Series
Rev. Jerry Hamstra
The Book of Esther
The Book of Esther
Sermons
Rev. Jerry Hamstra
Introduction to Acts
Introduction to Acts

The Sixth Commandment (2) Different Kinds of Killing

“The Bible is the story of how God is overcoming death. The great plan of salvation that the Bible describes is about God’s victory over death. That victory was not painless for God. It required him to absorb the penalty for sin himself in Jesus Christ. While it is not true to say that God died when Jesus died, the close relationship between Jesus’ divine and human natures means that there is a sense in which death came close to the very heart of God when Jesus died.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs (5) The Meaning of Life

“These are just a few aspects of the biblical teaching about the meaning of life. It begins with being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Apart from salvation, we only live for ourselves rather than living for God and the Bible teaches that that is the way of death. But it also teaches that those who believe in Jesus and follow him find their purpose in pleasing God and enjoying fellowship with him. And it insists that living this way is the most satisfying and joyful and fulfilling way to live. And it insists that living to please God has an eternal significance. It matters now, but it will also matter forever.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

The Sixth Commandment (1) The Value of Human Life

“ Human life is almost infinitely valuable. The glory of God is the most important value of existence. The human beings as the image of God are glorious beings because they reflect the glory of God. Sin is such a horrible thing that it requires the destruction of the most glorious thing. And the love of God is so great that he was willing to sacrifice his dearly beloved Son for the rebels. And so this God is even more glorious and more worthy of our love and worship than we could have ever known apart from his saving love for sinners.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs (4) Faith, Reason and Knowledge (2)

“Evolution cannot rationally account for anything because of the huge role it gives to chance, but it certainly cannot account for the deeper spiritual and psychological and moral aspects of human life. The jump from nothing to something and then from random something to orderly something, and then from orderly physical stuff to the profound spiritual, psychological and moral aspects of life is a whole list of impossibilities. At the end of the day our experience of life is nothing like what you would expect if the secular worldview were true.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

The Fifth Commandment (8) Authority and the State

“As we have been seeing in our studies of the Fifth Commandment, we are to submit to those whom God has placed in authority over us and that doing so is for our good – it is the way of life and blessing. But as we have also seen along the way is that that is sometimes problematic because authority is often misused and abused because all authority figures are sinners and many of them are not saved. There is an awful lot of suffering in the world because of the abuse of authority.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs (3) Faith, Reason and Knowledge

“ If you do not start your thinking with the God of the Bible, it is impossible to give a reasonable account of the world and the big questions of life. You don’t start with reason and reason your way to God. You start with God and show that any reasoning about ultimate things that does not start with God is actually irrational. ”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

The Fifth Commandment (7) Authority in the Church

“The requirement of believers in Jesus Christ to submit to the oversight of elders requires them to be members of a specific congregation. The biblical teaching about salvation includes church membership and not submitting to church membership is direct disobedience to the clear teaching of the word of God.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs (2) The Conforming Power of Society and the Biblical Answer

“We live in a secular world that teaches that all that matters is our lives in the here and now. The Bible teaches us that the most important thing for human beings is how they relate to the God of the Bible. And what we will see the more that we study the Bible and ourselves and the world around us is that the world of which we are a part reflects perfectly the word of its Creator.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

The Fifth Commandment (6) Honor to whom Honor is Due

“We are to honor other people appropriately because we are all made in the image of God. That gives value to every human being and we are to acknowledge that value in the way that we think of one another and in the attitudes that we have towards one another and in the way that we treat one another. We are to show them respect as people who are valuable and significant because they are made in the image of God.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs (1) Destroying Arguments Raised Against the Knowledge of God

“One of the secular beliefs that we will have to address is the belief that the secular world-view is based on reason alone while the biblical world-view is based on a faith that is not reasonable. Part of demolishing arguments raised against God is to show that no-one believes what they believe on the basis of reason alone. There are many factors that go into why we believe what we believe and one of the factors that is very powerful is the company that we keep, the society in which we live and the desire to be accepted and admired by people that we admire.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra