FOR CHILDREN AND PARENTS

We are writing this article for the whole family. As parents we can not always find the right words to reach the children. Often we ask ourselves, “How shall we tell it to the children?” That “it” then refers to the necessity of having a new heart, also, and especially, for our children.

The following report tells about the work of God in the heart of a child. Our children often read much that has little or no value. Let them read this. Let parents read it to their children, explain it, and add to it out of their own experience and knowedge. And especially may the Lord use it to bind us closer to His throne of grace, and to encourage us in these dark times. When reading this report, we can disregard the names, and let all the emphasis fall upon the work of God.

In “The Church News” of the Reformed Congregation of Dordrecht on April 23, 1980 the Rev. C. Harinck wrote as follows:

The Funeral of Rens Vogelaar

Laurence Vogelaar, son of Mr. and Mrs. A. Vogelaar, nee Overbeeke, died on April 7, at the age of 11½ years.

What an impression the news of the death of Rens made in the congregation on that Monday after Easter.

Before offering prayer on that Easter Monday morning, we had to announce that Rens Vogelaar had passed away after a night of severe struggles.

Thank God, there was more to tell, namely that this young child had fought the good fight, and had received the crown of glory.

The whole congregation knew Rens as a young boy who was often taken to the hospital. Soon after we came to Dort in 1974 he was taken in for examination, and later for a very serious operation in the Children’s Hospital in Rotterdam.

Then already we noticed that he thought more about the things eternal than other children of his age. Of course his sickness had something to do with it, but even when he was feeling better, he struggled with the question: “How can I be converted to God?” What we then noticed especially was his deep feeling of sin and guilt. Rens knew what sin was, and it grieved him that he always again sinned against the Lord.

While telling his thoughts about God, and about conversion, he also told of some comfort and happiness he found in reading the Bible and listening to sermons. It was all very childlike, but also very serious and we could feel that there was love to the Lord and to His service in the heart of Rens.

How glad he was when he could go to church, and how he envied God’s children. He also felt a special tie to me as his pastor, and I felt a special tie to him.

In his last sickness and in the hospital Rens suffered very much in his body. It was a miracle that he survived the operation, and there was hope that he would recover. However, his condition worsened. His heart would not work properly. In his physical health, Rens was a wreck.

Still he did not complain, although he was very short of breath, and very tired. He did not talk very much, and was not interested in most things. But when people around him spoke about the Lord Jesus or about God, he tried to listen, everything else took too much effort. He was busy with just one thing, to receive a new heart from the Lord.

A week before he died I spoke to him, and asked him whether he ever received any comfort out of the Bible as he struggled and sought the Lord. Then he told me of having received comfort out of Psalm 68, “He saves our souls when death draws nigh;” He also spoke of a text he had mentioned to me earlier, as having given him comfort in the hospital, namely, the words of Christ, “And him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.”

Thus Rens was very sick, but not without comfort and courage.

Who could have thought at that time that the final struggle in the last days, and especially in the last night would be so severe! I was there that night when this child was held by the cords of death, and experienced that the pains of hell got hold on him, and he could find no comfort.

How he called to the Lord, conscious that he had to die, and that he was unable to meet the Lord! Rens could find no access to the Lord, and was distressed by death.

He also spoke of having blasphemed the Lord, because once he had cursed. The devil attacked him so that Rens said, “Is not the hell for those that curse?” He also told us that the devil had said to him, “Just stop that praying!”

Words cannot express the struggle there was in his youthful heart.

In the midst of the struggle, however the light would break through, sometimes when his father read the Bible to him, or when prayer was offered, or some texts were quoted, such as, “With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption” or, “The Lord Jesus is not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

An hour and a half before he died Rens became more restful, and said, “Now I believe I have a new heart, and the Lord is with me.”

So the end came for Laurence Vogelaar, after he had said goodby to his brothers and sisters very calmly, telling them to seek the Lord, and that they must not be naughty to their father and mother. To his mother he said, “Now I’m really going to die, mother, now I’m really going to leave you.”

What a comfort for the parents to see their children in this way. On the other hand, when flesh must part from flesh, it is terribly painful.

The interest shown at the funeral on Friday, April 11, 1980, at the cemetery of Papendrecht was overwhelming. I conducted the funeral, but the boy’s grandfather, the Rev. L. Vogelaar and the boy’s uncle, the Rev. C. Vogelaar, also spoke. My text was in Gal. 4:6 where crying to the Lord out of our distress is called a fruit that shows we possess the Holy Spirit. The grandfather spoke on the words that were so clearly applicable to Rens: (Job 27:10) “Will he delight himself in the Almighty? Will he always call upon God?”

The uncle, Rev. C. Vogelaar, spoke at the graveside, expressing his thanks the Lord had wrought a distress, but also a deliverance in the heart of Rens.

Many of us left the cemetery deeply stirred. The Lord had given a testimony, and also an impression that his fight was a good fight, and that neither the devil nor hell can destroy His work in the heart of sinners.

I have reported this funeral somewhat more largely than I usually do. I did not do this to magnify Rens Vogelaar, or to glory in man. My congregation knows that I do not approve of that. I have therefore never said much about Rens from the pulpit, because people would soon consider such a child as something special, and that Rens Vogelaar was not. Rens was a sinner, and was grieved because between his first and second operation he had so often forgotten the Lord. God alone must receive all the glory for his salvation. The reason why we wrote more largely about his struggle and his death is so that our young people should read it and take it to heart.

Young people and children can also die and be saved. The Lord calls to you, “They that seek Me early shall find Me, and whoso findeth Me findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord.”

The Lord strengthen the parents and brothers and sisters and other relatives.

“Jehovah’s truth will stand forever,
His covenant bonds He will not sever.”

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