February 19, 2017

First Second

This Sunday General Fund Building

Next Sunday General Fund CEF

Nursery Schedule

Today

AM Christiana Heikoop & Charity Vander Boon

PM Leah Boerkoel & Hannah Jo Bazen

Next Sunday

AM Deena Hoffmann & Kate Boerkoel

PM Klaska Van den Berg & Mairi Heikoop

Daily Schedule, the Lord willing..

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

Wednesday, February 22: Prayer meeting at 7 pm. W. Heikoop.

Sunday, February 26: Rev. J.A. Van den Berg for both services.

Wednesday, March 1: Lay preaching class at 7 pm.

Sunday, March 5: Rev. J.A. Van den Berg for both services. Preparatory service for the Lord’s Supper during the morning service. The Lord’s Supper is scheduled to be held on March 19.

Wednesday, March 8: Prayer Day Services at 9:30 am & 7 pm.

Sunday, March 12: Rev. L. Bilkes for both services. Rev. Van den Berg

plans to serve the congregation of Dundas FRC.

Announcements

l With thanks to all who remembered my birthday and for all the prayers and tokens of love shown to us throughout year. " O give thanks to the Lord for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever," Ps. 136:1.

l The collections taken on Prayer Day will be for Plymouth Christian Schools.

l Family visitation schedule. All visits will take place at 7:30 pm. Please contact us if you need a change of date or time.

February 21 J. Rozeboom Family.

February 28 D. Vander Boon Family.

March 7 R. Vander Boon Family.

l Bible study of Isaiah (4:45-5:45 pm)

Next week. -- Bible study: Isa. 42. "And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known.”

Meditation

"Strive to enter in at the strait gate. Luke 13:24.

Secondly, (continued) And, indeed, this law is the flaming sword that turneth every way; yea, that lieth to this day in the way to heaven, for a bar to all unbelievers and unsanctified professors; for it is taken out of the way for the truly gracious only. It will be found as a roaring lion to devour all others. Because of the law, therefore, the gate will be found too strait for the unsanctified to enter in. When the apostle had told the Corinthians that the unrighteous should not inherit the kingdom of God, and that such were some of them, he adds, “But yet are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God," 1 Cor 6:9-11; closely concluding, that had they not been washed, and sanctified, and justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, the law, for their transgressions, would have kept them out; it would have made the gate too strait for them to enter in.

Thirdly, There are also the angels of God, and by reason of them the gate is strait. The Lord Jesus calleth the end of the world his harvest; and saith, moreover, that the angels are his reapers. These angels are therefore to gather his wheat into his barn, but to gather the ungodly into bundles to burn them, Matt. 13:39, 41, 49. Unless, therefore, the man that is unsanctified can master the law, and conquer angels; unless he can, as I may say, pull them out of the gate-way of heaven, himself is not to come thither for ever. No man goeth to heaven but by the help of the angels — I mean at the day of judgment: "For the Son of man shall send forth his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." If those that shall enter in at the strait gate shall only enter in thither by the conduct of the holy angels, pray when do you think those men will enter in thither, concerning whom the angels are commanded to gather them, to

bind them in bundles, to burn them? This, therefore, is a third difficulty: The angels will make this entrance strait; yea, too strait for the unjustified and unsanctified to enter in thither.

I come now to the exhortation, which is, to strive to enter in: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." These words are fitly added; for since the gate is strait, it follows that they who will enter in must strive.

"Strive." This word strive supposeth,

1. That great idleness is natural to professors; they think to get to heaven by lying, as it were, on their elbows.

2. It also suggesteth, that many will be the difficulties that professors will meet with before they get to heaven.