties owed for 1985 and
                                      Pulse       churchinRochester,NewYork,called             1986. In addition Meredith Corp., a
                                                  Jane Spahr to be its pastor. Spahr was       broadcaster in Fairfield, Kansas, won
0 THE EVANGELICAL                                 ordained before she openly acknowl-          a court judgment of $34,358 against
 CHURCH IN SPAIN                                  edged that she was homosexual. She           Jimmy Swaggart Ministries (JSM).
        The Evangelical churches in               is 49 years old, divorced, the mother        Other broadcasters have cases pend-
Spain have had a tough time of it ever            of two children, and now living in a         ing.
since the victory of General Francisco            "committed" relationship with an-                    Frances Swaggart, Jimmy's wife,
Franc0 in the Spanish Civil War of                other woman.                                 told reporters that the ministry had
1936-1939. Franc0  worked hard to                          The Rochester church has sur-       suffered a $1.5 million deficit the last
crush his enemies, including Protes-              vived the first challenge to her call.       quarter of 1991 but that "we are slowly
tants. Churches were shut down,                   The challenge was based on a ruling          regaining" the TV stations JSM had
Bibles and Christian literature confis-           of the 1978 General Assembly that            lost. She also said that her husband
cated, and evangelism was forbid-                 said homosexuals could not be or-            had become a changed man since
den.                                              dained. The churchbelieves that con-         October (when his latest scandal in-
        All this could change in the near         dition was met since Spahr was or-           volving a prostitute was publicized).
future. The Spanish national parlia-              dained before she acknowledged her           "Our home is different, our marriage
ment, the Cortes, is consideringlegis-            homosexuality. Officials of the Roch-        is different, everything is different,"
lation that would grant new religious             ester church say they called Spahr           she said.
rights to thenation's Protestant Chris-           because she was the best qualified                   We'll see. Even apart from the
tians. The proposedlegislation, called            and most wonderful candidate for             heresy (Swaggart is a Pentecostal)
the Accords of Cooperation between                the job. In the meantime Spahr cannot        Jimmy Swaggart lacks key qualifica-
the Spanish State and the Federation              be installed until the challenges are        tions for the ministry (cf. I Timlothy
of Evangelical Entities of Spain, gives           complete. That may take another              3:2 and 7). God is not mocked. IZI
official status to Protestant churches            year.                                                     National  b International
                                                                                                                       Religion Report

                                                  Training of Our
Guest Article                                     Own Ministers*
Pastor Lau Chin Kwee

                                                           Beloved people of God, this is a    harvest. We maybe smallinnumber,
                                                  very significant gathering of the mem-       but if this small group of people can
                                                  bers of our two churches to reflect on       understand and are faithful to up-
                                                  this very important matter of the train-     hold this work, I am sure our ILord
                                                  ing of our own ministers. We can all         will prosper our churches in days to
Rev. Lau ispastoroftheFir.st  Evangelical         see and understand that the growth           come.
Reformed Church of Singapore.                     of our churches calls for more labor-                Our Lord Jesus is pleased to care
*       His article is the abbreviated text of    ers in this harvest field. And all this      for His church in this world through
the keynote address given at a program            has to do with the training of men. If       the labors of His "prophets, priests,
arranged by the Theological Training              weputunworthymenintheseplaces,               and kings." This is exemplifiedin our
Committee of the ERCS.                            then we should expect an unworthy            individual exercise of this threefold

                                                                                                          April 1,1992/  StandardBearerl297


office of all believers as well as in the    that He is pleased to do that in answer     instruction from the Lord. They talk
labor of our pastors, elders, and dea-       to our prayers for them. So we see          about this as if to give themselves
cons. Any attempt to emphasize one'          that He wants the church to be ac-          greater credentials and authority to
of these three aspects of Christ's min-      tively involved in this whole matter        preach and to guide God's people.
istry at the expense of any of the other     of His sending laborers into His har-       And sometimes Gods people are so
two would bring great harm to the            vest field. Those who pray will be          naive as to think that nobody is wor-
Body of Christ. This having been             used by the Lord in this process of         thy to preach the Word of God unless
said, we must not fail to see that the       getting laborers into the field.            he has some kind of mystical experi-
Lord would have the pastor carry the              The Old Testament is full of ex-       ence with God. Only by virtue .of
standard as His army gathers and             amples of men of God training other         those mystical experiences are they
marches into battle. When the Lord           men for the work. The most well-            qualified to minister God's Word.
wrote to the seven churches in Rev-          known one is, of course, Elijah train-      How oftenpeople are deceivedinthis
elation, He wrote to their angels or         ing Elisha. In fact, there are evidences    way. The cults and leaders of cults
messengers, the pastors who spoke            of schools of the prophets in the Old       have all kinds of testimony concern-
on their behalf. Getting the right men       Testament era (see II Rings 2:3-15).        ing their strange experiences. But,
                                             The word "sons," in this passage,           beloved, that ought not to be for us as
          Who can dispute                    must not be taken to mean the blood         people of God. Our churches should
this truth that the best pastor              children of these prophets. Rather          never allow ourselves to degenerate
          is one raised up                   they are the students training to be        into a state where the mystical expe-
                                             prophets. Notice that these were            riences of a man become a deciding
     from among the flock,                   adults who evidently knew about the         factor for admission into the minis-
        taught and trained                   coming departure of Elijah to heaven.       try. The normal, sensible, spirit-filled
    in the same environment                  They were men interested in prophe-         rule of our elders should always con-
            as the sheep?                    cies. Notice also that they were men        trol the admission of men to the min-
                                             from different places. What training        istry. God would have us harness our
into this office is therefore a very         must have been going on in those            whole being, including our mind, for
important thing. Who can dispute             days.                                       His service. We may not resort to
this truth that the best pastor is one            Our Lord Himself and the               mysterious things which cannot be
raisedupfromamongtheflock,taught             apostles had their companions who           verified and confirmed, no matter
and trained in the same environment          walked with them, helped and sup-           how very glamorous and excitingthey
as the sheep? If for some reason a           ported them as they went from place         may be. This is too dangerous for the
churchis  unable to do that herself, she     to place to preach the gospel. These,       church. Many a church has been led
should look at other ways of getting         undoubtedly, were their students            astray as a result of this methodology
her pastors. But she must realize that       under training. Paul wrote to recom-        of getting men for the ministry.
these other ways are at best second          mend his students very often in his              Before the elders call a m,an to
best. Meanwhile, she should always           epistles. The Pastoral Epistles were        the ministry, they would be inter-
aspire to be able to trainmen from her       letters written to students who were        ested to know the background of the
midst to serve as pastors. All mem-          by thenpastors of churches. TheLord         training of such a man. This would
bers of our churches should support          would have men trained for the min-         mean that they should be well in-
thisworkbytheirmeansandprayers.              istry. And He would use imperfect
Thosewhoarematureenoughtoknow                men to perform this task. Therefore
theimportance of these things should         as churches we should be very inter-
share with and help other members to         ested in this matter of training.
see the importance of this aspect of              Knowingthatit is thelord's will
the work of the church.                      that men be trained by `other men
      The Head of the church, our Lord       within the church before they are sent
Jesus, was the One who instructed            forthtoministeramongGod'speople,
His disciples to pray for laborers in        we should not now resort to mystical
Matthew  9:37,38.  "Thensaithhe unto         guidance, calling, and training of men
his disciples, The harvest truly is plen-    for the ministry. I have heard testi-
teous, but the labourers are few; Pray       monies of so-called great men of God
ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,        and their strange experiences of how
that he will send forth labourers into       the Lord visited them and how they
his harvest." Sending laborers into          read through the Bible within a short
the harvest field is the Lords busi-         period of time, and how special en-
ness. He has clearly revealed to us          lightenment was given to them, as if
                                             they received divine inspiration and                Pastor Lau Chin Kwee

299/StandardBearerlAprill, 1992


formed of the historical background        close, caringsisterlyrelationship with       bers and the exchange of pulpits. It is
of the different seminaries in this        us. These are good churches who              an error if each congregation is al-
world. In this way they are able to        genuinely love and care for us. When         lowed to train her own men in her
size up a candidate for the ministry       they sense danger ahead of us, they          own way, after her own likings, and
quickly and, in the examination of the     would faithfully write to warn us.           to call men to the ministry without a
candidates, deal with pertinent doc-       This relationship must be appreci-           denominational, united agreement on
trinalmatters, from the knowledge of       atedandnotbe thoughtlessly allowed           the matter. This would not only be a
the background of his training. Good       toturnsour. TheProtestantReformed            wastage and an unwise use of man-
and faithful elders would want to do       Churches are big enough to have their        power, but would also lead to polar-
that for the good of the church. They      own seminary. `They have men who             ization of our churches and even,
do not want to see the church thrown       are capable of instructing others. Here      finally, to division at the highest level
into chaos and confusion as a result of    is a viable alternative for us. We do        of church life. Other advantages in a
getting thewrongmeninto the minis-         not have our own schoolnow, but we           united effort are the provision of the
try, They would certainly want to          do have a very good school in the            best teachers in the denomination to
have a say as to which seminary a          Protestant Reformed Seminary to              teach, and of a denominational stu-
potentialminister ought to be trained      send our men for training.                   dent aid fund to support students
in. These are faithful elders who do            Being trained intellectually for        from smaller congregations. In this
not fool around with the truth of          the ministry is one thing. Being trained     way even the smaller congregations
God's Word. Since the Truth is eter-       practically is another. Our elders,          can feel that they are part and parcel
nal, to them there is no such thing as     therefore, must see to it that a man         of the denomination.
trying to improve on the Truth that        aspiring for the ministry be trained              Our Classis was right to set up
was delivered to them in the Word of       practically as well, before declaring        the Theological Training Committee
God. If our churches have the capa-        him eligible for a call to be a pastor in    to lookinto this common area of labor
bility, our elders would certainly long    our churches. Although our first two         for the unity of our churches. This
to see our own school started and          pastors lack such practical training,        committee also has the mandate to
continued in this part of the world. If    we should not now neglect to provide         look into the further training of our
we do not have the capability, the         this for our future students. The PR         present ministers. As this whole area
elders should wisely look for viable       Seminary has a four-year training            is quite new in our churches we can
alternatives.                              program, one semester of which is an         expect much improvement in the
      The ERCS are blessed in that we      internship, with emphasis on theprac-        years to come as we labor on. But
have a sister relationship with the        tical aspects of the ministry. So we         what the leaders are aware of and are
Protestant Reformed Churches in            should see to it that our students are       doing must be made known to the
America (PRC). The PRC are stable          not just trained to be intellectually        ordinary members.
churches, good in their doctrinal po-      capable, but also are prepared practi-
sition (I can say that from my heart,      cally for the particular place where                 . . . this whole idea
havingreadtheirmagazine,  theStan-         they will serve as pastors. In our           of training our'own ministers
 dard Bearer, and been trained in their    context, such students should be at-
Seminary). There is no perfect church      tached to our local pastors for their                    cannot  woik
in this world, and the PRC are not an      internship.                                      without the support
exception; neither do they claim to be          When our church was only one                      of our members.
perfect. There are, however, few de-       congregation this process. was much
nominations these days that are as         simpler, as only one Board of Elders              Finally, it must be pointed lout
consistent and harmonious in their         was involved. But now that we have           that this whole idea of training our
different churches, as faithful in the     two congregations, the whole idea of         own ministers cannot work without
training of their men for the ministry,    denominational responsibility in this        the support of our members. The
and as able to expound the Word of         area becomes a reality. It would be          Great Commission of our Lord can-
God as the PRC. We must be very            foolish and a mistake to let each indi-      nofbe carried out without the church
thankful that the Lord in His provi-       vidual congregation be responsible           sending ,forth laborers into the har-
dence, and in the history of our           for its own training and calling of men      vest field. The church is not just the
churches, has led us to establish con-     to the ministry. While we believe in         elders. She alsoincludes the ordinary
tact with the PRC; that we received        the autonomy of the local churches,          members. In fact, it is only when
help from them from the beginning;         we must also appreciate what is in-          these members, trustingin the leader-
and that they so graciously did not        volved in sisterly relationships. In         ship of the elders, support the various
lord over us but willingly organized       this relationship there are privileges       projects put forth, actively and zeal-
us as an independent Reformed              and obligations arising out of our           ously, that we can see the advance-
church, not under their control, but       meaningful fellowship. We have the           ment of the church. The whole church
yet always maintaining that good,          mutual benefits of transfer of mem-          must move together, evenin this area

                                                                                                 April 1,1992  / Standard Bearer 1299


of training men for the ministry. We        tion well without the involvement of             As members of the church, you
must not imagine that we can just           our ordinary members. We must               can certainly pray for this difficult
leave our elders to take care of these      never think that there is not enough        labor. Prayer is real, and the Lord
matters. We must all with one heart         work in our churches to think of hav-       Himself .has given the assurance of
and one mind agree that this is impor-      ing more workers. As it takes time to       answering our prayers for more la-
tant. For this reason of getting our        train a man, we should start training       borers. So besides financial support,
members involved, we have orga-             them already, even if we cannot see         why not be involved also in this area
nized this time of reflection. All of us    any immediate work for such a man.          of prayer? Our students are not going
present should see it as our duty to        It was our Lord who said that the           to do well, and money is not going to
share with those absent what we have        harvest is great and the laborers are       come in for this minis&y, if we are not
heard today and encourage them to           few. He cannot be wrong. If we have         going to pray .earnestly  and persis-
support the work of the TTC.                extra workers we would want to send         tently for this work. We covet your
      When we think of sending our          them forth as missionaries to spread        prayers.
brother Fook Meng to the States for         the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus            The training of our own minis-
training we also immediately become         Christtoregionsuntouched.  Wemay            ters, beloved, is the direction that the
aware that the Lord must touch the          not always be able to see clearly what      Lord gives us in His Word. Our
hearts of our members to give to-           lies ahead of us, but if the Lord .calls    elders, knowing this, are doing what
wards this training. When we think          us, we cannot escape, but must serve        they can in this area. You must sup-
of our own school here in the future,       Him. If it is the Lord who calls; He        port this worknow for the well-being
again-we think that students will also      will certainly have a place for us to       and unity of our churches, and the
have to come from among the mem-            serve Him in. We must learn to act by       gloryandpraiseofourGodintheface
bers. Beloved, this workcannot func-        faith in His Word.                          of Jesus Christ, His Son. Q


Day of Shadows                              Saved By Grace
Rev. John Heys  ._

      They were different.                  sented the godless world. Esau rep-              We do, however, read in Gen-
      Jacob and Esau, the sons of Isaac,    resented the antichristian kingdom of       esis 27 that Jacob did walkin sin. The
were physically but.also  spiritually so    Satan, while Jacob represented the          child of God does that because he has
very different from each other.             coming kingdom of Christ. Esau rep-         an old man of sin all through this life.
      The physical difference is pre-       resented the seed of the serpent, and       We find him, Jacob, deceitfully mak-
sented in Genesis 25125,  where we          Jacob represented the seed of the           ing his father thirik that he is Esau, so
read, concerning Esau: "And the first       woman.                                      that he can get the inheritance through
came out red, all over like an hairy             And we do well to translate that       ablessinghisfatherwouldplaceupon
garment." Then in the next verse we         promise of God found in Genesis 3:15        him. He, Jacob, "had skins of kids of
read: "And after that came his brother      to read thus: "And I will put enmity        the goats upon his hands, and upon
out, and his hand took hold on Esau's       between thee and the woman, and             the smooth of his neck" (Gen. 2215,
heel." There is nothing in that verse       between thy.seed and her seed: it           16). Jacob wanted his father to think
that suggests that Jacob waslike Esau       shall crush (not merely bruise) thy         that he was Esau. What a deceitful
physically. ,Jacob was n,ot red and         head, and thou shalt crush his heel."       act! What aclearbreakingoftheninth
hairy.                                           We do well to bear in mind that        commandment of God's law! Clearly
      But what was also revealed some       both the seed of the woman (that is,        Jacob revealed that he hadan old man
time later, when these twin brothers        the elect) and the seed of the serpent      of sin in him. Plainly the Heidelberg
were young men, is that there was a         (the reprobate) by God's providence         Catechism teaches us that Jacob had
tremendous spiritual difference be-         came out of Eve. It pleased God also        only a "small beginning" of obedi-
tween them. The one represented             to make Jacob a believer, but He left       ence (Lord's Day XLIV). And a child
God's church, and the other repre-          Esau in his totally depraved nature.        of God must die physically in order to
                                            These twins were different in that          be delivered from his old man of sin.
                                            Jacob was an elect by God's grace,          In that way our God delivers His elect
                                            and Esau had only a spiritually dead        child from the evilnature he received
                                            nature. In Romans 9:13 we read, "As         through fallen Adam. No wonder
Rev. Heys is a minister emeritus in the     it is written, Jacob have I loved, but      Paul says in Philippians 1:21, "For me
Protestant Reformed Churches.               Esau have I hated."                         to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

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Yes, for the child of God death is not     the salvation Christ earned for us.          here, Isaac declared that Esau would
a loss but a gain.                         The truth we must hold on to and             not get those blessings.
     Note also that what we read in        maintainis that we do not want salva-                 We must maintain the truth of
the following verses is true about our     tion until God has already begun it in       Scripture that we are saved by grace,
old sinful natures which we keep until     us.                                          and not by our `works. Salvation is
we die. In Psalm 51:5 we read, "Be-               Do we not find God stating to         one hundred per cent God's gift, in-
hold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in     Satan, and thus to fallen Adam and           cluding the desire'for it. According to
sin did my mother conceive me." In         Eve, this: "I will put enmity between        Ephesians 2%10 we are HIS work-
Job 14:4.we  find this good question:      thee and the woman"? Satan already           manship, created in Christ. What
"Whocanbringacleanthingout  ofan           hated Adam, whom God created in              man and what creature was created
unclean? not one." In John 3:3 Jesus       His image, that is, as a faithful servant    because he asked for it? What dead                 .
teaches us that, "Except a man be          of God. But, now that Satan got              man ever asked a physician to make
born again, he cannot see the king-        Adam to hate God, our gracious God           him alive? We read that we are cre-
dom of heaven." That means that he         informs Satan that He will cause Adam        ated UNTO good works, not because
cannot then want it either. Listen to      to hatesatan.  Our God there declares        we performed that good work of
what our God says through Paul in          `that HE will make spiritually alive         wanting salvation. We are GOD'S
Romans  5:12: "Wherefore, as by one        Adam and Eve, who had died spiritu-          workmanship, createdinChrist  Jesus.
man sin entered into the world, and        ally a few moments before by eating          We do not want salvation until God
death by sin: and so death passed          what God forbade them to eat.                has begun it in us.
uponallmen,forthatallhavesinned."                 Being spiritually dead, Adam                   The almighty, sovereign God
                                           and Eve did not run unto God in              never, no never, `asks us to do some-
                                           order to confess their sin and sorrow.       thing. As God,He  always commands!
 The truth we must hold on to              Deadmencannot do that. Nay, Adam             He does not depend upon us for the
    and maintain is that we                and Eve. ran away from God! They             fulfillment of His eternal counsel-it
     do not want salvation                 tried to hide themselves from Him.           would not even be eternal, if we first
                                           And that revealed spiritual death.           have to do something - but we de-
     until God has already                        Yes, our God calls us to repent       pend upon Him, and desire salvation
          begun it in us.                   and believe. But that is a command,         only after He has begun it in us by
                                            and not a request, a suggestion, a          causing us to be.born  again. Even as
                                           plea. His name is Jehovah, which             we did nothing about the decision to
                                           means I AM. That name declares I             be born physically, or did any of that
     All this being true, how dare we       AM GOD! AndHe decides all things.           work, we do nothing for our salvation
say that man is saved by accepting         He as God determines who will be             until God has begun it in us, and has
Christ, and by deciding by his own          saved, and therefore to whom He will        givenus the desire and power to do it.
powertolet Godsavehim? Doesman              give .faith by means of a new life          God did not then bless Jacob instead
let.God do something? Does a spiri-        which He will`give. We must not              of Esau because of what Jacob did.
tually deadmancause God to depend           claim that in Revelation 3:20 Christ        He, Jacob, sinned! He lied! What he
upon him? In Psalm 58:3 we read:            says that He is knocking on the door        did called for punishment in hell!
"The wicked are estranged from the          of man's heart. That word heart is not      Esau was furious and wanted to kill
womb: they go astray as soon as they       in the letter to the Laodiceans. He is       Jacob. God said that the wages of sin
be born, speakinglies." And so cor-        knocking on the door of the church           is death; and Jacob surely deserved
rectly we sing from our Psalter: "All       that is lukewarm, because it is led by      that punishment, not covenant bless-
that I am I owe to Thee, Thy wisdom,        Satan; and Christ is not preached in        ings.
Lord, hath fashioned me" (#383:1).         that church. Yes, His name may be,                    In the day of shadows we see
God does not plead with us and in           and no doubt was, mentioned-but             what God is going to do in His
that sense offer us salvation. He does     not as the Christ as God's Word pre-         grace.Not  only in Genesis 395, that
not wait to see whether we will accept      sents Him. He here is calling to the        mother promise, but also throughout
it or not, before He causes us to be       believers in that church, and com-           the whole Old Testament, we have a
born again. God does not offer salva-       manding them to get Him preached            shadow of Christ's coming. The day
tion. He does not invite us to come         again on their pulpit.                      of shadows reveals to us what Adam
and get it. Before He gives us salva-             Thus Jacob did not obtain that        and Eve did after they died spiritu-
tion, by a rebirth, we' do not want it.    birthrightblessingof  which his father       ally. It also reveals what our God
Yes, we do want to be saved from hell       spoke because he did the right thing.       does in His grace, not offers to do if
andits torments. Even the devil wants      He did the wrong things. He lied and         dead men will first do something.
that. But unless we want deliverance        deceivedhis father. And yet our God,                 Let us, then, as we read and hear
from a sinful nature, we have not          throughIsaac,  did promise Jacob cov-        the gospel preached, look carefully at
been born again, and we do not want         enant blessings. And by implication         what God wrought, and is doing for

                                                                                                    April 1,1992/  Standard Bearer 1301


us today. Let us look for Christ to         the devilishness we walk in and by                 In the day of shadows, salvation
come as God's gift, and for His lead-       nature enjoy.                                by grace wasVclearly  revealed here.
ing us into that of which the garden of           When Esau came back with that          Jacob did not deserve the smallest
Eden was a shadow, namely, the              venison which his father requested,          part of its blessings. And we, like-
shadow of the new Jerusalem with all        and Isaac realized the sin of his son        wise, do notdeserve the smallest part
its blessedness. The almighty God           Jacob, he, Isaac, also realized that he      of salvation. By grace we are saved.
does not wait to see whether we will        was wrong in choosing Esau for that          Yes, we are saved through faith; but
"accept" Christ. He causes every            birthright blessing. It is true that Esau    that faith is not of ourselves. It is the
elect child of God to be born again,        was born first; but now Isaac clearly        gift of God. Praise Him from whom
and in that way begin to have the           saw that God had chosen Jacob, and           ALL blessings flow, including the
desire for salvation.                       .that the blessing pronounced upon           desire for it.
     Salvation is not merely the de-        himmightnotbedeclaredtobeEsau's.                   That  .God forgives our debts
liverance from the punishment of sin.       Even though he knew that Jacob lied,         means that He gives us the opposite
ItisthatworkofGod'sgracewhereby             and committed that sin, he, Isaac,.did       of what we deserve. He not only
He causes us to hate sin, and to desire     not even want to withdraw that prom-         takes away our guilt and its punish-
life and strength that is pleasing in       ise from Jacob and put it.on Esau. He        ment. He gives us the love of God
His sight. Salvation not only gives us      believed and accepted the truth that         Christ earned for us. Satan wrought
deliverance from the punishment we          we are saved by grace, and therefore         in man enmity against God. In His
deserve, it gives us what we do not         get salvation, even though we de-            grace God- wrought in us love for
deserve, and thus away from the evil,       serve damnation.                             Himself as a free gift of His grace. ~3

                                  Protestant Reformed Seminary
                                                     4949 Ivanrest  Avenue
                                                 Grandville, Michigan 49418
                                                    Phone: (616) 531-1490
Robert D. Decker, Rector
Professor of Practical Theology and New Testameni


                                                                                                              March 10,1992
     Dear Brothers andSisters  in our Lord:
          Under God's  t%ssin~ we are having a profitaL%  year at th semina y. 5% students are doing weKin their studies.
     In addition to our own four students, it is ourprivi&e  to instruct two studentssfjom t& Evan~ebcaCTredyterian
     Church of %straCia. ?7iese men andtheirfami&es  have adjustedweEto  ourschooCandchurches.  In addition to thdr
     teaching responsi6i&es,  t&z professors are.cept  Gusy preaching and teaching in our churches.
          We expect to em-o/la young nuznfiom  ourLynden, Washington congregation nextfall 9%~ churches  inSingapore
     areplanning, 9.1/., to enroCCone  of their  studenti  in the falCof 19%. A man frOm Me&o may 6e enroCfing in the fall
     of 19%?. Our student 6ody is tatin on an'intenrationaCfC&or. ?$e are than@xCto Fodforgiving  us t& privi&e  of
     training men for theg0speCmini.W-y  in other denominations.
          Trogess is 6ein.g  made on the plans to evandthe  Gdding. We needmore space for ourgrowing  fi6ray, a quiet
     areaforstudents to do tlieirresearch,  a roomfor the archives of our churches, andojj%esfor  the professors. an architect
    has Geen hiredandplans andcost estimates wiLl6epresentedto  synodinJune. A sketch of t&plan appears on the next
    pade. Ge architectgave us a figure of $350,000.00  as a rougti  estimate of the cost of this addition. lo date we have
    receivedappro~te~y~10~,000.00jiomindividualjandchurctiesforthisproject.  Ofthisanwunt$80,000.00hascome
    from three individual  whk are not mtm6ers  of our churctbs.  97'i+ &dof supportfiom  outpeopk andother  of God's
    peopb is ve y encouraging. We a.&thatyou remem6er this needasyou contri6ute to the cause of Go&s Kinngdom. your
     donations shouCd6e  sent to the unaQrs&nedat  the semina y address.
          Thzse renzm6er the seminary in your prayers that we kay 6e di&ent in preparing faithfulmen  for thegospel
    ministry in OUT  churches andmission fiel&
                                                                                                           CordiaLlj  in Christ,
                                                                                            TTO$ xo6ert 9. Decker,  Rector

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                                                              April 1,1992/StandardBearer1303


Taking Heed to the                             The Holiness of
Doctrine                                       G o d  
Rev. Charles Terpsfra                                                          (4)
         And one cried unto another, and       and His absolute sovereignty. In this        vile. Arthur W. Pink has written
said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of         article we want to consider the holi-        concerning this, "As God's power is
hosts: the whole earth is full ofhis glory.    ness of God.                                 the opposite of the native weakness of
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone;                                                    the creature, as His wisdom is in
because I am a man of unclean lips, and I      God's Holiness Stated                        complete contrast from the least de-
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean           The holiness of God is one of the       fect of understanding or folly, so His
lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the    ethical virtues of God's nature. As          holiness is the very antithesis of all
LORD of hosts.                                 God is the God of goodness and righ-         moral blemish or defilement" (The
                             Isaiah 6:3,5      teousness, of wisdom and grace, of           Attributes of God, p. 41). The Scrip-
Introduction                                   love and longsuffering, so is He the         tures teach the same: U . . .God is light,
         Isaiah 6 has become one of my         Godofinfiniteholiness. Infact,God's          and in him is no darkness at all";
favorite passages of God's Word. It            holiness has been called "the ethical        "Thou art of purer eyes than to be-
was the passage which God primarily            virtue of God par excellence, under          hold evil, and canst not look on iniq-
used (as preached by a former pastor           which all the other ethical attributes       uity... "; "Godcannot be tempted with
of mine) to lay the call to the gospel         may be subsumed, and of which they           evil, neither tempteth he any man..."
ministry upon my heart and mind;               are aspects" (H. Hoeksema,Refovmed           (I Jn. 1:5; Hab. 1:13; Ja. 1:13).
and it has been a constant reminder to         Dogmatics, p, 100). The Puritan John              Positively, this means that the
me of the humility and confidence              Howe referred to it as "a transcen-          Holy God is absolute perfection, the
withwhichmyministrymustbechar-                 dental attribute, that . . . runs through    sum of all moral virtue and excel-
acterized. The truth which stands out          the rest, and casts lustre upon them.        lence. H.HoeksemahasdefinedGod's
in this passage and which most im-             It is an attribute of attributes."           holiness this way: "...That wonder of
presses me (and I trust you too!) is the            It is especially in His holiness        the divine nature according to which
awesome  holiness  of God, and along           that the Lord God is revealed as being       God is absolute, infinite, eternal, and
with this, the effect`this has upon the        wholly distinct from and transcen-           ultimate ethical perfection, Himself
child of God.                                  dent above all creatures. That is evi-       being the standard, motive, and pur-
         In thevisionrecorded here Isaiah      dent from the basic meaning of the           pose of all the activity of His personal
saw Jehovah God in His splendid                word I'holiness"  in the Scriptures,         nature, so that He is eternally conse-
purity and perfection and conse-               which is that of separation, ti to be set    crated to Himself alone as the only
quently in His supreme glory. And              apart." As the Holy One, God is the          Good" (ReformedDogmatics,  p. 100).
that so overwhelmed him, that he felt          "wholly Other" : "There is none holy         The Scripture puts it this way: "He is
himself "undone." Seeing God's im-             as the Lord"; "Who is able to stand          the Rock, his work is perfect: for all
peccable Being and spotless nature,            before this holy LORD God?" (I Sam.          his ways are judgment: a God of truth
he was smitten with a deep sense of            2:2; 6:20). .God does not merely pos-        and without iniquity, just and right is
his own impurity and filthiness as a           sess holiness; He is holiness. Holiness      he" (Deut. 32:4). It was in the light of
sinner. Such must be the experience            is His name and His nature (cf. Lev.         these aspects of Gods awesome holi-
of every child of God; and it will be,         19:2; Ps. 111:9; Is. 12:6). And therefore    ness that Isaiah cried out, "I am a man
but only when we have gazed upon               in His holiness God is revealed as the       of unclean lips." Do we also see
the Holy God and seen Him in His               God of gZory  and beauty: "Who is like       ourselves in the same light and do we
infinite perfection and purity.                unto thee, 0 LORD, among the gods?           have the same cry?
         In our series on the nature of        who is like thee, glorious in holi-
God, we are considering some of His            ness..."; "0 worship the Lord in the         God's Holiness Displayed
glorious attributes. To this point we          beauty of holiness" (Ex. 15:ll; Ps.                Holiness is not a virtue of God
have examined His supreme majesty              96:9). That too is what Isaiah found to      which remains hidden within the di-
                                               be true in his vision.                       vine nature; rather is it displayed in
                                                    Since holinessbelongs to the ethi-      all He says and does. It is set forth
Rev. Terpstra is pastor  of the Protestant     calvirtues of God, it also speaks of the     first of all in His works. Psalm 145:17
Reformed Church  of  South Holland, Illi-      truth that He is the God who is wholly       declares, "The LORD is righteous in
nois.                                          "set apart" from all that is sinful and      allhisways,andholyinallhisworks."

304/StandardBearer/Apprill,l992


This is to say that all of God's works           The holiness of Godis seen in the         God's Holiness Reflected
are without sin and evil, without flaw      content of God's Word and law as                    The holiness of God is not only
and imperfection; He never acts im-  1      well. What God says to man gnd'what            one of His ethical attributes; it is also
purely or makes mistakes (the very          God commands of man reveals His                one of His communicable ones. That is,
thought of which is blasphemous!).          holy character. In His Word and law            God is pleased to impart His holy
His works are pure and perfect as He        God speaksagainst sin, forbidding of           character and conduct to His elect
is, and in doing them He is wholly          us that character and conduct that is          people by sovereign grace in Jesus
devoted to His own goodness -and            ethicallyvileandpolluted;  andinHis            Christ and through His Spirit, so that
glory. Hiswdrkof  creation was with-        Word and law He speaks for holiness,           they'reflect  it. This work of God's
out sin; He declared at the end of the      commanding us to have that charac-             grace is known as "sanctification."
six days of creation that His workwas       ter and conduct which is morally pure          By this work God principally sepa-
"very good" (Gen. 1:31). His workof         and excellent.                                 rates His own from the power and
providence is always carried out in                                                        pollution of sin, and devotes th'em to
absolute moral excellence and flaw-                                                        obedient service to Himself (cf. Heb.
lessness. Even when God directs the             Sin is no trifling matter                  9:14; 10:22;  I Pet. 1:2). This imparted
powers of darkness and the wicked                   to the Holy One!                       holiness of God is reflected in several
deeds of men His working is un-                                                            ways in the life of believers.
touched by evil but is pure and per-                                                             It is reflected in their desire and
fect. Even when the Lord brings                  Thirdly, God's holiness is dis-           striving to be. holy as God is holy, for
"evils" into our lives such as sickness,    played in His condemning and pun-              this is indeed what God charges them:
death, trouble, and distress, He works      ishing wrath. In our day preachers of          "But as He which hath called you is
with absolute holiness. And, of             the gospel and members of the                  holy, so be ye holy in all manner of
course, God's work of salvation is          churches do not want to talk about             conversatio# (Pet. 1:15). Wemirror
done in holiness. Does it not proceed       God'sholywrath. Theywouldrather                God's holiness when we take the same
from His holy counsel?! Is it not           speakofHislove,bywhichtheymean                 attitude He has toward sin, loathing it
carried out through the spotless Lamb       His love of sin and His tolerance of           and cofidemning  it; we radiate with
of God and through His holy actions         every life-style on the earth. Btit we         His holiness when we think on and
of obedience?! Is it not His work of        dare not forget that God's holiness            perform those things which are true
delivering us from the impurity and         means that He must react against all           and just and pure and lovely and
vileness of our sin unto the purity and     that is against His holy will and ways.        virtuous (Phil. 4:8). Is God's purity
perfection of Himself and heaven?!          And that reaction of God's holiness is         and perfection shining through you?
     Secondly, God's holiness is dis-       His wrath. The Scripture is plain that         Are we reflecting His awesome holi-
played in His Word and law. Because         God is a consuming fire toward those           ness in a vile world?
God is holy, all that He speaks and         who live in moral filth, that He is                  God's holiness is also reflected
commands is holy. Men may judge             angry with the wicked every day, and           by His people in their zuorship of Him.
God's Word and law to be unholy             that He punishes sin with temporal as          Because God is holy we mtlst worship
things; they may treat them as things       well as eternal judgment. Sin iS no            Him: "Let them praise thy great and
profane; they may consider it to be         trifling matter to the Holy One!               terrible name; for it is holy" (Ps. 99:3);
rife with errors, but the testimony of           For believers, then, the most             "Iwillbe sanctifiedin them that come
Scripture is clear: "The words of the       awesome andmost humbling display               nigh me, and before all the people I
LORD are pure words: as silver tried        of God's holiness is the                       will be glorified" (Lev. 10:3). But the
in a furnace of earth, purified seven                                    cross of Jesus
                                            Christ. For thire the Holy One caused          holiness of God also defines our wor-
times"; "The law of the LORD is per-        His Son to pass through the fires of           ship. Knowingthe awesome holiness
fect...; the statutes of the LORD are       His holy wrath as He bore the guilt            of God, we willnot worship Him with
right...; the commandment of the            and penalty of our foul trarisgres-            profane elements or with proud
LORDispure.... ThefearoftheLORD             sions. As A.W. Pink has said, fi Won-          hearts, but with purity and with fear.
is clean...." "Wherefore the law is         drously and yet most solemnly does             Like the seraphim which Isaiah saw,
holy, and the commandment holy,             the Atonement display God's infinite           we will cover our feet and our faces,
and just, and good" (Ps. 12:6; 19:7-9;      holiness and abhorrence of sin. How            bowing before the Holy One with
Rom.  7:12). The Scriptures are called      hateful must siri be to God for Him to         reverence and humility, and we will
the holy Scriptures (II Tim. 3:15), be-     punishit to its utmost deserts whenit          raise songs which exalt a'nd glorify
cause they are set apart from all hu-       wasimputedtoHisSon!"  (Attributes,             Him. Is the holiness of God mirrored
man books, being without error and          p. 43). That display of divine holiness        in your worship of the Lord of hosts?
defilement, proceeding from the pure        marks our spiritual-moral cleansing                 May our reflection on the su-
mouth of the Lord. The whole of             from sin and our consecration to the           preme holiness of God cause us more
them and every part of them is              living God. Blessed be the Holy God!           andmore to reflect His holy character
uncorrupted truth.                                                                         in our daily lives. Cl

                                                                                                    April 1,1992/  StandardBeartsrj305


                                          Education in the
In His Fear                               Post-Christian Era
Mr. Fred Hanko

     I am aware of the fact that many     the payment is high enough. "Materi-         programs ought to be thrown out of
of you may argue with my title. You       alistic, fl "hedonistic" are words that      the schools. Some of these may well
may well say, "The period now ended       fit our society exactly. We have the         be important duties that the schools
was not a Christian era.N I agree in a    enormous task of training our chil-          can do more effectively and more
sense with such an objection, but I am    dren to live as children of God in such      efficiently that anyone else. But it
sticking to my title anyway because I     an environment. We have to teach             does mean that many new programs
want to make a point that I consider      them to derive their values from the         have been inserted into school clays
extremely important: the times have       Word of God when the values of the           and school years that have not been
so changed that any similarity be-        world temp t them nearly everywhere,         made any longer. It ought to be per-
tween current moral standards and         oftenincluding their own homes. We           fectly obvious, then, that the schools
Christian moral standards is superfi-     have to teach our children self-sacri-       are goingto teachmuch less math and
cial at best.                             fice in a self-indulgent world. We           science and all of the other subjects
     We are living in a world that has    have to teach them humility in a self-       which students in foreign countries
changed rapidly; the old standards of     promoting world. We have to teach            learn so well. We have to be aware of
morality are gone. This is obvious, of    them not to strive to be number one          the fact that for every additional duty
course, in the standards of sexual        but to strive to be number last. Not         weplaceuponthe schoolthere willbe
behavior. What used to be sin that        "self-esteem" but "Let each esteem           a price to payin some other part of the
was not even to be named among            other better than themselves." How           school program. This refers also to
saints is now "alternate life style."     are we going to do that?                     extracurricular activities to the extent
When God sends upon the people                 One of the first things we have to      that they consume part of the school
                                          agree upon is the part that our schools      day.
                                          have in the whole educational enter-                 We must be agreed upon what
  We have the enormous task               prise. Many schools have become all          the function of the school is in the
     of training our children             things to all the people. They concern       Protestant Reformed community, and
                                                                                       upon which programs are necessary
   to live as children of God             themselves with the physical welfare         to carry out those functions. We have
    in such an environment.               of children by promoting physical
                                          education, and even by making sure           to resist the temptation to add new
                                          that the children have proper meals.         programs to our school curricula just
                                                                                       in order to "keep them up to date."
judgment for their sins, they try to      Schools have to a greater or a lesser        This is not to say that the old subjects
eradicate the judgment rather than        degree assumedresponsibility for the         and the old materials are the only
eliminate the sins. Society has be-       social development of the children by        proper ones. We need to make
come so involved with its own plea-       providing classes that are designed to       changes because the world is chang-
sure, convenience, and comfort that       teach social skills, and by arranging        ing and because the needs of the con-
they make it acceptable to kill an        social activities for the students.          stituency are changing. But any
unwanted fetus rather than endure         Knowledge and skills that used to be         changes we make must be consistent
inconvenience or discomfort. Nearly       learned at home are now commonly             with and promote what we have
any kind of behavior is acceptable if     taught in school: cooking, family liv-
                                          ing, drivers training, and many oth-         agreed is the proper function of the
                                          ers. For a number of years now,              school.
                                          whenever a group of parents, a group                 What is that proper function of
                                          of teachers, or a group of lawmakers         the school? It is to complement the
                                          perceived a problem, the school was          work of the parents so that together
                                          given the responsibility of solving it       they may help students live as citi-
                                                                                       zens of the Kingdom of Heaven and
Mr. Hank0 is a teacher at Hope Protes-    by developing anew educationalpro-           prepare to continue as such citizens
tant Reformed School in Grand Rapids,     gram.                                        throughout their lives. For that they
Michigan.                                      This is not to say that all of these    need knowledge and skills that will

306/StandardBearerlAprill,l992


enable them to earn aliving  for them-      values? Happiness? Fame? Leisure?          ceptional wickedness has become
selves and their families, train their      Social position? Large income? Al-         widely known recently. When they
own children in the fear of the Lord,       though we would all hasten to reject       talk about the future, they most often
contribute to the church of God and         these as values that are more impor-       talk about expensive cars they will
the welfare of the people of God, and       tant  than  spiritual values, too often    have. I know a number of students
be themselves through their words           we act as though these are the most        whose values are those of Christians.
and their actions living witnesses of       important values of all. In the teach-     These rarely speak of their values
the marvelous work of God.                  ing of values by our actions I'm afraid    publicly because they are afraid of
     It would seem at first that these      that our schools and our homes give,       being mocked by others. There are a
things are so obvious that they really      at best, very mixed signals to the         couple other things we have to work
do not need to be mentioned. Yet I          children. At worst we often promote        on: the fact that our children some-
think we have to be reminded from           by our actions the values that we          times mock those that behave in a
time to time. There is a growing            condemn. In today's world we can't         Christian way and that many of.our
divergence between the world and            afford to do that.                         children, like us, conceal our Christi-
the-churchin the principles they teach,          Whenever I become a bit com-          anity out of fear of being mocked.
in their definitions ofright  andwrong,     placent and think I'm doing a pretty            These are no new things that I
in the values they hold. It would seem      good job, I just listen to the students    am promoting; they are as old as our
then that the differences between the       talking casually to each other. That's     schools -as old as organized educa-
church and the world ought to be            a pretty good indication of their val-     tion. But I sense a growing lack of
becoming more and more noticeable.          ues. I hear them talking about the         agreement among us just at a time
Yet that difference seems to be less                                                   whenthereisagrowingurgencyabout
than one would expect. I think that                                                    the business of defining the function
the reason that Christians are not as             . . . we often promote               of our schools and the methods of
conspicuous as they ought to be is                    by our actions                   carrying out that function.
that many have adopted the values            the values that tie condemn.                   We must have agreement on
and the behavior of the world.                                                         these things if we are going to be
     It is very important, then, that                                                  successful. The school may well be
the parents and the schools define                                                     doing those things that the parents
                                            shows they've watchedon television.
those values that we want our chil-                                                    cannot do themselves, but the schools
                                            They talk about their heroes, the bas-
dren to adopt and that we work to-                                                     cannot accomplish much at all with-
                                            ketball stars of the NBA; whose ex-
gether to teach them. What are these                                                   out the support of the parents. 0




Guest Article                               Rightly Dividing
Rev. Steven Houck                           the Word
     There is not another book in all       II Peter 3:16 to those who so torture      Word is tortured to make it say what
the world which is so mistreated and        Scripture. He speaks of Scripture          people want it to say.
abused as the Bible. Many believers         "which they that are unlearned and              These people, however, are not
and even many ministers do not              unstable  wrest,... unto their own de-     the only ones who pervert Scripture.
handle the Word of God properly.            struction."                                Sometimes we are guilty of Scripture-
The words of Holy Scripture and their            We have all witnessed such            twisting too. We read a passage over
meaning are stretched, twisted, and         Scripture twisting. Think, forinstance,    quickly and think that we know what
distorted. The apostle Peter refers in      of the great violence which is done to     it means. We pay no attention to the
                                            the Bible by those who try to demon-       meaning of the words and the gram-
                                            strate that women may hold office in       mar. Sometimes we take averse com-
                                            the church. Consider the way in which      pletely out of its context. Maybe our
Rev. Houck is pastor ofPeace  Protestant    the Arminians defend their heretical       only purpose is to find in the passage
Reformed Church in Lynzuood, Illinois.      ideas about salvationand grace. Gods       something which we believe, rather

                                                                                               April 1,1992/  StandardBearer  /307


than take the passage for what it says.    one meaning is gained from the nor-         is usedin  theBible. If we use Strong's
     That is not good. It is very dan-     mal rules of grammar.                       Concordance, thereis associated,with
gerous. We must do all we can to                3) Scripture is its own inter-         every word a number which tells us
guard ourselves against mishandling        preter. One passage of Scripture is         theGreekorHebrewwordused.  Even
the Word. This kind of interpretation      explained by otherpassages of Scrip-        if we do not know the original lan-
of Scripture undermines the.author-        ture which deal with the same sub-          guages, it is possible for us to find the
ity of the Bible. People are left with     ject. By comparing the words and            Hebrew or Greek meaning of the
the impression that anyone can prove       concepts of apassagewith those same         words. We might also use &nInterlin-
anything from the Bible. The Bible is      words and concepts used elsewhere           ear which has the Hebrew or Greek
meaningless.                               in the Bible, the Bible itself indicates    words of the text and the English
     That is why we need the admo-         the proper meaning. This is critical to     meaning right below them. Finally
nition of the apostle in II Timothy        dividing the Word of Truth rightly.         we should have a Bible Dictionary
2:15: "Study to shewthyself approved            4) To understand a passage             which tells us about people, places,
unto God, a workman that needeth           properly we must divide it up into its      and things.
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing        constituent parts. We get a general
the word of truth."                        understanding of a passage simply
      Here we are commanded rightly        by reading it. But if we are going to             Correctly interpreting
to divide the word of Truth. The           have a full understanding of it, we
word translated "rightly divide"           must divide it up and analyze each               the Bible is hard work.
means "to cut straight." When used         part. We can not understand the                   But this is what God
of the Scriptures it means "to' inter-     whole unless we first understand the                   requires of us.
pret correctly or expound." As'those       parts which make up the whole. That
who have been given God's inspired         is true even when the whole is more
Word, we have a calling to interpret       than the sum of its parts.                       3) After having done the word
that Word correctly. That is espe-              With these four principles in          studies by using the various tools I
cially true of preachers. Thus this        mind, consider five more principles         have mentioned, we must put it all
letter was written to a preacher, Timo-    that more specifically indicate how to      back together again. We have to see,
thy. But it is also true of every child    deal with a passage of Scripture.           by looking at the sentence structure,
of God. We may not be like so many              1) To divide the passage prop-         how each word is related to the oth-
today, who handle Scripture in an          erly we must come to an understand-         ers. What is the verb? What is the
inappropriate way.                         ing of the individual words which are       actionthatisgoingon-pa&present,
      What does it mean to divide the      used. Webelieve in verbal inspiration.      or future? What is the subject doing
Word rightly? How do we correctly          Therefore the key elements in a pas-        the action? What is the object of the
interpret Holy Scripture?                  sage are the individual words. We           action? What are the modifying
      Firstof allIwant  tomentionfour      ought to know two things about the          clauses and phrases? Are there im-
general principles.                        words 7 their grammatical meaning           portant conjunctionslike the contrast-
      1) Let the passage speak for it-     and their biblical usage. To learn          ing "but"? This is very important.
self. This is very important. Much         these two things, we need to do a           Without this, even though we know
misinterpretation of Scripture is the      wordstudy. Firstweoughttolookup             the meaning of individual words, we
result of reading into a passage some-     the grammatical meaning of a word.          miss the meaning of the passage as a
thingwhich is not there. We go to the      Then we need to study every occur-          whole.
passage with a preconceived idea of        rence of the word in the Bible. That             4) As we do our word studies
what it teaches and we force that into     will give us an understanding of the        and put it all back together again we
the passage. That is just the opposite     idea involved in a word.                    must keep our eyes on the context.
of what we ought to do. We must not             For instance, if we are studying       One of the greatest abuses in Bible
force anything into the passage but        John3:16,wewouldstudysuchwords              interpretation is not paying attention
we must find the meaning of the pas-       as, "God," "love," "world," "gave,"         to the context. This is why the
sage in the passage itself.                and so on. That would tell us whom          Arminians go so wrong. They take a
      2) The correct interpretation of     God loves and what it means that He         verse out of its context and treat it as
a passage is found in the normal un-       loves them.                                 if it stands alone. This is especially
derstanding of the language. Some               2) This first principle implies the    true of words like "all" and "world."
people spiritualize Scripture. They        second. In our study of a passage, we       To know the meaning of these words,
are always looking for a deeper, hid-      must have and use some basic tools.         we must see what is being dealt with
den meaning. But there is no hidden        We will need a Webster's Dictionary         in the context. If our interpretation
meaningin thelanguage of Scripture.        for the meaning of words. We will           does not fit the context, we have
Every passage has but one meaning,         need a Bible concordance so that we         twisted the Scriptures.
not several levels of meaning. That        can look up all of the places the word           5) Afterfollowingthefoursteps

308/StandardBearer/Apri11,1992


outlined earlier, we must test our           the time and energy which we put             out faith. We read in Hebrews 11:3,
interpretation by asking ourselves,          into making a living, we could have          "Through faith we understand that
"Is it in harmony with the teaching of       some very beneficial personal Bible          the worlds were framed by the word
all of Scripture?" Because the Scrip-        studies. This also implies that we take      of God, so that things which are seen
tures are one book, they harmonize           every opportunity to study the Bible         were not made of things which, do
perfectly. There will not be some-           with our congregations,. Every one of        appear." We must go to Genesis l-2
thing taught in Genesis that is contra-      us ought to attend our society Bible         in faith, believing that God created
dicted by something in Revelation.           studies and work hard at preparing           the world out of no pre-existing ma-
That is especially true of doctrine. If      for them.                                    terial, but by His Word alone.
the interpretation we come up with                  We must not only work hard                 If we are to interpret the Word of
conflictswithbiblical,Reformeddoc-           rightly to divide'God's Word, but we         Truth in a spiritual manner, we must
trine we have made a serious mistake.        must do it in a spiritual manner. That       be ready to apply that Word to .our-
Wemustfindandcorrectourmistake               is implied by the nature of the book         selves. We must not treat the Bible as
so that our interpretation harmonizes        we seek to divide rightly. It.is the         a technical manual which is unrelated
with the whole Truth of God's Word.          inspired Word of Truth. It is God's          to us and our spiritual life. The Word
     All of this must be done in a           Book. Interpreting the Bible correctly       of Truth is our spiritual food and
certainmanner. Notice that the apostle       is a spiritual activity. Unless we do it     drink. It is the revelation of our God
says,  "Study to shew thyself approved       in a spiritual manner, it will not profit    and Savior. We must not handle it as
unto God, a workman . . . . N In rightly     us.                                          we handle a history book or a busi-
dividing the Word of truth we are                   That implies that we must pray        ness report. We must be ready to
called "workman" and are required            before we begin this spiritual work.         receivecomfortfromitspromisesand
to "study."                                  Since we can not spiritually under-          admonitionfromitsexhortations. We
     Correctly interpreting the Bible        stand the words ourselves, but need          must be ready for the Bible to speak
is hard work. But this is what God           the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit,        personally to us and our needs.
requires of us. We are to be "work-          we must pray for that enlightenment.              That brings us to the reason for
men" in God's vineyard. This is espe-        Unless God by His Spirit speaks to           rightly dividing the Word of Truth.
cially true of ministers, but also of all    our hearts through the words of the          The reason is twofold. First of all it
believers. As believers, we ought to         passage, all of our work will be in          relates to what we are to divide. Notice
work very hard with respect to this          vain. But God has promised that if we        the apostle says, "...rightly  dividing
matter of rightly dividing the Word.         do pray and askHim for understand-           the word of truth." When we divide
If we are lazy, if we will not work,         ing, He will give it to us. James says,      the Scriptures, we are interpreting
then we will not interpret the Bible         "If any of YOU lack wisdom; let him          the Word. We are dividing that which
correctly. Wemust workjust as much           ask of God, that giveth to all men           is the written Word of God - not
as a man who goes out into the field         liberally, and upbraideth'not;  and it       man's word, not the word of angels,
and harvests the wheat. We must              shall be given him."                         but God's Word.
work as laborers.                                   That also implies that we must             Is that not a good reason to be
     Thatmeansstudy. Itisgoodjust            rightly divide the Truth in faith. We        careful in how we handle this Book?
to read the Bible. But we must not           must go to God's Wordbelieving that          Do we not owe this Book and its
stop there. We arerequiredby God to          it is God's inspired, infallible Word.       Divine Author that much honor and
study theBible.  Every Christian ought       Often this is exactly where the prob-        respect? We can not treat this Book
to be a Bible student. We ought to be        lem is. Many people do not want to           like other books, because it is not like
like the Bereans of whom it is said,         believe the teaching of a particular         any other book. This is a sacred Book,
"These were more noble than those in         passage. They  deliberately  distort and     a holy Book, and therefore it must be
Thessalonica, in that they received          twist that Word.                             handled as such.
the word with all readiness of mind,                                                           What disrespect we have for this
and searched the scriptures daily,                                                        Book when we twist it and distort it.
whether those things were so" (Acts                   We must be ieady                    We twist and distort .God's Word.
1791).  The Bereans studied the Scrip-              for the Bible to speak                How disrespectful of us to pay no
tures. They worked hard in order                                                          attention to the meaning of the words,
that they might come to a proper                       personally to us                   the sentence structure, the context,
interpretation of Scripture. They did                     and our needs.                  and so on. We disregard God's Word.
that daily. That is our calling also..                                                    How dishonoring not even to care
     We work very hard at making                                                          about studying this Book or taking
money. Do younot thinkworkingfor                    Without faith it is impossible        the time to interpret it. We shun the
spiritualbread deserves the same zeal,       rightly to divide the Word of Truth.         Word of God,
enthusiasm, and time? If we would            For example, we can not properly                  But even more than that, we
study the Bible with just an eighth of       understand the creation account with-        must be careful to divide this Word of

                                                                                                   April 1,1992/ Standard Bearer 1309


Truthrightlybecauseitis  theTruth. If       the Word itself. Notice we read,              too lazy to dig for the proper mean-
we do not divide this Word correctly,       "Study to shew thyself approved unto          ing? What if, as a result of that, we do
we do not have the Truth. Then the          God, a workman that needeth not to            not know the Truth, and maybe even
message of this Book is lost to us.         beashamed...." If we rightly divide the       embrace the lie? Then we ought to be
Then we have the lie. If we do not          Word of Truth, we will not need to be         ashamed. Then we ought to bow our
have the correct interpretation of a        ashamed. We will have the Truth and           heads, for we are unfaithful to {God.
sassage, we have the incorrect inter-       know the Truth.                                    On the other hand, rightly di-
pretation. An incorrect interpreta-              `But what if we do not study             viding God's Truth will bring Gods
tion can very easily lead us into error     Gods Word? What if we work for                blessing and approval. "Study to
and false doctrine. If we want the          material bread, but not for the bread         show'thyselfapprovedunto God." That
Truth, we must rightly divide the           of life? What if we do not interpret          is the ultimate reason for rightly di-
Word of Truth.                              God's Word correctly when we do               viding the Word of Truth - God's
  There is another reason which             read or study the Bible because we are        approval.  0
relates more to the interpreter than to

News From Our Churches
Mr. Benjamin Wigger

        Let me begin this installment of    And the list grows longer. What an            Congregational Activities
the "News" with thanks to our Father        awesome responsibility we have as                  On Saturday, March 7, the con-
in Heaven for the safe return of so         churches. Pray that the Lord will             gregation of the Grandville PRC got
many of our churches' pastors and           continue to find us faithful.                 together at the Hope School gym for
elders this past month.                                                                   a Welcome Back Breakfast for Rev.
        First, on February 20 Rev.          E v a n g e l i s m   A c t i v i t i e s     and Mrs. Kortering. It offered the
Dykstra and Elder Henry Bleyenburg                    It may be well also to point out    congregation an opportunity officially
returned safely to Sioux Falls, SD,         here that in connection with our              to welcome the Kortermgs  back to
after spending about three weeks in         churches' work in Ghana, the Hull             their fellowship. Proceeds from the
Ghana, Africa.                              PRC in Hull, IA has sponsored a radio         breakfast were to go towards
        Their safe return home was fol-     program on Radio Africa for about             Grandville Benevolent Fund and the
lowed the next week bythe return to         five months. Their pastor, Rev. R.            1992 Young People's Convention.
Grandville, MI of Rev. and Mrs. J.          Moore, is on every Sunday at 6:15 PM                Before we leave Grandville, we
Kortering, on Wednesday, February           with 15-minute  messages from Scrip-          could also insert here that their Adult
26, after spending six months labor-        ture. Hull can also report that they          Bible Study sponsored a specialmeet-
ing with our sister churches in             have received responses about the             ing on February 25. They invited
Singapore.                                  program from several African coun-            Prof. D. Engelsma to attend their
        The very next evening Rev.          tries.                                        meeti.ngtotalkabouthisbookHyper-
Gritters and his father, Elder Ed                                                         Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel.
Gritters, landed at the Kent County         Mission Activities                                  Classis West met on March 4 at
International Airport in Grand Rap-                   Candidate Mitch Dick has been       the  Doon, IA PRC. On the night
ids, MI after having labored with the       busythesepast sixmonthsfillinginat            before, Rev. Cammenga, pastor of the
Protestant Reformed Churches of Ja-         the Grandville, MI PRC in the absence         Loveland, CO PRC, and a delegate to
maica for the month of February.            of Rev. Kortering. Now that the               Classis, gave to the congregation of
        Stop and consider a minute that     Korterings have returned to                   the First PRC of Edgerton, MN a slide
God is indeed using our churches to         Grandville, Mitch has been given the          presentation of his recent visit to the
spread the good news of His gospel          opportunity to travel toNorthernIre-          Covenant Reformed Fellowship of
literally around the world. Africa,         land on behalf of our churches. Mitch         Northern Ireland. You may remem-
Singapore, Jamaica, Ireland, New            and his wife left March 3 and, the            ber that he preached there back in
Zealand, Australia, Idaho, Florida.         Lord willing, they plan to remain in          November of last year.
                                            Ireland with the Covenant Reformed                  On Sunday evening, March 8,
                                            Fellowship through April. If you              the congregation of the First PRC of
                                            would care to write them there, their         Edmonton, AB, Canada was invited
                                                                                          to return to their church auditorium
Mr. WiggerisamemberoftheProtestant          address is:
                                                       3 Sunnyside Doagh Rd.              for a combined singspiration and `choir
Reformed Church of Hudsonville,Michi-            Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim                 program.
gun.                                             Northern Ireland BT36 SBL.
31 OIStandardBearer/April  1,1992


     .The February 15th issue of the         couple of changes beginning on April          PRC of Lacombe, AB Canada has
SB contained an-item on the back             5. The elders decided to greet the            presented a trio consisting of Rev. M.
page dealing with the Hull, IA PRC's         congregation at the rear of the sanctu-       DeVries,  Cand. M. Dick, and Rev. R.
plans to begin building a new church         ary after the service. And second,            Dykstra to their congregation from
sanctuary this spring if results from a      also beginning April 5, in the reciting       which one was to be extended a call to
pledge drive conducted after the first       of the Apostles' Creed the congrega-          serve as their next pastor. 0
of the year proved successful. Well,         tionwillusetheword"Spirit"instead.
Hull's Council was happy to inform           of "Ghost" and the word "living"
their congregation that they were            instead of "quick."
"thankfultoGodthatHehasgivenus                                                              Parting Quote:
the desire to bring forth and the means      Ministerial Trios and Calls
to undertake this workin the name of                 The congregation of the Hope                  "17ie   ofiedience  that  springs
our Lord Jesus Christ." In harmony           PRC of Isabel, SD has called Rev. K.
with His will, construction will begin                                                      ji-omfuith is the o6edience  of a son,
                                             Hanko to serve as their pastor. With
this spring.                                 Rev. Hanko on the trio were the Revs..          not a slaue. j'
      The Con&story of the Hudson-           W. Bekkering and R. Flikkema.                                              --AL BrooCs
ville, MI PRC decided to make a                      And the Councilof thelinmanuel



                                                             NOTICE!!                          WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
         .                                           First Protestant Reformed                   On March 19, 1992, the 45th
   RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY                    Church is sponsoring a public lecture         wedding anniversary of our parents
      The Reformed Free Publishing           on April 30, 1992 at 8 PM in the              and grandparents
Association (Permanent Committee             auditorium of First Church. Thetheme                MR. and MRS. DONALD
for Publication) express their heartfelt     of this lecture is "The Office of All Be-                  LOTTERMAN
sympathy to their committee member           lievers," and Rev. Meindert Joostens          was celebrated. As children and grand-
James VanOverloop and his family in          will direct our attention to "The Power       children we rejoice with them and are
the death of his wife                        and Responsibilities of the Pew."             thankful to our heavenly Fatherforthe
         LINDA VANOVERLOOP.                  Tapes will be available of this lecture.      love and instruction we have received
"He healeth the broken in heart, and                                                       from them. May the Lord continue to
bindeth uptheirwounds" (Psalm 147:3)           RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY                      bless them and keep them in His care
               Charles Kregel, President             The Men's Society of Hudsonville      in the years ahead.
               David Harbach, Secretary      Protestant Reformed Church ex-                      "ButthemercyoftheLordisfrom
                                             presses sympathy to a fellow mem-             everlasting to everlasting upon them
   RESOLUTION OF SYMPATHY                    ber, Gordon VanOverlbop, and his              that fear Him, and His righteousness
      The Adult Bible Class of Faith         family in the death of his daughter-in-       unto children's children; to such as
Protestant Reformed Church ex-               law,                                          keep his covenant and to those that
presses its sympathy to one of its             MRS. LINDA VANOVERLOOP.                     remember his commandments to do
members, Mr. Jim VanOverloop, in             May they be comforted in the assur-           them" (Psalm 103:17,  18).
the loss of his wife                         ance that ". ..all things work together             Clare and Jan Kuiper
   MRS. LINDA VANOVERLOOP                    for good to them that love God, to               Ed and Marry Lotterman
who was taken to glory on March 2,           them who are called according to his               Harry and Mary VandenBerg
1992.                                        purpose" (Romans 8:28).                             Mike and Grace Lotterman
      Mayweand herfamilyfind peace                             Henry Boer, President           Han, and Marcia VerBeek
in His promise "And if I go and prepare                   Gerrit Holstege, Secretary            Steve Lotterman
a place for you, I will come again and                                                            26 grandchildren
receive you unto myself; that where I                        NOTICE!!                             2 great-grandchildren
am, there ye may be also . . . I will not            Classis  East will meet in regular               Hope Protestant Reformed Church (walker)
leave you comfortless: I will come to        session on Wednesday, May 13,1992
you" (John 14:3, 18).                        at the Hudsonville Protestant Re-                            NOTICE!!!
                Rev. K. Koole, President     formed Church. Material to be treated              All material for the 1992 Synod
              Miss H.J. Kuiper, Secretary    at this session must be in the hands of       of the Protestant Reformed Churches
                                             the Stated Clerk by April 12, 1992.           should be in the hands of the Stated
                                                       Jon J. Huisken, Stated Clerk        Clerk no later than April 15.
                                                                                                 Rev. M. Joostens, Stated Clerk

                                                                                                    April 1,1992  / Standard Bearer I311


tiph~mD                                                                                                    SECOND CLASS
        BHER                                                                                               Postage Paid at
                                                                                                           Grandville,  Michigan
      j P.O. Box 603
      ,,Grandville,  MI 49468-0603
,.





                                       Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love,
                                      therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.
                                                                               Jeremiah  31:3




                                         On  &great   Coue  of  GodI  lkan,
                                        Love of the Infinite, Unseen,
                                         With nought of r'kauen or earth Getween.
                                              lniis God is mine, and I am His;
                                             His Cove is aMI needof G&s.





                             If ever human love was tender, and self.-sacrificing, and
                        devoted; if ever it could bear and forbear; if ever it could suffer
                        gladly for its loved ones; if ever it was willing to pour itself out
                        in a lavish abandonment for the comfort or pleasure of its
                        objects; then infinitely more is Divine love tender, and self-
                        sacrificing, and devoted, and glad to bear and forbear, and to
                        suffer, and to lavish its best of gifts and blessings upon the
                        objects of its love. Put together all the tenderest love you know
                        of, the deepest you have ever felt, and the strongest that has
                        ever been poured out upon you, and heap upon it all the love
                        of all the loving human hearts in the world, and then multiply
                        it by infinity, and you will begin, perhaps, to have some faint
                        glimpse of what the love of God is.

                                                                                          Standard Bearer
                                                                                                 April 1,1933




312/StandardBearerlApriil,l992


