NOTES OUT OF THE CATECHISM CLASSES Of Rev. J. Fraanje Using the Catechism Book

Of the Last Judgment and Everlasting Life. Lesson 41 Part IV

O, children, reflect upon these three matters:

1st. About the place where all wicked persons shall finally come, and that it will be your place if your are not converted.

2nd. Just consider what your actions will be there, and

3rd. Earnestly think upon the company with which you will be associated; devils, condemned angels, persons of whom you had fear when on earth, wild heathens, murderers, degenerate persons, Christians in name only and strange spirits. These will be your company there. And all of these were once created after God’s image!

You will be present at the last judgment with your entire body, the body that you now carefully sustain, wash, clothe and sometimes adorn.

Not one member of your body will be missing and you will know how you used each one. Every thought and desire will be recollected to your unspeakable remorse and despair. Every condemned person and spirit will be incensed with hatred toward God and each other.

Statisticians have calculated that one person dies every second. Think of the significance of that! Without interruption, souls streaming unceasingly through the gates of death to their eternal damnation, and each one then expecting the sound of the last trumpet.

Everyone shall come in possession of his own immaterial and imperishable body, and, similar to the way men rub salt into meat to preserve it from spoil, so, “Everyone shall be salted with fire”, (Mark 9:49) so that they never will be able to decompose.

Do you understand, now, something of the solemnity for man to have been born upon this earth? And also, how grossly wrong sin is, contrasted with a Holy God? One must be moved to lamentation and seek God’s grace while there is still time.

Many people on earth are sufficient unto themselves. They see their lives are in peril and seek to become saved for their own selfish interests. But God’s people have regard for God. They personally become the guilty one; not Adam. It is so necessary that we truly accept the fact that we have terminated our relationship with God (though God has not terminated His relationship with us).

If one may experience through the influence of the Holy Spirit an admission that there is a reason for his lost condition, it must also follow that a possibility to be saved is made known. From the sinner’s viewpoint it is an eternally lost cause. But, if the Lord reveals that He has become reconciled to the world of the elect in Christ Jesus from eternity, then such a soul realizes salvation is truly possible.

O, if such a person is given to believe that a perfect reconciliation has taken place for him and he is one of those known of God, who shall stand on the right hand of the King after the last resurrection in the Judgment Day, then that soul is utterly astonished and understands the words spoken, “Death is swallowed up in victory. Death where is thy sting, hell where is thy victory?” He is redeemed from the spiritual and eternal death. Natural death is then only a passage to eternal life.

For God’s peoples’ sin becomes a damnation on earth and for that reason they heartily desire to be released from its oppressive power. When they are in their place spiritually, they experience no greater sorrow on earth than to find themselves in sin. That is why they look forward with eager desire to the last day of their life. Not because heaven will be a nice place, no, you must not think that heaven is just a blissful situation without having reality. That would be an incorrect representation of it.

Heaven actually exists. When the earth has been purified after the Day of Judgment and the elements have melted in fire, there actually shall be, besides a new heaven, a new earth without sin or imperfections. God’s Word says that the new heaven and new earth will be perfect, beautiful and holy, and will be possessed by the Godly as their inheritance.

Glory and bliss will be there because they can then give God the honor which is due Him in pefection and without sin.

O, the transcendent bliss that shall exist there! John saw not only a new heaven but also a new earth wherein dwelt righteousness.

Everything will be thoroughly pure and clean, sin burned out of it by fire, and the visable consequences of sin wiped out eternally.

The seed sanctified of God shall inherit that blessed earth.

If a child of God receives an impression of this, he is not concerned that he has not many worldly possessions.

God’s people may in faith at times catch a glimpse of that last day, after which they shall rule with Christ and shall possess as an inheritance the purified earth. It is inherited because the Son of God is now their oldest Brother from whom they receive salvation as an inheritance.

O, children, we have come to the end of our catechism book. You have turned the last page and so also one day you will turn the last page of your life, whether it be a longer or shorter one.

May God bless the contents of these lessons which you have learned, in beginning or by renewal. And may He set you as a praise on earth, to continue to magnify His worthy name gloriously. So be it.

How shall the young direct their way?
What light shall be their perfect guide?
Thy Word, O Lord, will safely lead
If in its wisdom they confide.

Psalter No. 322:1

The End

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