August 14, 2016

Offerings First Second

This Sunday General Fund CEF

Next Sunday General Fund Building Fund

Nursery Schedule

Today

AM Elissa Vander Boon & Mairi Heikoop

PM Meleah Bazen & Christiana Heikoop

Next Sunday

AM Jenny Kwekel & Deena Hoffmann

PM Janelle Walma & Miriam Bazen

Daily Schedule, the Lord willing..

Today: Rev. J.A. Van den Berg for both services.

Wednesday/Thursday, August 17: Family Camp. 9 am.

Sunday, August 21: Rev. G. Bilkes for both services.

Pastor Van den Berg plans to be in Dundas, ON.

Wednesday, August 24: Prayer meeting. 7 pm. Rev. J.A. Van den Berg.

Sunday, August 28: Rev. G. Bilkes for both services.

Pastor Van den Berg plans to be in Haamilton, ON.

Announcements

• Please pray for Mrs. Gayle Dykema as she recovers from surgery at home.
• The wedding of Lydia Rozeboom and Tad Landheer is this Friday, at Byron Center Protestant Reformed Church at 5:30 pm, the Lord willing. Psalm 121.
• Family camp begins this Wednesday at 9 am. Please bring baked snacks in the morning to the chapel back room for serving after the topics. Also, a bottle of drink and a bag of chips, is requested for our supper on Thursday evening at the picnic shelter.
• Please remember in prayer those who cannot attend the Lord’s house with us today. Those who are ill, or weak, or for another reason are away today.
• Bible study of Isaiah (4:45-5:45pm) Today. Bible study: Isa. 26, 27. " LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us. .”

Meditation

“Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.” Isa. 26:2.

Now, as the Prophet foretells the grace of God, so he also exhorts the redeemed people to maintain uprightness of life. In short, he threatens that these promises will be of no avail to hypocrites, and that the gates of the city will not be opened for them, but only for the righteous and holy. It is certain that the Church was always like a barn, (Matthew 3:12) in which the chaff is mingled with the wheat, or rather, the wheat is overpowered by the chaff; but when the Jews had been brought back into their country, the Church was unquestionably purer than before. Those who returned must have been animated by a good disposition, to undertake a journey so long, and beset by so many annoyances, embarrassments, and dangers; and many others chose rather to remain in captivity than to return, thinking that to dwell in Babylon was a safer and more peaceful condition than to return to Judea. Such persons must have had a seed of piety, which led them to take possession of those promises which were granted to the fathers. Now, though the Church even at that time was stained by many imperfections, still this description was comparatively true; for a large portion of the filth had been swept away, and those who remained had profited in some degree under God’s chastisements.

A righteous nation, which keepeth the truth. Some distinguish these terms in this manner, “A nation righteous before God, and upright before men.” But I take the meaning to be more simple; that, after having called the nation “righteous,” he shews in what righteousness consists; that is, where there is uprightness of heart, which has nothing feigned or hypocritical, for nothing is more opposite to righteousness than hypocrisy. And though no man ever existed who advanced so far that he could receive the commendation of being perfectly righteous, yet the children of God, who with their whole heart aim at this “truth,” may be said to be keepers of it. But perhaps it will rather be thought that, by a figure of speech, one part is taken for the whole, to describe what is true righteousness; that is, when all deceit and all wicked practices have been laid aside, and men act towards each other with sincerity and truth.

If any man wish to make use of this passage for upholding the merits of men, the answer is easy; for the Prophet does not here describe the cause of salvation, or what men are by nature, but what God makes them by his grace, and what kind of persons he wishes to be members of his Church. Out of wolves he makes sheep, as we have formerly seen. 155 So long as we live here, we are always at a great distance from perfection, and are in continual progress towards it; but the Lord judges of us according to that which he has begun in us, and, having once led us into the way of righteousness, reckons us to be righteous. As soon as he begins to check and reform our hypocrisy, he at once calls us true and upright.