NEW YEAR

Part I

The fact that we are writing 1984 means that the Lord has not yet a desire in our death, but rather that we should repent of our sins and live. “Turn Thou us unto Thee, 0 Lord, and we shall be turned.” 1984 also means that we are standing before an unknown future. We do not know from one day to the next what shall happen. Because God is omniscient, He knows everything. “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:18). Everything lies in His eternal counsel, “The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever.”

Many questions arise at the beginning of a New Year, for ourselves, also for our church life, our social life, for the land in which we were born, for the land in which we live, for our business, our farm, our schools, etc., etc. The questions multiply, and they are more than the hairs of our head. Oh, that we in truth and with our heart might be wrought upon by God’s dear Spirit to learn to know the Lord and acknowledge Him in all our ways, as the Lord says in Proverbs 3:6, then He shall direct our paths. May we all, rich and poor, great and small, young and old, be brought to our knees, as unworthy creatures, realizing that we have deserved eternal death, but out of grace for Christ’s sake may receive eternal life.

The Lord Jesus says in Prov. 8:35, “Whoso findeth Me findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord.” In Adam we are all condemnable before God. We are all included in Adam, and he is the father of us all. We all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). “Let no fruit grow on thee hence forward for ever” (Matt. 21:19).

Moses was the representative of the law, and by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law worketh wrath, and by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified before God.

Also in 1984 Adam and Moses must be known, as well as all that took place from the beginning of the world. After the fall the necessity of the knowledge of Adam and Moses must be experienced, otherwise Christ as the last Adam shall never have value for us.

The world is sinking away in forsaking, forgetting, and denying God. Oh, what shall this year bring us? God is coming to judge the world. He is getting weary of sin. But He is also weary of the religion of these days. “Truth is fallen in the street” (Isaiah 59:14). The religion of today begins with man and ends with man. The firm fundamental truth in which from the beginning to the end nothing was presented but the Triune God and the free sovereign grace of God in Christ, is now being undermined and denied on all sides, in deed, basically, and in practice they mock with it. The errors of Pelagius, of Socinius and of Arminius have been brought into the churches again, and alas, have been restored to honor. God is denied and His unimpeachable justice profaned. The Son of God is robbed of His throne and of His crown in both His human and Divine nature, as the One Who merited and applied salvation. The Holy Spirit is grieved, and resisted in His Person and His work.

Perhaps there are people who think these are very severe accusations. Some may ask whether the ninth commandment is not transgressed here: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” What is my answer? That we can only mourn and grieve about it (Oh, that we might do so more and personally!) that there is so much ignorance about it that many do not know the difference any more between the truth and the lie, between fact and fancy, between common and special grace. In John 6:60 the Jews said in bitterness, “This is a hard saying: who can hear it?” What was the contents of this discourse? “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.”

Believe it, my friends, what I have written here, the knowledge of the Scriptural, experiential and practical truth is so far gone from among our people that the Lord says in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee.”

In general the people have no idea of death and eternity. We should sit in sackcloth and ashes with our children. But, no, the church dances along with the world, follows the modern world with its widespread customs of Christmas trees, Christmas lights, Christmas presents, etc. The old landmarks have not only been moved, but can hardly be found any more. They speak of antiquated concepts and ideas of our deceased fathers and grandfathers, of a language out of former ages, when men talk about true conversion, about godly sorrow, about a sincere joy of heart in God, through Christ. Thousands travel with an imagined heaven to hell. They dream of peace and safety. God’s Spirit has departed, as we read in Ezekiel 10, to the threshold of the house. God’s Spirit shall not depart entirely. The gathering of the elect continues unto the end of the world, and also personally the Spirit shall remain active for the strengthening and comfort of the true church of God. But in our days we must confess with the Church of Psalm 74, “We see not our signs.” The Lord shall always maintain His Church, but His communion with His Church is scarce, even under the public ministry. Even Andrew Gray complained about it.

We are living in a time that among the younger ones of modern Christendom there is more dancing than mourning. With God’s children “the harps usually hang on the willows.” And when at times they experience something of God’s displeasure they say, “O God, if only I could truly grieve over it,” but usually it is only with the lips, and the heart is not in it. Of this the Lord says, “This people draw near Me with their mouth, but have removed their heart far from Me.” Sometimes it is, “Take thou away from Me the noise of thy songs.” O God, may I bow under it once more; but I remain standing on my feet instead of falling down and repenting before the Lord, ascribing righteousness and justice to God. No, the fault does not he with the Lord, but “to us belongs confusion of face.”

Congregations, it will be a wonder if in our city, in our town, or in our congregations, some will be found who sigh and cry for all the abominations committed. The godly man ceases, “for the faithful fail from among the children of men” (Ps. 12:1).

Several churches in these days look like cemeteries. Father Smytegelt has said that there are cities and towns where the Lord never comes any more, where He formerly did come, but where now no spiritual life can be found. We see this in the churches of Asia Minor where now no life, no spiritual life, can be found, and the candlestick has been removed. War, famine, and pestilence are terrible, but the Lord says, “Woe to them when I depart from them!” Fear and trembling fills our hearts regarding the future we are facing. The wise virgins are fallen asleep with the foolish virgins, and it is a question whether they shall awake before the Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus, comes upon the clouds of heaven (Matt. 25).

The only hope that remains is that the Lord for His own sake, for the sake of His covenant, for Christ’s sake, shall arise in mercy, as the Church sings in Psalter No. 214 st. 6. From our side there is no expectation. May the North Wind and the South Wind blow once more upon the garden of His Church! There is nothing too wonderful for Him!

May the Lord in this year remember this perishing world and visit this sinking Church. The Lord remember the nation and the government. May a Nehemiah, an Ezra, and a Daniel be given, who, confessing our guilt and sin, may “break off sins by righteousness”, (Dan. 4:27) and may call the nation back to the law and to the testimony, else it shall remain dark, and shall become an eternal night.

May God visit His Church that, “is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city” (Isa. 1:8). Oh, that life might still be given to these dry, dead bones, so that, “they shall not all be given to salt” (Ezek. 47:11). May Zion travail again, and bring forth sons and daughters, that we may hear again the crying of children that is in these days so rarely heard (alas, some have never heard it in their life) both in the church and in the families, where the law of God has wounded them, and where it has not been heard in years. There would be joy in heaven over one sinner that, by calling grace, may be born again to a lively hope.

At the present time many choral societies are in existence, but I once heard a quickened soul say, “If only there was a Crying Society!” Then they could cry with the poet of Psalm 42, crying for the “brooks of water.” Oh, that crying of children, that speaks of true life, of longing for God, for that is the main thing. Not: “I am converted; I am a believer; I am going to heaven;” the path does not begin thus. It begins with: “I have sinned against God; I have no God for my life; hell is open before me.” And, congregation, when the first step in our life is wrong, remember that the second step cannot be right. We read further in Psalm 42:7 “Deep calleth unto deep ... all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me.” And then follows: “Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime.” Misery, redemption, and gratitude. In our days the part of misery must not be mentioned any more. A minister (?) once wrote, “It is best to forget that part, because it tends to discourage people.” It is several years ago that I read it in a church paper. How sad and deceptive, misleading the souls for eternity. What an awakening that shall be in the hour of death and in the day of eternity!

(continued)

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