Would you like to marinate your mind and soul in a daily devotional that brings together a dozen outstanding writers of church history, providing you with bite-size pieces of spiritual and practical helps for living in and out of Christ, particularly in times of affliction, so that you are drawn closer to God? Drawing Near to the Heart of God, compiled by Dr. Mark and Donna Kelderman (photo) is just such a book. (Mark is a faculty member here at Puritan Reformed Seminary, heading up and teaching in our Master of Arts Biblical Counseling program and serving as Dean of Students and Spiritual Formation.) Biblical, doctrinal, experiential, and practical—and combined with an applicatory thought for each day, this devotional is a rich gem for both men and women as well as teenagers who yearn to live in sweet communion with the triune God. Highly recommended!

Learn more here.

I spent some quality time with this sincere brother, Rev. Juan Pablo (photo), a pastor from Chile who also serves as a professor in a Reformed seminary there, and loves the biblical, Reformed, experiential faith that we hold dear. He is visiting us at Puritan Reformed Seminary to explore possibilities of his seminary entering into a collaborative relationship with ours. We are so grateful for these kinds of opportunities, especially in the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, which are experiencing God’s gracious hand in moving thousands to embrace the Reformed faith with mind and soul. These are exciting days as God is doing a great work in many parts of the world.

We enjoyed our time with Dr. Donald John MacLean (second from right in photo) over the past nine days as he preached on the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) for us in our church, did a lecture for us on biblical and systematic theology at our seminary, and shared a good deal of spiritual and social fellowship over a number of meals in our home. He hopes to return to our seminary in January to teach a PhD/ThM course in Scottish Presbyterianism.

Dr. Maclean wrote his PhD dissertation on James Durham’s view of the offer of grace and serves as an elder in the Cambridge Presbyterian Church in England where he preaches often and as adjunct Professor of Historical Theology at Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Newcastle, England. He is also a trustee of the Banner of Truth Trust. He is married to Ruth a devoted librarian (on the right in the photo) and they have two children, Hannah and Jonathan (on the left), all of whom joined us in Grand Rapids over the weekend. It was a joy to have the whole family in our home and have them worship with us this past Lord’s Day. Christian fellowship is certainly one of life’s greatest joys!

Yesterday was a great day in our Heritage Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids with the ordination and inaugural sermon of Rev. Darryl Dedert (center of photo) as our full-time pastor. Rev. Dedert will be preaching for us a few times per month while focusing primarily on pastoring our many young people and leading our various evangelistic outreach endeavors.

Pastor Dedert is a recent PRTS graduate who has been a member of our church for nearly twenty years and his wife Kara (second from left in photo) was raised in our church and has been with us all her life, except when she and Darryl served a few years in Cambodia some years ago. They returned to Michigan in order to care for the urgent medical needs of their son, Calvin. They are blessed with four additional children, and are dearly loved among us (photo taken after the inaugural sermon—one daughter was missing at the moment).

In the morning, Dr. Michael Barrett preached Darryl’s ordination sermon well from Ezekiel 2 on “A Paradigm of Ministry,” focusing on the motive, mandate, message, method, and mission of ministry. I did Darryl’s ordination, gave him a personal charge, and led the impressive laying on of hands ceremony, with ten men involved in quoting biblical text while laying hands on our new pastor. In the evening, Darryl preached his inaugural sermon on Paul’s prayer for the Colossians under the theme “Our Prayer for Our Church,” focusing on being filled with the knowledge of God and walking worthy of Him.

The Lord willing, one month from now (Nov. 20), we hope to ordain another full-time pastor in our church, John Byl from Ontario, who is also a recent PRTS graduate. He will preach once nearly every week and focus on pastoring the congregation as a whole. Please pray that God will bless the ministries of these two dear brothers, such that God’s name will be glorified, true believers matured, and the unsaved saved.

My good friend Derek Thomas and I (photo 1) were privileged to be the speakers last Friday and Saturday for the “Reformation Boise 2022” conference in Boise, Idaho. We each gave two addresses and shared a Q&A session (photo 2) for this encouraging and growing annual conference which now gets 500 attendees (photo 3). Derek spoke on the church’s communion and on her status and care, and I spoke on the church’s attributes and on her needed reformation today.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time with one of the conference’s primary organizers, Pastor Russell Herman and his wife Laura (I had the privilege of officiating their wedding 28 years ago and Russell is a PRTS graduate who has served the Cloverdale United Reformed Church in Boise since 2014) together with Laura’s parents, Dr. Cornie and Ardith Bleeker, who I pastored back in the 1970s and have been good friends with ever since (photo 4).

Judge Randy Hekman interviewed me for 30 minutes yesterday, talking about the need for prayer and both the good and bad news about the American church today.

Pray with me please for a Great Awakening in America that would be greater than the first Great Awakening by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is very exciting to hold the three volumes of Calvin’s magnificent and beautiful “Sermons on Job,” freshly and robustly translated from the French by Rob Roy McGregor. The sermons and the translation are superb, and it is just great to have them in modern typeface rather than an antiquated translation in facsimile print. Congratulations to Banner of Truth for bringing this fine set of books into print. Let these books be a feast for your needy and hungry soul.

Learn more here.

The Queen and I are on our way home from a good 2-day conference on Calvin for about 200 folks put on by the Wayside Presbyterian Church, Signal Mountain, Tennessee, pastored by Brian Cosby and Chuck (Charley) Barrett. After enjoying a delicious dinner in the beautiful home of Ken and Meg Herman late yesterday afternoon, I gave the conference’s first address last night on Calvin’s life and legacy, which was followed by a Q&A session with three of the other main speakers, Dr. Michael Barrett (father of one of the pastors and OT professor at Puritan Reformed Seminary), Rev. Jason Helopolous (pastor of the University Reformed Church of Lansing), and Dr. Brian Cosby (photo 1, with speakers, pastors of the local church, and some spouses; photo #2, Q&A).

This morning Pastor Helopulous delivered two insightful and helpful addresses—one on the importance of involving children in church worship and family worship and the other on Calvin’s Company of Pastors and the importance of having close friendships—especially for ministers. I spoke on Calvin on God’s sovereignty, election, and reprobation. We then had to head for home so that I can preach tomorrow in Grand Rapids. Additional addresses yet to be given will examine Calvin’s view on the Lord’s Supper, on piety, and on union with Christ. Please pray for God’s blessing on this conference and on this growing church which owns and worships in a beautiful building (photo 3) and hopes to put on a large addition in the near future.

We had an interesting experience this morning as we came down for breakfast in our hotel. Two men stepped onto our elevator, with the one in the center of photo 4, greeting us warmly and remarking how wonderful a day it is because of God’s goodness, and then telling us how gracious Christ was for him. As we stepped out of the elevator and signed out of the hotel before going to breakfast, I asked the man who checked us out how his day was going. “Ok,” he said. “Well,” I replied, “I hope you will have a wonderful day.” He responded, “I guess we have to try to make it that way.” I was struck at that moment at the difference between a grateful Christian, and those who have to try to make themselves have a good day.

A few minutes later we found ourselves standing in line to order breakfast behind the Christian who was radiating with joy. After we ordered our food, we went to pay, but the cashier said, “It is all paid for already.” Our elevator friend had quickly taken care of our breakfast! After expressing our gratitude to the Christian brother who paid for our breakfast, we had a very good conversation, and we found out that all his children loved the Lord, and that his son and daughter were joyfully serving on the mission field in Kenya. As he was speaking, I couldn’t help but think of Psalm 128: Blessed is the man that fears the Lord.

Find last Lord’s Day’s sermon on Isaiah 40:1-2 here.

Crossway has just released a beautiful, updated, 2-volume (unabridged) edition of Puritan Stephen Charnock’s great classic, “The Existence and Attributes of God”—by far the best book ever written on the perfections of God. These volumes are a treasure of sound theology and humble adoration of the living God. Lightly and well-edited by Mark Jones for the modern reader, this new edition will be a great help to all who seek diligently to know the Lord better. Highly recommended!

Learn more here.