The following are special highlights of PRC News for this Sunday, July 12, 2020, the twenty-eighth Lord's Day of this year.
- Last Sunday Kalamazoo PRC voted to extend a call to Rev. C. Spronk (Faith PRC). May the Lord grant him clear discernment of His will in this matter.
- This past Thursday Rev. Heath Bleyenberg and his wife Deb made another attempt to cross the U.S.-Canada border, as he seeks to fulfill the call of Immanuel PRC in Lacombe, AB. Immanuel's bulletin today provides the good news:
Rev. and Deb Bleyenberg arrived safely into Canada this past Thursday. We give all thanks to our heavenly Father who has opened the doors so they could now physically be here in Lacombe. The Lord has cared for them and our congregation during all these months in His perfect and faithful love. We rejoice that soon Rev. Bleyenberg will able to be installed as our pastor, preach for us in God’s house, and we will be able fellowship together with him and his wife face to face. The Bleyenberg’s are presently under the fourteen day mandated quarantine set by the Canadian government. - Today Rev. G. Eriks answered the call from Unity PRC - and announced his acceptance if it. Lord willing, he will become the first pastor of this new congregation in Byron Center, MI. May the Lord be with him and his family as they prepare to leave the Hudsonville PRC he has served for many years and to take up this new labor.
- Today Rev. N. Langerak declined the call from First PRC of Edmonton, AB.
Thought for contemplation:
Can you list some of the great things He has done for you? He gave His only begotten Son for our salvation! Think of the work of Jesus Christ: the wonder of His incarnation, His suffering and death, His resurrection, ascension, and His ruling at God’s right hand. Think of the Holy Spirit as He gives life to all things, works spiritual life in each of His children, and leads the church in the truth. God has done great things. When the church falls into apostasy, He brings reformation. Psalm 126 is another song of ascent sung when God’s people were traveling together up to Jerusalem. Let’s get even more personal. Can you hear one saint saying to another, “Come, hear, all ye that fear the Lord, while I with grateful heart record what God has done for me; I cried to him in deep distress, and now his wondrous grace I bless, for he has set me free” (Psalter 175 stanza 2)? Have you struggled with a besetting sin, and crying to the Lord, He set you free from that captivity? Have you or a loved one gone through a difficult illness or walked through the valley of the shadow of death and found that the Lord was a “very present help in trouble?”
How great it is that God says to you and me, “I will be your God. You are my beloved sons and daughters. God says that to us each Sunday morning and evening in the votum and salutation. How great is His mercy for us poor sinners, that He stoops to help and save. How great is His work of taking dead sinners and making them alive in Jesus Christ. By His Spirit He calls us, gives us faith, works our conversion, justifying, sanctifying, and preserving us.
From one of this past week's special meditations by Rev. A. Spriensma, PRC home missionary ("The Lord Hath Done Great Things")