GLAD TIDINGS

Part I

What I wrote above this is part of the glad news of the gospel proclaimed by an angel to the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem-Ephratah. In that significant message from heaven was declared what the gospel is and what is couched in it. Without frills and in no high-sounding words, but in a simple manner we are told what “Christmas” really signifies. O may it please the Lord out of free sovereign mercy by his holy Spirit, to make, us susceptible for that declaration. However simple it may be, it is hid from the wise and prudent, but it is revealed unto babes. Hence, we must be a “babe” to learn to know something of it.

During the latter part of the year a certain part of the world is very busy with all sorts of preparations to celebrate Christmas. Streets are adorned, houses are decorated, Christmas trees are purchased and set up in the theaters, taverns, public buildings, houses, hospitals, even prisons, and also in various churches decorations are put up. How much money is spent in fleshly enjoyment. It seems to be getting worse from year to year, and increases so much, that alas, most of the children know nothing else of Christmas except that it is a day that they receive all kinds of presents, and will eat and drink well, and that such a day must be spent in all sorts of worldly pleasures and vanities. That is not only confined to children; ah no, how many adults and old people there are who no longer have a thought of that great blessed fact which is commemorated on that day. Because in general, nothing of that is found in the hearts; therefore in the homes it is nothing but world, and more world. That heathenish ado penetrates the world more and more, and the real meaning of Christmas comes more and more in the background. Indeed, we must cry out, “O, that my head were water.”

What shall the end be of all this? Our heart should be filled with fear and trembling. A spirit of conformity to the world is gradually filling the church and God’s Spirit is banished. The reprover in the gate is trampled to death, and the religion which is after the fashion of the world reigns supreme. Humanly speaking, it is a spirit which can no longer be restrained. Lot was also carried along and led away so that he sat in the gate of Sodom, but he still vexed his righteous soul. He was oppressed by it. But how is it now in general in our own heart, in our own home, and in our own congregation? Judgment begins at the house of God. The devil would not have so much to say if something of Christ was in our heart, and the world would not get the upper hand if the fear of God was exercised. The only thing which may still give hope is that God may yet interfere and change things. But on the other hand, the times become darker and more distressing. It is to be feared that we are living in the eve of the great apostasy, which according to God’s Word is drawing near. Where are the families where God and His Word are discussed and where the fear of God still prevails; where a dam may be found against the stream of time? It is true there are still families where there is still religion; entire families are converted, so called, but where at the same time the world is served in the highest degree. My beloved, it is true what the Lord tells us in His Word that there is nothing new under the sun, but yet do you ask yourself at times, was there ever such a dangerous period like the one we are experiencing today? On the one side is hardening in sin, and on the other hand, a generation which is clean in its own eyes, but has not been washed of its filthiness. Believing parents, blessed children, they are all in the covenant, but they never stood outside of it, they were never wretched; they glory in Christ, but they never stood in need of God.

And the parents have no trouble with then-children either. If we give God something, and the world something, then the devil will let us alone. But wherever God is all and the world is nothing, there it is war, there it is more hell than heaven. There it is not so easy. There they all oppose one another unless the Lord puts a restraint upon the hearts. By the goodness of God there are exceptions, but in general it is sad. God concerns Himself with but few people in the days in which we live, and the only truth which the people still hear is in the church, but otherwise there is no desire and no more time to search God’s Word. I wrote, no desire and no time, for if there were a desire, there would also be time. All those that have been called by God out of the world and out of sin know very well that when the love of God was poured out into their heart, they obtained a “desire” to fear the Lord. When death and eternity was bound upon their heart, when by the conviction of the Holy Spirit they felt and realized that they were without God in the world, then there was always time to sigh, to read, to go to church. Then there was time for all these things.

O may the Lord guide my pen and grant a little light to write something about the right and true meaning of that illustrious event which we now commemorate. We read in James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights, with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” It cannot be expressed in words. By the grace of God we were favored for many years to say something about it. Yea, we feel so very low at times. It is very different than we had anticipated and expected. O, when we talk about God and divine things, about the mysteries of the gospel, then we become aware how poor, how ignorant and how foolish we are. If God did not at times give us something, it would have come to an end many years ago. He that glories, let him glory in the Lord.

If it may be true, then we are only at the beginning, and then we must start yet. The miracle of the incarnation of the Son is incomprehensible, inconceivable, unfathomable, yea, infinite. The greatest divines in the world who really have been taught by God must acknowledge that the half has not been told. No not half, no not a millionth part do I know of it. We have no doctrine to be understood, but only to be believed. God is great and we know Him not. In our days, many tell us that they do not believe what they cannot comprehend. Such a language is terribly blasphemous and God-dishonoring. God’s poor people may at times rejoice that they believe in a God Who is incomprehensible and inconceivable, an adorable Supreme Being. This God is our salvation. We shall never finish praising Him. It was God’s eternal decree and plan, as a fruit and manifestation of God’s infinite love, to send His Son into the world. It never came up in the heart of any man. But it was God’s eternal will and good pleasure. God had from eternity thoughts of peace and not of evil. Because God loves Himself, it pleased Him to elect his Son to be Surety and Mediator and Head of His elect. God wanted to glorify Himself, to restore His image, to glorify His attributes in the saving of sinners. He would execute His counsel and exalt his Name through the depth of our fall so that his honor shall be retained, and He forever shall receive the honor from those who are called according to His eternal purpose.

God has wrought everything for His own sake and for His own glory. This can never be comprehended by insignificant dust and ashes as we are, but it may be admired by all those who are partakers of the divine nature, and who by the grace of the Holy Spirit have become interested in that glorification which becomes their chief aim, but also the delight of their life. The angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest,” and the shepherds returned glorifying God for all which they had heard and seen. Yea, in Isaiah 43:21 we read, “This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise.” God’s people are vouchsafed here initially and by and by perfectly to end in God with that Gift.

But it goes without saying, that then in our life it shall be something different than an intellectual contemplation and a historical knowledge. In our days there are thousands and ten thousands (let me write it as it is) that thank an unknown God for something which they have never received. There are a great many people whose mouths are filled with a dear Lord Jesus, but who never had the faintest notion of Who He is or what He is. O, what foolishness and blindness there is among so many who have never been quickened from death to life, and who have never been in contact with God, who had never a broken heart and a contrite spirit, who never stood in need of God, who never realized what it is to sing against God, and never felt what it means to be without God. O what a sad condition! The Bible tells us that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them.

In another place we read the testimony of the Lord Jesus Himself, that it is hidden from the wise and the prudent but has been revealed unto-babes. Truly by nature there is no person as concealed from us as the Lord Jesus Christ. Shall we ever know Him personally, then a personal revelation of Him must be given unto us. See Matt. 16:17 and Gal. 1:15, 16. Even John the Baptist acknowledged it twice, “And I knew Him not.” Also to him He had to be revealed from heaven by the inward enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. Think of the Samaritan woman in John 4:26, also to the one that was born blind in John 9:36 who answered and said, “Who is He Lord, that I might believe on Him,” and Saul on the way to Damascus, Acts 9:5, “Who art Thou, Lord?”

Moreover, neither is there a person who is less desired than the One given and sent by the Father. He came unto His own, but His own received Him not, John 1:11, and in Isaiah 53:2,3 we read, “He hath no form nor comliness and when we shall see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him; He is despised and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised and we esteemed Him not.” The gospel which has Christ as its contents is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greek, but unto them which are called, it is a power of God unto salvation, I Cor. 1:23, 24, and shall it be well with us on the way to eternity, then we must by the enlightening and uncovering ministration of God the Holy Spirit, learn to know that Jew and that Greek in our own heart to the humiliation and grief of our soul, and that because of the depth of our fall and the darkness of our understanding. We know nothing except we are called by God.

In his embarrassment Pilate said, “What must I do with Jesus?” Thus it is with man by nature. Among the religious people there are many that cry much about the Lord Jesus, but how few there are that cry for Him and who really need Him. O, it cannot be stressed enough in the days in which we are living that man must first be quickened from death unto life, be convinced by God’s Spirit of sin, righteousness and judgment, that the Law is a schoolmaster to Christ, and that the Spirit of judgment and of learning must be given unto us shall there ever be room in our heart for the Person of the mediator, and for the ministration of the Surety of the Covenant. It is only the precious Holy Spirit Who glorifies Christ in the hearts of the elect and Who brings us to that blessed knowledge. It is not a fruit from our own field to give oursleves that knowledge. The Lord is free and sovereign in His dealings. Some are brought to that knowledge in a short time while others must wander for years and years, to whom is applicable, “but Him they saw not”. Let us not deceive ourselves for eternity. How terrible it shall be if we must appear before God with a lie in our hand, and Christ shall tell us, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” Something supernatural must be known which is Divine and wonderful. If we have never been called out of death unto life, never learned to know that we have sinned against God. that we have transgressed God’s Law, that we have sinned ourselves outside of God, then there can be no desire after Christ. God does not waste His grace. Grace is glorified only in guilty, damnworthy, and lost sinners. If we have obtained no knowledge of Adam, and we have never experienced personally in our life, “Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them,” then Christ has no significance for us. Lost in Adam, cursed by Moses. Then we shall learn, “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” John 1:17.

We read in Psalm 65:9, “Thou visitest the earth and waterest it; Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: Thou preparest them corn, when Thou hast so provided for it.” In a very simple manner, but at the same time full of majesty and glory, all this has been fulfilled and confirmed in the birth of the Lord Jesus. But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, Gal. 4:4 and in Luke 2:6,7 we read, “And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered, and she brought forth her first born son.”

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