A Reformed Commentary on the 2020 Pandemic (Part 2) – July 2020 “Standard Bearer”

The July 2020 issue of the Standard Bearer (produced only once per month in June, July, and August) is now out (in print and digital forms). This is our annual “PRC Synod” post-view issue, complete with a wrap-up of Synod 2020’s decisions and some photos of the delegates at work and in fellowship.

But the issue also contains a regular editorial and a number of other scheduled rubric articles, including Prof. D. Kuiper’s next installment on the ecumenical councils of the early church (Constantinople 381), Rev. J. Laning’s article on “God’s Sure Promise,” a powerful mission article with testimonies from the Philippines’ field, Rev. R. Barnhill’s second article on “Entitlement” (especially for the young people), a book review by Prof. R. Cammenga on Mrs. S. Casemier’s new historical novel on Katie Luther, and the latest church news.

The editorial by Prof. B. Gritters is another timely commentary on the pandemic (part 2) that continues to sweep the world and affect our lives in every aspect. He argues that Reformed theology presents the best commentary on what we are seeing and experiencing, looking this time at the last two parts of Reformed doctrine – Eschatology and Christology. Here is part of what he has to say:

We live in a very difficult time, when our Father’s hand brings disease and gives the world over to the lawlessness it so fervently seeks.

Reformed theology has the best, really the only, way to interpret for the people of God these otherwise strange and fearful happenings in the world. Reformed theology, we are convinced, is simply the doctrine of the Bible, and the Bible is the lens through which the believer must look in order to bring order out of the disorder. That is, Reformed theology is faith’s seeing what unbelief and false teaching cannot see. Reformed theology is faith’s understanding of what unbelief and heresy finds utterly confounding.

Last time I gave a sampling of doctrines from four of the six chapters (loci) of Reformed theology that help clarify what otherwise might be fuzzy to men, that shed light on what otherwise might be dim or even dark. That editorial treated theology and God’s sovereign providence and just judgments; anthropology and man’s fall into sin and death; soteriology and the graces of sanctification and hope that God works through affliction; ecclesiology and the importance of public worship and the relationship between church and state. Here, I follow up with the last two chapters, eschatology and Christology.

Eschatology (The Doctrine of the End Times): Heaven on Earth?

If it’s true that Christians wrongly react to the pandemic, and churches wrongly explain troubles in the world on account of bad theology, anthropology, soteriology, and ecclesiology, it is even more so on account of false teachings in eschatology. Eschatology teaches the people of God what to expect in the end times, what is the goal of God with the church’s labors in the world, to what believers ought to aim, and unto what they press their efforts. Eschatology deals with the future—the near future and the distant future, the future of the church and the future of this world, the future of the devil and his hosts and the future of King Jesus and His relationship to all created things.

Getting eschatology wrong has been disastrous for most nominal Christians these days because their hope is earthly. Their expectations are for improvements here and now, soon. They believe God’s goal with the church’s labor is a Christianized world. So they press their efforts to fulfill the ‘cultural mandate.’ They labor hard to create an earthly kingdom. Rather than to carry out the Great Commission to bring to the nations the gospel of forgiveness in Jesus Christ, they want to redeem society from its chaos. Their desire is to bring the nations the ‘good news’ of social equality, food for the poor, clean water, justice for women and other oppressed people, and probably a vaccine for COVID-19. They are convinced that these are what God wants for the world and that the church is the instrument to bring them about. But note well, it is not the church as institute that carries out this work, through her offices, but the church as organism.

In addition to being bad ecclesiology, it’s also false teaching regarding eschatology. Instead of quickening hope in the coming of Christ, the false teaching leads to despondency, because the depressing happenings in the world do not bode well for a Christianized world. And as for the nominal Christian church—her drift towards Roman Catholicism and her ecumenical adulteries have rendered her impotent for gospel good.

Someone once said that when a man expects to be “hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Wrong eschatology dulls one’s thinking, lulls the church to sleep. She now imagines a future of ease and prosperity. Her mind is not ‘concentrated’ at all, but clouded and then confused. If the future is to be so bright, how can such evils increase in the world? And what can be done to turn the world into a peaceful place, to make the crooked straight and the rough places plain, when men and nations are so vile? Their hopes are shaken. Worse, they expose themselves to the allurements of the Antichrist who, Scripture teaches, will someday solve the world’s problems.

This is the major error of neo-Calvinism today, in which the false teaching of ‘common grace’ predominates special, redeeming grace. Common grace prided itself in being a ‘two-track’ theology—special saving grace on one track, common grace on the other. God’s ‘common grace’ will remedy the world’s violence, poverty, injustice. Special grace saves souls and prepares them for heaven. But the two-track theology has become a monorail of common grace. Neo-Calvinists focus on the common grace that will save bodies and give a good life on earth. Neo-Calvinism is completely exposed to N.T. Wright’s “heaven is on earth” mantra.

The bracing realism of Reformed orthodoxy ‘concentrates our minds wonderfully.’ Reformed theology focuses our minds on, and directs our efforts to, preaching the gospel of God’s gracious salvation and establishing churches. Reformed ecclesiology teaches that the true church is the “Israel of God,” the new ‘nation’ for which He cares, and that the church institute is the messenger of that gospel. And Reformed eschatology is a-millennial.

Biblical doctrine of the end times promises victory to the church by faith in Jesus Christ. But it teaches that the victory comes through tribulation, suffering, persecution (John 16:33, Acts 14:22). It teaches that Christ’s coming is preceded by wars and rumors of war, pestilence and other troubles in this life, and apostasy in the church (II Thess. 2). It teaches that the days right before the coming of Christ will be like the days of Noah (Matt. 24:37-39), terrible days of apostasy and unbelief when the true church will be small and preachers of God’s righteousness ridiculed.

So Reformed eschatology helps believers to see clearly and to keep balanced in troubling times like today.

To read further in this issue, visit this link. To subscribe to the magazine, go here.

A Reformed Commentary on the Pandemic of 2020 – June “Standard Bearer”

The June issue of the Standard Bearer (produced only once per month in June, July, and August) is now out (in print and digital forms) and the editorial by Prof. B. Gritters is a timely commentary on the pandemic that continues to sweep the world and affect our lives in every aspect. Not one of us has been exempt from the effects of COVID-19, and the consequences of the dreaded virus are vast, touching our lives in ways we never could have imagined.

As Christians we view all of life – our trials too – through the lens of God’s Word, and because the Reformed faith is the clearest expression of the truths of the Christian gospel revealed in the Word, it is Reformed theology that presents the best commentary on what we are seeing and experiencing. This Prof. Gritters demonstrates in his article titled “Reformed theology’s commentary on the pandemic of 2020.” He states this in his opening comments:

What is written about the pandemic in the secular press these days is a mix of helpful comment and some very noxious propaganda. What is written in the Christian press is sometimes more helpful and is what this editorial wishes to be. Here, I propose that Reformed believers can look at the present crisis in the light of Reformed theology and take lessons from all six ‘chapters’ of Reformed doctrine. Let the breadth of our Reformed faith form our thinking about, and govern our reaction to, the present distresses.

And so he looks at the “present distresses” caused by the coronavirus under the headings of Theology (the doctrine of God), Anthropology (the doctrine of man), Christology (the doctrine of Christ), Soteriology (the doctrine of salvation), Ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church), and Eschatology (the doctrine of the last things – saved for the next editorial).

In this post, let’s take excerpts from two section – theology and soteriology – and listen and learn from the glorious truths of our Reformed faith as they shed light on the pandemic.

It is grievous to hear Christians deny the sovereign control of God over the pandemic. As one young writer recently pointed out on our Young Calvinists blog (https://youngcalvinists.org), world-renown theologian, N.T. Wright, mocks the confession that Reformed believers make of the sovereign God who does His pleasure (Isa. 46:10) in the pandemic. Wright belittles “some Christians” who “like to think of God as above all that… in charge of everything…. That’s not the picture we get in the Bible.” Rev. Wright does not believe the Scriptures, for “our God is in the heavens, he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.” Wright cannot subscribe to our Belgic Confession that “nothing happens in this world without his [God’s] appointment” (Art. 12). Guilty as he is of the “damnable error of the Epicureans, who say that God regards nothing, but leaves all things to chance,” Wright does not have the “unspeakable consolation” that we Reformed Christians have. We confess that this sovereign God watches over us “with a paternal care.” So are we patient in today’s adversity? If we, Reformed believers, confess that in adversity the doctrine of providence makes us patient (Lord’s Day 10), are we being patient these days? Are we praying for patience? Are we “letting patience having her perfect work” (James 1:4)?

………………………………..

So the Reformed faith confesses in Lord’s Day 9, that God “will make whatever evils he sends upon me, in this valley of tears turn out to my advantage; for he is able to do it, being Almighty God, and willing, being a faithful Father.” At every baptism, Reformed believers confess in the Form for Baptism that our Father “averts all evil or turns it to our profit.”

One great profit is God’s sanctification of us. More and more we loosen our grip on earthly things and cling to God and heavenly things, think less of this life and more of the life to come, hate the sins that plague church and world and love truth and right. Less and less we have aspirations for this side of the grave; more and more we hope for heaven. In the body we groan, waiting for our final adoption, the redemption of our bodies. “We believe… the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting!”

Are you living in that hope? Have I expressed that hope to others, to help them?

“Merciful God, quicken our Christian hope and purify through these troubles!”

If you want another peek inside this issue, visit this blog post of the RFPA.

PRC Archives: Rev. C. Hanko’s Recollection of the 1918-19 Pandemic

Our PRC Archives item this Thursday relates to the present pandemic sweeping the world, COVID-19. But in 1918-19 a far greater pandemic swept the world, taking away one fifth of the wold’s population. How did this affect the life of God’s people and His church then?

Rev. Cornelius Hanko’s book of memoirs contains his personal remembrance of the disastrous worldwide flu (Spanish influenza) of 1918-19. Hear his story as the church and her saints dealt with a great affliction in those days too:

And then, to make matters worse, the influenza epidemic hit in the winter of 1918-1919. Once more schools and churches were closed for six weeks. Almost no one went to work. Nearly every home had one or more sick with the flu. Doctors could not keep up with the calls that came in. They worked day and night. But the worst of all was that they knew no cure. They tried the usual medicines, and they tried the most caustic medicines, all to no avail. Hundreds died. Funeral services were held outside. Very few went to the cemetery.

A little girl in our neighborhood died also. Her coffin was placed by the front window for the neighbors to see. The minister preached the funeral sermon in the street.

A gloom hung over all. Everyone wondered, ‘Will it strike us next?’ There were some homes in which the whole family was stricken, and one home in which there were five deaths. My future mother-in-law, Mrs. Alida Griffioen, gave birth to a child in a room shut off by sheets while others in the family had the flu.

Ministers were in a quandary as to what to do. Rev. Groen was so afraid of catching the flu that he refused to visit any one. Rev. Peter Jonker Jr. of Dennis Avenue Christian Reformed Church was out almost day and night visiting the sick. He would place a ladder next to an upstairs window in order to visit someone upstairs. He wore himself out to the point where he could hardly preach. The consistory allowed him to preach old sermons for awhile.

Our family was spared. We sat at home, trying to seek a bit of entertainment amongst ourselves. But sitting home day after day can grow very wearisome. I remember walking along Wealthy Street just to get out, but the streets were void of pedestrians. The street was ‘like a painted ship on a painted ocean.’ [a line from a poem of Samuel T. Coleridge] It hardly seemed real. The break came on Sunday when we had our home service in the morning. To prevent further spreading of the sickness, no more than seven people were allowed to meet together; but we did invite in a few neighbors. These were times when prayer was no longer a mere formality, but a cry of the anxious soul pleading for the sick and bereaved.

As the nation struggled to deal with this public health disaster, it also had to contend with sick and crippled men returning from the front.

Taken from Less Than the Least: Memoirs of Cornelius Hanko, 2nd ed. (Jenison, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Association, pp. 42-43.

It may be necessary to note that though I begin this post with the title “PRC Archives” because C. Hanko became a Protestant Reformed Churches’ member and minister of the Word, the history recalled and recorded here is really “pre-PRC” (the PRC did not begin until 1924-25) and took place when Cornelius was a lad of 11/12 years old (he was born in 1907) and still a member by baptism in the Christian Reformed Church. Hence, the reference to the CRC ministers also.

WORLD’s Top 25 articles for 2018 – WORLD

As we near the end of the year of our Lord 2018, it is good to reflect on all that has transpired according to the sovereign plan and providence of our almighty God in this year. That, after all, is what we believe all the events of history are – the unfolding of our God’s perfect plan through His mighty providential hand. And, we also add this, that all these events of history – of 2018 too – are for the salvation of Christ’s church and the good of His redeemed and renewed people.

Many news sources produce year-end summaries of the year’s major stories, which are useful in helping us to reflect on the more significant events of the year. World Magazine (a Christian news source) has also produced its summary of the major stories it reported online throughout 2018. It included this list of 25 items today as part of its “Saturday Series” (which often feature books, writing, reading), and I thought it worth your while to point you to it here.

What follows here is the little blurb that introduced the list; after that I post here the last five news items (which were published at the “top” of the list on their website).

In 2018, WORLD’s online readers were drawn to major cover stories and timely features from the magazine, daily news reports from The Sift, and insightful Saturday Series essays. But issues related to marriage, family, and sexuality were often foremost in the minds of our readers this past year, as the website’s weekly Relations roundup makes multiple appearances in our countdown of the 25 articles that grabbed your attention the most.

25. A long way from home

Before getting lost in a cave, Adul Sam-on found direction for his future at a Thai church and school

by Angela Lu Fulton
July 13 | WORLD Magazine | Features

24. Moody Bible Institute leaders resign amid turmoil

Moody Bible Institute announced Wednesday the resignation of President J. Paul Nyquist and Chief Operating Officer Steve Mogck amid ongoing turmoil following staffing cuts

by Leigh Jones
Jan. 11 | WORLD Digital | The Sift

23. Willow Creek elders respond to new Hybels accusations

The elders of Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago said in a letter Saturday they could have done a better job holding former Senior Pastor Bill Hybels accountable for inappropriate behavior toward women

by Lynde Langdon
April 23 | WORLD Digital | The Sift

22. Facing cultural storms

Six trends that are rapidly reshaping the lives of American Christians

by John S. Dickerson
Nov. 24 | WORLD Digital | Saturday Series

21. Turkey seeks life sentence for U.S. pastor

Turkish prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for a U.S. pastor accused of participating in the 2016 coup that attempted to oust Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

by Leigh Jones
March 13 | WORLD Digital | The Sift

Find the other 20 top stories at the link below.

Source: WORLD’s Top 25 articles for 2018 – Media – WORLD

How shall we respond to the sins of our land? – Prof. B. Gritters

We live in very wicked lands. Of course, we must not partake of their evils or we will perish with them. But how do we respond to these evils? Are we aware of the danger of a self-righteous anger very similar to the one we criticize in others? How should I, as a Christian respond?

I will begin by expressing to God sorrow for the sins of the nation of which I am a part. …I am a citizen of this land and thus guilty of her sins by corporate responsibility. We start there, humbling ourselves before God and confessing our nation’s sins. If righteous Daniel in Babylonian captivity could confess as his own the sins of Israel, of which he had no active and conscious part (Dan.9 is one of the most moving confessions in all of Scripture), citizens of a country do well to confess their guilt for the country’s sins.

Then, we will ask what active part we have played in the sins of the nation. In what do we participate? In its sexual sin? On television, in video games, on the Internet, in books? In what way do we approve of or find pleasure in its violence? What part of the lie do we willingly partake in by judging rashly, or believing every word we hear in the politically conservative news? Does our use of social media always comport with the call to speak the truth in love?

And what of our own sinful nature? Full of corruption of every sort, with the potential of sin of every kind, burning with lusts no different than those of any unbeliever, we confess that we are evil, born in sin. We are, in our nature, so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of performing any good and inclined to all wickedness. We confess this with sincerity, and deepest humility and shame.

We see the flood ready to overwhelm us.

By faith, though, we do not despair. Certainly, we do not look with self-righteous pride at everyone else, but with shame at our own sins and sinfulness. And then we flee from this destructive flood to Jesus Christ and to His church, the ‘ark’ where is safety.

Quoted from the closing portion of the editorial of Prof. B. Gritters in the January 15, 2018 issue of the Standard Bearer. The title of this article is “What has happened to the United States?” Look for more on this in the issues to come (Feb.1 and Feb.15).

2017 in light of “1984” (the book, that is) – G. Orwell

This past week at a quartet practice (Voices of Victory), we were discussing the current events in our country, particularly the “progressives'” attempt to erase U.S. history through the destruction of monuments and the rewriting of history books. It was then that one of our members pointed out a powerful quotation he had seen that day from George Orwell’s book 1984.

This is what he had seen posted:

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

Certainly has a strikingly familiar ring to it, does it not?

There is, of course, also a biblical perspective on these times:

And because iniquity [lawlessness] shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. (Matt.24:12)

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Tim.3:1-5)

Which means, we are called to live in hope of the coming of our great Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, with eager waiting and careful watching:

And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. (Luke 21:34-36)

A Look at Calvin College, Betsy DeVos’s Alma Mater – The Atlantic

As discerning readers, you know how much scrutiny our new United States Education Secretary, Mrs. Betsy DeVos, has generated (a West Michigan native). Not merely due to her wealthy background and associations, but also due to her strong Christian (and Reformed – Christian Reformed Church) background, Mrs. DeVos has come under the public’s critical eye, both during her confirmation hearings and now that she has begun her service as head of the Education Department.

That scrutiny now also includes her alma mater, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. In a major piece written by Emily DeRuy for The Atlantic on March 1, 2017, Calvin as both a Christian and Reformed college is closely reviewed. Her Kuyperian neo-Calvinistic philosophy is openly displayed, something our readers will also have a keen interest in.

Below is a portion of the article, available in full at The Atlantic link below.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—It would be easy enough to drive past Calvin College without giving Betsy DeVos’s alma mater a second thought. Six miles southeast of downtown, the school is a sprawling cluster of nondescript buildings and winding pathways in a quiet suburb. But to bypass Calvin would be to ignore an institution whose approach to education offers clues about how the recently appointed U.S. education secretary might pursue her new job, and about the tug religious institutions feel between maintaining tradition and remaining relevant in a rapidly diversifying world.

DeVos is now Calvin’s most famous alum, and in recent weeks, the school has been painted in some circles both online and in conversation as a conservative, insular institution that helped spawn a controversial presidential-cabinet member intent on using public dollars to further religious education. But that is a grossly simplified narrative, and one that obscures the nuances and very real tensions at the school.

And a bit further in her article DeRuy writes, referencing one of Calvin’s professors,

“Our faith commits us to engaging the world all around us,” said Kevin den Dulk, a political-science professor who graduated from Calvin in the 1990s, during an interview in the DeVos Communication Center, which sits across from the Prince Conference Center bearing the secretary’s maiden name. (Her mother, Elsa, is also an alum.)

Den Dulk’s words aren’t just PR fluff; it’s a concept borne out by the school’s 141-year history and the Dutch-influenced part of western Michigan it calls home. The Christian Reformed Church is a Protestant tradition that has its roots in the Netherlands and has been deeply influenced by the theologian Abraham Kuyper, a believer in intellectualism—specifically the idea that groups with different beliefs can operate in the same space according to their convictions while respecting and understanding others. “Fundamentalism is really anti-intellectual and Calvin is the exact opposite,” said Alan Wolfe, the author of a 2000 Atlantic piece about efforts to revitalize evangelical Christian colleges.

Source: A Look at Calvin College, Betsy DeVos’s Alma Mater – The Atlantic

The Gospel Solution for Our Society – Rev.K. Koole

The September 1, 2016 issue of the Standard Bearer is now out, and in it Rev. K. Koole has an editorial addressing the need our current society has (and has always had!) for the true gospel of grace in Jesus Christ.

He speaks to the bitter enmity, division, and violence that are openly on display in our land, and speaks to the root problem and the only solution: man’s enmity against God and repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Here is how Rev. Koole addresses the problem:

One can talk about ‘loving the neighbor’ all one wants, loving even those who seem to be your enemy and returning good for evil, but for all that, one has not proposed the Biblical solution for ungodly man.  Such is not the solution that is going to resolve the enmity that permeates our society.

Why not?

Because the root of the problem in our society so filled with violence and division and with hatred and abuse of others is not the lack of love for the neighbor; rather it is rooted in our society’s hatred for God and for God’s good commandments

And when the news media begins to ask us what we think the problem is in our society and what’s the solution, before we start talking about people learning to love their neighbors in a more Christian way, we must point the questioners and reporters to God and our society’s relationship to almighty God.

We must remind those who interview us that we are living in a society that has turned its back on God, denying any truthfulness in Him, and that in a most public and arrogant way.  There is, they say, no God to whom we must answer.  So who cares one iota about His laws?

And where that spirit rules and becomes embedded into a nation’s laws, judgments will follow matter of course.

That’s the problem, the evil let loose in our society.  And our society is reaping a harvest of thorns.  When you go to war against God (and have no humility before Him), you will, matter of course, go to war against your fellow man.

So it is today.

And this is what he has to say about the only solution:

So, what is the solution?

Our answer:  as things stand now, as our society despises Jehovah God, there isn’t any!  At least not along the lines society is looking for, namely, men learning to love their neighbors as themselves and living in unity and peace.  There is only one solution in the end, namely, repentance from the sins of despising the things of God, and turning in faith in Christ Jesus.  Otherwise, all this call for love, and learning to live in love, is doomed to failure.  It’s nice talk, but it is not Biblical Christianity.

Our answer must be along those lines.

There is plenty of other good content in this issue as well. For information on subscribing to the “SB, visit the homepage linked above.

Persecution: What the Future Holds – Owen Strachan

What the Future Holds by Owen Strachan | Reformed Theology Articles at Ligonier.org.

The fourth featured article in the August issue of Tabletalk on the theme of persecution is written by Dr. Owen Strachan, associate professor of Christian theology and church history at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY and president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Dr. Strachan addresses “What the Future Holds” in his article, and he presents a very realistic picture of what Christians can expect in this country. He lays out four main points, all of which are worth reading and contemplating.

What I really appreciated, however, was the way in which Strachan closed out his thoughts. These words especially, it seems to me, are worth our careful pondering.

There will be no retreat of the church. We will never stop witnessing unto life. We will never cease to minister the gospel. We will not forget the holy Apostles. We remember how they welcomed the jail cell, the Roman prison ship, the hair-raising tribunal. In any and all settings, they preached Christ. They went so far as to believe that God had not only permitted such moments, but had appointed them for His glory (Acts 5:41). They saw suffering with Christ as a privilege, much as this challenges our material sensibilities. We must not forget that if the church is unsettled, it is not by accident. It is by divine design, and it will be used for divine purposes.

While we live, like the priests of old in fallen Jerusalem, we may weep (Ezra 3:11–13). We cannot forget the millions of babies driven into the afterlife at abortion clinics. We cannot erase the suffering felt in fatherless homes and families detonated by selfish sin and bitter divorce. We cannot help but think back to past days, happy days, that celebrated the good of religious people and did not seek their undoing. All these trends speak to fallenness. All of them deserve our tears.

We will weep. But we will also dry our eyes. We will rise to our feet. Whether in a gated community, a busy city, a tense workroom, a chilly playgroup, or a prison cell, we will never cease to speak and to minister the gospel. The gospel was not made for quiet days and easy questions. It was made for the toughest stuff, the worst of times, the hardest of circumstances.

What does the future hold? The future will bring suffering. The days will be evil, as they have been (Eph. 5:16). But the future is bright, because God is real. The church must take heart. We have a living Lord. When history concludes, we will reign with unbroken bodies in a world of love. We will worship the Lamb of God, slain from before the foundation of the earth. There is no life like this life. There is no hope like this hope. There is no God like our God.

PCUSA Makes Marriage a ‘Unique Commitment’ – ChristianityToday.com

PCUSA Makes Marriage a ‘Unique Commitment’ | Gleanings | ChristianityToday.com.

Christianity Today’s latest “Gleanings” feature (March 18, 2015) carried this note of further apostasy from the teaching of God’s Word about marriage on the part of the mainline Presbyterian church in this country.

Below is the first part of that story; for the full news item, visit the “CT” link above. The report includes a map showing how the various states have voted to this point (Michigan has not yet decided.)

May the Lord call out of this apostate denomination those who are truly His and who desire to be faithful to His Word and the true Presbyterian heritage (Rev.18:4).

The Presbyterian Church (USA) will now define marriage as a “unique commitment between two people,” rather than a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman as an act of Christian discipleship.

Last June, the PC(USA) general assembly voted to change the language in its Book of Order, the denomination’s governing constitution. Following the vote, a majority of the PC(USA)’s 171 presbyteries also had to approve the measure for it to go into effect. On Tuesday, this number (86) was reached.

The conservative Presbyterian Lay Committee (PLC) criticized the denomination’s shift.

“In terms of the PCUSA’s witness to the world, this vote demonstrates a complete accommodation to the prevailing winds of our culture,” said Carmen Fowler LaBerge, PLC president, in a statement. “Any prophetic voice that the denomination may have once had to speak truth and call people to repentance is now lost.”