DEDICATED TO THE EXPOSITION AND DEFENSE OF THE REFORMED FAITH | 74 YEARS: 1951–2025
The City of God
Salvation and Our Life with God in Heaven
A Psalm Uproar
The Way Home
Parenting Help from the Puritans Ten Special Helps And Rules Against Satan’s Devices. By Thomas Brooks
Purging, Preserving, and Proving: The Varied Purposes of Ezekiel’s Messages of Judgment
Good Question
Church Order Articles
Prayer Requests
Meditation: A Communion of Forgiven Sinners
Is the Lord’s Supper the Same as Mass?
Should I Come to the Lord’s Supper?
Book Reviews
Bible Study: Dwelling Richly
Give thanks to the Lord, for
Psalm 136:1a
Contents | July/August | Volume 75 |
3 | The City of God
Mr. Cornelius VanKempen
God the Master Builder takes the most unlikely materials and builds by the blood of Jesus the most beautiful building for His habitation!
4 | Salvation and Our Life with God in Heaven
Dr. Mark J. Larson
A comforting meditation on the glory that awaits the sons of God in the world above.
6 | A Psalm Uproar
Dr. Michael R. Kearney
Lessons for churchgoers from a time when conflict over worship music came to blows.
9 | The Way Home
Rev. Peter Holtvlüwer
Man leaves the garden of Eden, but why?
Under what circumstances? And why does God set a guard over the way to the tree of life and not let man eat of it freely?
12 | Parenting Help from the Puritans
Dr. Joel R. Beeke
In our day of ungodliness and family breakdown, may God help us appreciate and recover the vision of the Puritans for childrearing as we seek to walk in the fear of God with our own families.
15 | Ten Special Helps And Rules Against Satan’s Devices By Thomas
Brooks
Submitted and Edited by Mrs. Annemarieke Ryskamp
Ten special helps and rules against Satan’s devices.’
Part 1 consisting of helps 1-7.
18 | Purging, Preserving, and Proving: The Varied Purposes of Ezekiel’s Messages of Judgment (4)
Dr. R. Andrew Compton
Ezekiel’s judgment oracles purify, preserve, and proclaim. In them, God reclaims His people and unveils His holy and sovereign reign.
22 | Good Question
Rev. William Boekestein
How Can I Be More Courageous?
23 | Church Order Articles
Rev. Greg Lubbers
Article 33 - Property
Article 34 - Ecumenical Relations on a Church Level
Cover: The cheerful sunflowers use heliotropism to follow the sun from east to west, ensuring their golden blooms receive maximum sunshine and it may help attract it’s pollinators.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever. Psalm 136:1
25 | Prayer Requests
26 | Meditation: A Communion of Forgiven Sinners
Rev. George van Popta
This is the ninth of ten songs based on the Heidelberg Catechism’s explanation of the Apostles’ Creed.
28 | Is the Lord’s Supper the Same as Mass?
Rev. William Boekestein
Lord’s Day 29, Q&A 78–80
30 | Should I Come to the Lord’s Supper?
Rev. William Boekestein
Lord’s Day 30, Q&A 81-82
32 | Book reviews
Mrs. Annemarieke Ryskamp
In Times of Trouble; Refuge Book 1 by P.M. Kuiper.
Rev. Jerome Julien
Union With Christ, Finding My Vocation, Katharina, Katharina: The story of Katharina Schutz Zell and Sing a New Song: Recovering Psalm Singing in the TwentyFirst Century.
35 | Book Review
Mrs. Hope Staal
Christ’s Psalms, Our Psalms: Bible Study Workbook—Christ our Teacher.
36 | Bible Study: Dwelling Richly
Mrs. Hope Staal & Rev. Casey
D. Freswick
Reformed Fellowship’s initiative to develop more Bible studies: project overview and call for authors
City
The God of
What makes a city special? Many things attract us to cities of the world. Satan took Jesus up into a high mountain showing Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory saying, “If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine” (Luke 4:7). What outward beauty can be seen all around us! All this outward beauty will fade away, but the Psalmist sees what this city of God is built on: “His foundation is in the holy mountains” (Ps. 87:1).
What makes this so glorious? Isaiah speaks of this and sees the glory in the Rock of his salvation: “Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste” (Isa. 28:16). What makes the foundation so desirable and precious? It is a city prepared by its king for His people. “And I John saw the holy city, new
Mr. Cornelius VanKempen
known as Case, has been married to Susan for sixty blessed years. They attend and are members of Heritage Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, MI.
Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Psalm 87:3
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). What can be more precious to a bride but to see all the care and love her bridegroom shows when bringing his bride into the place prepared for her? There is so much care given that the city and the bride become one in Him! “The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.” This is so wonderful and becomes even more remarkable as we see the bride. Who is she? The bride comes from every nation, tongue, and people. “I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me: behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; this man was born there” (Ps. 87:4).
The wonder becomes even greater: the Lord of this city sends His servants to bring them in from the streets and lanes. Those that are poor, maimed, halt, and blind are invited (Luke 14:16–24). From the world’s view, they are all misfits. The servants make a remarkable statement, “Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.”
Who is this King that has such a beautiful bride? He must be one unforgettable King that makes a city
of such beauty. Without the King, there is no beauty to be found in the bride. Isaiah describes Him. “For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called” (Isa. 54:5). He is the one who gave His life for His bride, being despised and rejected of men. He was crucified and died for a sinful bride who would never have sought after Him, but was sought out and found by Him. He brings them out of the city of destruction, cleanses them from all their filthiness, and brings them to be with Him forever in the city of God. His Name is Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious King of kings. “The LORD shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there. Selah. As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there: all my springs are in thee” (Ps. 87:6–7). One King and one bride united forever in ever increasing love and worship. “And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Rev. 21:22–23).
and Our Life with God in Heaven SALVATION
The Holy Spirit moved in a remarkable way in the life of Augustine and his son Adeodatus in Milan in late 386 and again in the succeeding months at a Roman villa called Cassiciacum. It was a season in which God stretched forth His hand bringing the miracle of salvation. As Augustine well understood, it is “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).
Ambrose and the Garden in Milan
The Lord used Ambrose the eloquent bishop of Milan as an instrument of saving grace. Augustine had begun to reconsider his wayward path of pride and unbelief when he met the renowned orator. Ambrose, he said, “received me like a father.” He had “a kindness most fitting in a bishop. . . . Ambrose taught the sound doctrine of salvation.” The towering stature of Ambrose had a profound effect upon Augustine. He began to be open to the Christian faith and the possibility that
The Conversion of Saint Augustine is a painting by Fra Angelico
it may well be the truth: “What he said began to seem defensible.”1
A garden in Milan was the turning point. Augustine came to Christ. New life unfolded within him: “My faith, Lord, calls upon you. It is your gift to me.”2 Worship became his delight: “I was deeply moved by the music of the sweet chants of your Church. The sounds flowed into my ears and the truth was distilled into my heart.” There was a new focus: “How was I moved, my God! . . . You began to be my delight. . . . Now the goods I sought were no longer in the external realm. . . . I had no desire for earthly goods to be multiplied.”3 There would in no sense be a futility to his life: “The talents you have given will increase and be perfected, and I will be with you since it was your gift to me that I exist.”4
Augustine now had the same longing of heart reflected in David: “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple” (Ps. 27:4). He shared the ancient king’s confident expectation regarding the future: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Ps. 23:6).
A Son Touched by Grace
Salvation had come. Augustine was born from above, but the sovereign Spirit was not finished with His mysterious work. More grace would come. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). The Lord continued to gather the sheep of His pasture. His cherished son Adeodatus came to salvation before he departed from this world
for the glory that awaits the sons of God in the world above (Heb. 2:10).
Adeodatus means “gift of God.” Augustine reflected on his remarkable gifts. Even at the age of fifteen, “his intelligence surpassed that of many serious and well-educated mson en.” “His intelligence,” said Augustine, “left me awestruck . . . . I contributed nothing to that boy other than sin.” He gave praise to the only one to whom it was due: “I praise you for your gifts, my Lord God, Creator of all.” He asked, “Who but you could be the Maker of such wonders?” Surely, the Lord would do great things in the world with Adeodatus who had come to faith in Christ! But no, God had a different plan. Adeodatus passed away before the age of eighteen: “Early on you took him away from life on earth.” Augustine knew that his beloved son was safe with God. “I recall him with no anxiety; there was nothing to fear in his boyhood or adolescence or indeed his manhood.”
In a real sense, neither father nor son was older than the other since both of them were born again at the same time: “We associated him with us so as to be of the same age as ourselves in your grace.”5
Words of Application
Augustine offers comfort to us by bringing to our memory the place to which our departed loved ones in Christ have gone. Before Jesus breathed His last breath upon the cross, He said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” But the thing to remember is what he had first told the believing thief crucified with him: “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43, 46). The spirit of the thief who looked to Jesus for salvation on that very day appeared with the departed spirit of Jesus in the place called Paradise.
The first martyr, Stephen, also committed his spirit to God as he
was dying: “He was calling on God and saying, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’”(Acts 7:59). The Lord did precisely that, standing at the right hand of God to welcome him home (Acts 7:55–56). Stephen was not unique. Paul included every believer when he affirmed that “to be absent from the body” is “to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). In his last epistle, the apostle announced, “The time of my departure is at hand. . . . The Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for his heavenly kingdom” (2 Tim. 4:6, 18).
We may be assured, as Augustine was, that all is well with our departed loved ones, saved by grace alone. They are forever safe with God. Jesus keeps His word: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28). We may live in comfort and peace knowing what is true for ourselves and our loved ones in Christ: “We shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). May we with Paul ever be “giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light” (Col. 1:12).
1. Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 88.
2. Ibid., 3.
3. Ibid., 161–62.
4. Ibid., 23.
5. Ibid., 164.
Dr. Mark J. Larson is pastor emeritus and lives in Warrenville, SC.
A Psalm UPROAR
This spring, I joined my friend André Knevel in Ontario for organ concerts at a Free Reformed Church and a Canadian Reformed Church. Both programs included congregational psalm-singing, yet the differences in singing style were notable, requiring us to adjust our playing accordingly. André, who grew up in the Netherlands, noted how the rhythms of the Genevan Psalter used in Europe were altered in the Psalter used in several Reformed denominations in North America.
That experience in Ontario nudged me to recall an anecdote from Dutch history. You might admit that disagreements over worship music can be contentious, but all contention pales in comparison to the “psalm uproar” in the Dutch city of Maassluis in the 1770s. It was a scene so vivid that it became famous in a historical novel by Maarten ‘t Hart, Het psalmenoproer.1 I think it’s a scene that still yields lessons today.
Before the Uproar
For context, the Dutch Reformed churches had sung from the Book of Psalms in a musical/metrical version known as the Genevan Psalter, commissioned by John Calvin in the 1500s.2 Petrus Datheen (1531–1588) produced a Dutch translation of the Psalms that aligned with the Genevan melodies. At the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618–1619, Datheen’s version was confirmed as the official psalm book of the Dutch Reformed Church. Jaco van der Knijff, lecturer in practical theology at the Theological University of Apeldoorn, lays out the history of all this in the Reformatorisch Dagblad.3
Dr. Michael R. Kearney
Datheen’s version became the de facto psalter, but it was not without critique. Many noted deficiencies in his translations. For instance, at one point, Datheen’s versification of Psalm 78 compares God to a drunken man; at many other points, the poetry is wooden and stilted. Alternative translations appeared, but none of them could become official since the government called no national synod for the church. Occasionally disgruntled churchgoers would mumble the words of a different translation during the singing.
In 1762, the States General (national government) finally acceded to the requests of the Reformed churches to appoint a commission to create a new rhyming of the Psalms. The committee worked until 1773 (not bad, considering that the creators of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal labored for 20 years). The texts were compiled and edited from three existing versifications by Johannus Eusebius Voet, Hendrik Ghysen, and the society “Laus Deo, Salus Populo.”
In considering this songbook, which today is practically synonymous with Dutch Reformed piety, two historical quirks stand out. First, the somewhat mysterious society just mentioned, “Laus Deo, Salus Populo,” turned out to be the followers of a Remonstrant (Arminian or anti-Calvinist) poet and playwright named Lucretia van Merken (1721–1789). The texts the society had authored included the beloved Psalm 42 and several dozen others. Calvinists were less than pleased to discover that the new psalter contained poems by Arminians, and Van Merken in turn called the psalter creators “psalmravagers” and “trash poets” for their edits to her work. Nevertheless, the project moved forward.
The second quirk is that the finished psalter contained 151 psalms. The extra text was “The Very Words of
David” or het Eigen Geschrift van David, an apocryphal psalm that was not included in the Hebrew Book of Psalms but was apparently a Greek combination of two other non-canonical Hebrew texts.4 I am not aware of any twentieth- or twenty-first-century songbook that included this entry. In addition, the psalter included a limited number of sung prayers, creeds, and liturgical hymns, which I have written about previously.5
Despite these quirks, the completed psalter gained the approval of the States General, which declared that the book contained nothing contrary to the Scriptures or the Three Forms of Unity. Still no uproar . . . yet.
Why the Uproar?
Discontent over the 1773 rhyming of the psalter came from surprisingly unrelated places. For one thing, the national government’s promulgation of a church songbook struck many as a misuse of power (a sentiment that would fester even more after the government’s imposition of hymn-singing on the churches in 1806). From a different angle, some pastors were concerned that their older members and the poor could not easily procure a new psalter, and some preachers permitted individual congregants to continue to sing the old words in church, as long as they did it softly.
But what sparked the riot in Maassluis was neither of these sentiments. Rather, it was the tempo of the singing. Van der Knijff explains that the new psalter came with a new “short singing style” in which “the notes are no longer sung in equal length (isometric), but in each line the beginning and the end notes are long, while the notes in between sound shorter.” This new style was dictated not by the organist or the song leader, but by the magistrate. And that went too far.
In the fishing town of Maassluis in South Holland, the fishermen would go out to sea for weeks at a time, holding Sunday services on one of their ships. When they landed in June 1775 and walked into churches, they were confronted with the singing of different words in a different tempo by official order. The results were spectacular. The website Canon van Nederland describes it this way:
The opponents of the fast singing sabotaged a service in the Groote Kerk. During the singing they began bleating like sheep at the top of their lungs in protest. At the end of the service, during the benediction, a spectacle erupted: a gang of fishermen, women, and other rioters ran screaming through the church. The organist tried his best to drown out the noise, but that did not work. After the service they continued their noisy protest on the street.6
This was no isolated incident. That year, churches throughout the city became centers of contention, with “slow” and “fast” singers trying to drown one another out at the top of their lungs. Ministers were threatened. A precentor and a blind organist were abused. A mob broke into the mayor’s house with a wheelbarrow. Rioters caught and beat a poet who had advocated the new singing style; later, they sat next to him in church to make sure he sang in the old tempo. By the beginning of 1776, the situation had become so violent that the chief bailiff in Delft had to impose order. It took several years for peace to settle upon Maassluis once again as the new singing style gained acceptance. History moved on. The 1773 rhyming of the psalter became the norm. Van der Knijff estimates that more than 500,000 people still sing from it in churches today.
Lessons from the Uproar
Some might look back on the events in Maassluis and see only a bunch of stubborn fishermen who would rather die than change (the title of the article I quoted mentions “hot heads and cold hearts”). Others might look at the riots and point out genuine theological concerns in some of the new songs, not to mention the fact of a government dictating the form of Christian worship. Both reactions point to real trends we continue to see at work in churches and the world today.
But perhaps there is also a simpler lesson we can learn from the psalm uproar of 1775: that the activity of congregational singing cuts so close to our piety, our spirituality, and our very sense of self that we can’t help but react strongly when those norms are challenged. Singing the same texts and tunes week after week, year after year, builds patterns, habits, and beliefs that become central to our identity as believers. That is what singing is supposed to do. That is why Calvin promoted the idea of the Genevan Psalter in the first place—
and why he specified that the tunes should first be taught to children. Perhaps that also helps to commend an attitude toward worship and music that combines total devotion to the Scriptures, respectful deference to tradition, and a willingness to allow our norms to shift and develop organically over time. Needless to say, that trifold vision is not easy to keep in focus.
For our family listening, I have compiled a Spotify playlist that includes over 13 hours of music based on the Psalms. The spectrum is incredible, from Dutch chorales on organ to Latin polyphony, Renaissance-style psalms in Polish, Anglican chant, a cappella Scottish metrical singing, and the work of a Nashville-based Messianic Jew—and I am sure I have barely scratched the surface. Each one of these traditions, to one extent or another, seeks to fulfill God’s command for His people to sing psalms of praise. May He continue to give each of us wisdom amidst our various contexts, conflicts, and convictions to do just that.
1. Maarten ‘t Hart, Het Psalmenoproer (Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 2006). The English word “uproar” has nothing to do with roaring but is instead directly derived from the Dutch oproer; see https://www.merriamwebster.com/wordplay/the-history-of-uproar.
2. See David Koyzis’s article on the Genevan Psalter in The Outlook 72, no. 1 (January/ February 2022).
3. Jaco van der Knijff, “Hoe het psalmboek van 1773 er kwam,” Reformatorisch Dagblad, March 20, 2023, https://www.rd.nl/ artikel/1013433-hoe-het-psalmboek-van1773-er-kwam. The material that follows is summarized from Van der Knijff’s article.
4. The Dutch text of this poem can be found at https://psalmboek.nl/psalmen. php?psalm=160#psvs.
5. Michael R. Kearney, “The Eenige Gezangen and the History of Dutch Hymnody,” The Outlook 72, no. 1 (January/February 2022).
6 .“Psalmenoproer: Over hete hoofden en koude harten,” Canon van Nederland, https:// www.canonvannederland.nl/nl/page/32565/ psalmenoproer (translation mine).
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Dr. Michael R. Kearney
is a board member of Reformed Fellowship.
Bible studies by M. Vander Hart
Bible study by W. Boekestein
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How to Plant a Reformed Church recommends a four-phase plan for planting confessional, Reformed churches. The phases move from (1) initial conversations which might lead to the formation of a core group, to (2) the early study meetings conducted under the oversight of established leaders, to (3) the commencement of weekly worship services, to (4) the organization of the church with its own officers. Reformed Fellowship, Inc.
How To Plant A Reformed Church - The Church Planting Manual Of The United Reformed Churches In North America - Second Edition
